Childhood Memories

There are vast amount of my childhood that I simply do not remember, but there are random snapshots that for some reason have always stuck with me. I'm not talking about the general kind of "memories" like "I remember we used to ride our bikes to the pool" or "I remember we used to play in the basement with our flying trapeze bar" or other general things that virtually all kids experienced. What...no trapeze bar in your basement? Maybe this is why there are vast parts I don't remember.

Here are my snapshots:

1. In kindergarten one day we were playing "There was a man who lived in the moon" where you make a man's face out of letters and I remember being so excited I got to pick the letter for the nose so I could FINALLY have the lowercase "j" I always thought would be perfect in that spot. What were people thinking with the q's and the R's....IT'S A J! I now believe my control issues started approximately at age 5.
2. In 1st grade Mrs. Stange made me pick Jessica H. in the 7-up standup game because no one ever picked her (because she cheated and looked at your shoes) and she of course cheated and knew it was me so I got out. I was so mad. And Jessica was wearing a pastel green and white striped one-piece outfit where the top half was a tank top and the bottom half was shorts with a skirt over it and she was wearing white velcro shoes and I was still very mad.
3. Also in 1st grade, our teacher took us out in the hallway one at a time to look in a box to see a picture of the "most important person." I told everyone "I bet it's a mirror," and I got in trouble for ruining it for everyone. You can't trick me, Mrs. Stange! (or get me to keep my know-it-all mouth shut).
4. In 2nd grade I was the third person to ask Mrs. Anderson how to spell pterodactyl during journaling time because we had decided Tara's new nickname should be this flying dinosaur and we all thought Mrs. A was crazy when she wrote the word on the "P" page of our little construction paper spelling booklet instead of the "T" page. Sadly, I just had to google pterodactyl because I still don't know how to spell it.
5. In 3rd grade, a new kid in our class named Jack K got in trouble for using a bad word. Except none of the rest of us knew it was bad. So innocent we were!  Hint: it also means a bundle of sticks
6. I remember a specific recess when Cleon, the recess attendant, came over and told the boys they had to let the girls play kickball with them so she divided us in half to join each team. But I piped up and said, "But they actually already picked me for the other team." Kudos to the guys in my class for vastly overestimating my kickball skills in fourth grade.
7. During inside recesses we had the boys on one half of the gym, girls on the other, so we would have races down the 2 lanes created by the half court line. First one to touch the stage and come back and slap the hand of the "timer" person at the start/finish line won. I do not remember any specific race but I do specifically remember one of my guy friends asking me years later, "Remember when you used to be the fastest girl in our class? What happened?"  Oh how the truth hurts.
8. In 5th grade Science I sat at a table with Greg A. and Justin B. and they wore USA basketball jerseys from their summer 3-on-3 tournaments on the first day of school.
9. Removed per my dear husband's "guidancing" me. (First made-up word of this post, that I know of).
10. On our 6th grade Iowa History Trip, I remember playing "war" card games on the bed (poolside room) using candy as betting chips and the ratio was 10 M&Ms equalled one Twizzler.
11. I vividly remember riding to the substate game vs. Ruthven Ayrshire and feeling relieved when Loree Walton told us that yes, they had Loren Meyer, but the rest of the team wasn't much. I believe we won that game 101-57 and Scott Bonestroo made the final free throws to push us over the 100 mark. That was 1991, almost 19 years ago and I still remember Boner making that free throw.
12. Unfortunately, I also remember Andy Kosky from Newell Fonda making the free throw that cost us the state championship game in 2000. A more recent, but more painful memory.
13. I remember huddling in the Sibley movie theater bathroom with Becca in 1996 while trying to figure out the seating arrangement for "There's Something About Mary."
14. I remember buying a new shirt at Maurices for my first high school dance and feeling my cheeks burn when someone else from my class showed up in the same shirt. And his name was Joel.
15. I remember playing Kick the Can in the backyard of Rachel S.'s house in 1st grade and someone started crying when another person pulled their arm and and Marty DJ said "If your arm was really out of it's socket, you would be screaming bloody murder." Also at Rachel's house we chewed peppermint LifeSavers in the dark with our mouths open to watch them spark.
16. The name of our fake TV station for the 5th-6th grade Christmas program was WICU.
17. When my younger sister was having trouble spitting her words out one day at supper, I told her not to stutter and my mom scolded me that you "NEVER ever make fun of someone who stutters."  I was like 6, my mom was(is) a speech pathologist, and I don't remember my sister ever stuttering again.

Okay, this is turning into a novel (yet another I could write) and I'm not sure anyone would buy the book "1001 Things Courtney Remembers From Her Childhood," so I'll stop at 17 since it's such a nice prime number.

What are the random snapshots you have of your childhood that for some reason have burned themselves into your brain?