Youth Conservation Corps, Hungry Mother State Park, outside of Marion, Va.

A girl named Judy sitting across the aisle at her desk would look over and smile at me. She was beautiful beyond words, with a couple of teeth missing. When she smiled my tummy tickled inside. When that happened I couldn't contain my smile and had to look away.

Travel adventures like driving to California; taking the street we lived on in Chicago all the way there. It was Ogden Avenue (Route 66), riding in the back seat of the '47 Olds. Not enough memories from that trip, but two stand out. Seeing 'Indians' in New Mexico, wrapped in heavy blankets, some wearing hats was disappointing. I expected them to be scantilly clad, with bows and arrows, on horses like the ones in the movies. Loved the way the roadsides glittered and flashed in the sun as we sped by. It was before the 'litter bug' program got started. People on the way to California just discarded trash out of car windows without even thinking about it.

Train back a year later was a nice new smelling 'El Capitan'; a Santa Fe train we took back to Chicago. One could see the beautiful passing landscape from the top of the 'dome car. More of the litter culture that was fun was the restroom. When you 'flushed' a small round door opened at the bottom of the toilet and water washed contents out under the train and onto the track below. Kinda made it more fun than a boring vortex.

Oh, almost forgot a much earlier and vividly remembered thrill. Probably because my parents were gushing over the whole thing and so excited that it has stayed so long. We were at Midway Airport in Chicago on a typically cold, snowy day when I was very small watching some men with hats and overcoats walking down stairs from an airplane and toward us. Oh they were so excited! "Bobby! Here comes President Truman! Wave!" Dad held me up for a bit and I remember the President's grin and his reflecting wire glasses as he looked over and waved back. I didn't know what a president was, but learned that they caused a whole lot of fuss.

So many memories! They all involve being outside, though. I went hiking and canoeing every chance I could with my girl scout troop, and growing up in the 60s meant, at least during the warm months in Ohio, that mom basically kicked us out and said don't come home until dinnertime. So we rode our bikes to the city swimming pool, hung out with our friends, rode the creaky old bus downtown and ate ice cream. I miss those days SO much and wish life was that simple again.

Family vacations, for some reason it was the only time my parents let me out of their site and I would be gone from dawn till duck.

My best memories were with my grandmother because I felt loved by her, unlike my parents.

similar except I only lived in Kentucky but they lived on a farm in northern Ohio. The 2 acre garden at one aunts and the same across the street. Fresh peaches and honor system produce stANDs. Snapping beans shelling peas climbing trees chasing cows and pigs baling hay etc

There are really so many. My childhood was great and my parents let me have freedom to do a lot of things as a kid living out on the farm. I wish I could bring back some of those years again. We also had many flowers and ate from the garden and had my own playhouse. We could be kids and have no worries about what was going on in the world as we know it today.

Chasing rabbits across the street in the power pole storage yard. Never caught one.

Meeting my mother for the first time.

Riding my Schwinn bicycle around all day long!

My father grew up on a dairy farm in Maine. The farmhouse was two stories, not including the attic and root cellar. The attic was one of those cool, old attics with steamer trunks, old sleds, ice skates, and other assorted treasures. The farmhouse faced the Kennebec River, not the road, because when it was built, the river was the road. We visited every summer and, occasionally, in the winter too.

My favorite memories from there include the annual family lobster feast, attending the Skowhegan State Fair, playing croquet on the huge lawn, running around with sparklers after dark, picking blueberries, and walking across the swinging bridge.

The farmhouse isn't there any longer, but I still go back there in my memory.

Racing sailboats with my father.

Climbing trees. If there was one around, I'd try to climb it.

The best memory doesn't exist for me. I had a pretty wonderful childhood, so I'll pick a best memory. I lived in the country between ridges or wripples of the Appalachian Mountains near the Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee side. My two older brothers and I decided we'd hike to the top of the ridge (Bays Mountain, a very short mountain). We had to cross Nails Creek and hike about half a mile to where an old lady and man lived (We would give them stuff and they would give us eggs and milk sometimes. Fantastic people with no indoor plumbing). We continued on past the Civil War cemetery (grew the best blackberries I have ever tasted) and finally we started up the "mountain". We hiked maybe a third of the way up the fairly step ridge when we discovered the remains of a still. We had hiked this mountain many times and had never known the still was there. That was pretty cool.

Getting away. ?