What Is Your Earliest Memory?

Comments (0) By Wm. Stage Wednesday, Mar 15 2000

Walter Gates, 105
Proprietor, Golden Gardens Country Club Lounge, Centreville, Ill.

Walter Gates

Kristi Guttmann

Matthew Quinlisk

Kara Bandera

Tim Reedy

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"Have to be huntin' rabbits, and we didn't have no gun -- had a tap-stick, one end weighted with a railroad tap. Hit him one time, he's dead. The times when it snowed, the rabbits wouldn't run. They stick together in the brush till we jump 'em up and scatter 'em. That was a lot of fun, a lot of fun."

Kristi Guttmann, 21
Student, Media Communications, Webster University

"It was when my youngest sister was a newborn and I was afraid to touch her because of her -- what is it called? umbilicus, yeah -- and not wanting to hold her because that umbilicus thing was all brown and icky and about to fall off."

Matthew Quinlisk, 25
Philanthropist

"Getting attacked by a ferocious dachshund at a friend's birthday party -- over a hotdog bun, swear to God! I had 36 stitches, and 25 years later here I stand, tattered but beautiful."

Kara Bandera, 30
Bartender, the Clubhouse

"I was in the pool swimming and I went to sneak up on my cousin and she wasn't looking behind her and she busted out into a back flip and hit me right on the mouth with her head. The funny part was that my teeth stuck into her scalp and we had to go to the hospital to have them removed and then we fought over who was going to keep the teeth. She kept one and I kept the other."

Alma Oehlert, 85
Retired Physical Therapist

"Christmas, and let me tell you why: I was the only girl among seven kids and one Christmas I asked for a dolly and my mother said, "You don't need a dolly. You've got a little brother to take care of. You can bathe him and dress him just like a dolly.' Pinkie -- that's what I used to call him. I was just like a second mother to him."

Tim Reedy, 38
Rehabber

"Leaving Kilabrew's Grill & Bar at 3 in the morning -- that's my earliest memory, and a fuzzy one at that."