First Entry Memoir Book in The Story of My Life

The first memories of my childhood start in the toddler years. Nothing clear before then other than being cold and being drove around in smelly cars. Everyone smoked. Crowded rooms during holidays where everyone was laughing and it all sounded too loud to my pre-toddler ears.

Coherent might be too strong a word, but I remember the house we lived at in Orlando when I was almost 2. We lived on a lake. I don't remember mosquitoes or the summer heat. But I remember the lake and swimming with my father. Laying on his back and holding his neck as he swam. He was obviously confident enough to take a toddler into the lake.

Mom used to tell a story about finding me on the lawn with an alligator a ways away. She hasn't told the story in years. Probably because she thinks it doesn't fit whatever narrative she needs to tell. I used to brag "I almost got ate by an alligator!"

It hurts a bit to think my mother was still a baby herself - all of 20.

Visits to my grandparent's home in Alabama flash in and out of my memory. Again with the crowds and feeling small. My grandparent's house had a long bedroom in the back, and to get there you had to go through my grandparent's bedroom. It was a bunkhouse for all practical purposes. There was a door at the end, where my uncles and father could go out to start chores without going through the bedroom. I remember going out that door as a toddler and wandering around looking for my grandfather's horses (which were not on the premises) and catching hell when they found me out behind the long flat garage that contained nothing but rusty tools and empty gas cans and all manner of interesting and dangerous things.