Earliest Memories

The earliest event that I am pretty sure I remember happening in my own life, is when I would have been around 4 years old.  I remember being taken out of our house, and being put into a boat.  The water around us was brown. The boat was yellow with a black trim. I could see the tops of fences that were still above water.  As a family, we had been flooded out of our home in an area that flooding was no longer supposed to happen.  My family always figured that this was not a real memory of mine, but a construction based on having heard stories about the flood in later years.  I wonder about that because they do not remember the details I remember.  They remember me as being upset that I could not stay in the house and play in the water with a toy boat.  I wonder if it was possible for me to construct the part about being taken out to safety, why would I not construct a memory about the wanting to stay and play in the water, an event I know that they told me about.  Memory is a funny thing.

Shortly after that flood, we moved.  This, I remember, and I am sure of it.  I remember being in a dirty beat up pick-up truck.  We are driving along on a road that is not yet paved.  It is smooth, but dirt none the less.  There are houses on either side.  We stop at one.  I do not remember that I knew what was going on yet, but that house was the next one my family moved into in an area called Santa Venetia, in Marin County California.  I have seen pictures of this later, but they were in black and white. My memories are in color.  The houses were newly built. No lawns in front. No trees.  The street was not only not paved, but it stopped just down from our house, blocked by a barrier.

On the other side of the barrier, was open space stretching all the way to Hamilton Air Force Base. The field was largely unexplored by me in my short time at that house. I remember being in it to fly kites, and just a short distance to explore the things a kid of 5-6 would want to explore.  But, frankly, I am not sure I would have wanted to go much further.  Maybe this was due to my lack of understanding about distances.  That Air Force Base I know now was at least seven miles away. It has since been closed. At the time though, it was very active, and I think I was afraid of getting too close to it- like a five year old kid could walk seven miles through a field, and wander into a sealed off military area. The bigger kids in the area went out there further. But, I knew I was not old enough to go where they went, yet. So, I watched the planes doing touch and go landing practice, not knowing what that was at the time. It was just fun to watch them take off, fly around, and land again. I listened to the jet engines roaring in the distance. Why would you want to be closer anyway?  It sounded like they were already too close. Pilots would fly from the airbase over our neighborhood providing endless hours of fun for a kid. Sometimes they would waggle their wings making us think they were waving to us. I would wave back.  I doubt they saw me.