[BigElCat]

(space reserved for my earliest memories of dad).

My unresolved emotional issues, etc.

I remember a ton of stuff from age 4. 1969

A Tootsie Pop Drop lodged in my throat while I was swinging on our swing set. I could not breath at all. I ran to the front door, banged on it. Mom hit me fairly hard three times between my shoulder blades (the only time she ever hit me in our lives). I still couldn't breath, so she ran to a car (I think it was the '62 Fairlane Wagon). She threw me in through the driver's door and proceeded to drive toward the Doctor's office which about 5 blocks away. She started to run a stop sign but another car was coming through. She jammed on the brakes, I flew into the steel dash, and I could see the other car pass right in front us. The impact on the dashboard dislodged the tootsie pop drop, and I started wailing. I remember her telling the doctor that I was bright blue in color, he had let us in immediately. The doctor calmed us down, and assured us everything was okay. I remember that I wasn't scared of dying, because I had not heard about death at the time.

Later that year, our first dog was named Fluffy. Don't remember it's gender, but it got away and was run over in front of Hinkel's Candy Store about 5 blocks from our house (in a different direction from the Doctor's office). How cool was that, a store dedicated to candy ? Fluffy died; I remember Dad telling me that he would die someday, and I would die someday.

That was in Carlyle, Illinois.

He explained death again when Former President Eisenhower's funeral train went by, but we had to travel to another town to see it