Friday fun: Resolving childhood memory mysteries!

[NotUrsula]

Last night I finally resolved a mysterious childhood memory that has been bugging me *forever*.

Ever since grade school, I've associated the song "Love Grows (where my Rosemary goes)" with a military recruitment TV commercial, but I could never find any evidence that it actually was used in one. Anyone I asked about it told me I had to be imagining it; why would anyone think that was a good song to use to get people to join the military? I have to admit, it always struck me as kind of strange, too, so I kept trying to find out if it really happened.

Youtube has finally come to my rescue! Some kind soul actually posted video of the commercial recently, and I was right all along. Turns out the song wasn't all that out there after all, because the ad was recruiting women to become Air Force Nurses. (At the time, the late 1960's, I lived in a community with a large USAF presence, so I think they must have broadcast it often). So, here it is, (though no clue why there is a red tint on the video; I don't think it was actually like that; must be an issue with how it was recorded):

 

[Ensusieasm]

It was a two paragraph story for a typing test that explained my very first childhood memory.
In my memory I was put in a dark hallway while my mother went to get my younger sister. The typing story was about a rare hurricane in New Hampshire in 1954 when I would have been three.

 

[princesscinderella]

Mine was the name of a movie I watched as a kid where he put peanut butter on his head to make his hair grow because it fell out because he got scared. It kept growing so long a guy kidnapped him and made magic paint brushes from the hair. It’s called - The Peanut Butter Solution

 

[LuvOrlando]

Mine was loving this TV show from the 70's on at the crack of dawn, all I could remember was animated people dressed like birds. It was early anime & the name was lost until recently.

 

[lovesmurfs]

Mine was a recent conversation with my mother. When I was 8, our poodle wound up needing surgery because he half-swallowed a fishhook that I'd been practicing tying. My mother was peeved (yelled) and I felt guilty from that time on.

I mentioned it to my mother and she said it hadn't been my fault at all, that she was mad at my grandfather, who'd been supervising and teaching me to tie the hooks. The things your brain does!

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

Well I just solved on that had been bugging me a long time. Enough googling led me to the answer finally. There was a TV show that remembered seeing where this guy was talking to a teddy bear (or something similar) named "Monty". (Come to find out it was a toy stuffed fox). After several failed research attempts, I dug in and finally found out the answer. The TV show was called "Reggie" starring Richard Mulligan. The show must have been terrible, it only lasted 6 episodes in 1983.



That raised a second question... WHY would I have been watching this show???

My research indicates that the show aired on TUESDAY nights on ABC. Three's Company (my favorite tv show as a kid) also aired on Tuesday nights.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

I have an unsolved childhood memory. Somewhere between 1984-1987, when I was about 3-6 years old, there was a movie trailer that advertised on tv for a horror/thriller type movie. My mother would always tell me not to look when it came on because it was scary (supposedly), so I would always turn away and bury my face in my hands every time it came on. As such, I never saw it, but I distinctly remember what sounded like marbles being spilled down the stairs. Does anyone know what movie this might have been? I strongly suspect whatever commercial was airing on daytime tv in the mid-80s was not actually that graphic and whatever I dreamed up in my imagination was probably scarier than whatever was being broadcast. I would love to know what it was — it’s driven me crazy for years.

 

[csmith1004]

Despite watching Neverending Story countless times I could never understand the name Bastion called out in the end. Thank goodness for Google - years later I now know the Empress was given the name Moon Child.

 

[mom2rtk]

I've been trying for a while to pin down a movie I recall from my childhood. I've googled a bunch but still haven't found it. Maybe I'm just imagining it. I'm not even sure why I remember it. It's an old black and white, live action movie about Jack Frost. There have been a bunch of Jack Frost movies, both black and white and in color, but I never tracked this one down. I probably would have seen it in the early to mid 70's.

 

[Minnesota!]

Cool thread - maybe you people can help. I remember watching a movie with my mom and in it, a giant octopus crawled out of the ocean and stole a child. She made me look away and it haunted me for a long time, but I could never find the movie to see if it was as terrifying as my mind made it. I keep thinking it was James Bond, but I have not found anything to support that..

 

[spewey]

Stouffer's Stove Top Stuffing.

 

[fly girl]

For years I asked people if they remembered a soft ice cream you could get in the grocery store that was shaped like a cone and had a star tip -- I remember cutting my tongue getting all the ice cream out of that star tip! lol. Nobody remembered and thought I was crazy.

Finally, I think it was a thread on here about 6-12 months ago, someone remembered and knew the name so I could find the YouTube commercial for it. My 12 year old self felt happy and justified I wasn't losing my mind. (at least with this ...)


Soft Swirl!

 

[Wendy31]

Here’s mine -

For years, I had bad dreams about a particular back road in our area… in my dreams, I’m on the road, just kind of viewing the road as a viewer (not really doing anything in the dream except just standing there), & it’s cloudy & darkish-gray (not quite night but not day) w/ the wind blowing all the trees along the side of the road, & I just have this really, ominous feeling like something awful is going to happen… nothing ever happened in my dreams but I always woke up feeling sad & w/ horrible feelings of dread.

One morning after I’d dreamed about this road during the night, I even told my husband, “If I’m ever missing, look for me along that road. I think I’m going to die there some day.”

Well, a couple of years ago, we were w/ my parents, &, for whatever reason, we started talking about dreams.

When I mentioned my recurring nightmares about this road, my mom said, “I know why you have bad dreams about that road.”

She then explained that, when I was about 3, the brother of a family friend who also went to our church died in a horrible car wreck on that road during a storm one night, & it was a while before anyone found him. The wreck was in the news, &, of course, since the family friend attended our church, it was talked about as well within our various circles & apparently made an impression in my young, subconscious mind.

And, once my mom reminded me of what had happened, I‘ve never had another dream about that road.

 

[tvguy]

I just remember riding in the car with my mom and there were baked potatoes on the front seat. I asked my mom about that decades later, and she remembered it. We were in the process of moving, and she baked the potatoes at our new house, and then we went back home to the old house for dinner to eat them. So I was 3 at the time, and that has to be my earliest memory. That is the only memory of have of that car, that we got rid of shortly after we moved into the new house. I have no memory of living in that first house at all.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

I just remember riding in the car with my mom and there were baked potatoes on the front seat. I asked my mom about that decades later, and she remembered it. We were in the process of moving, and she baked the potatoes at our new house, and then we went back home to the old house for dinner to eat them. So I was 3 at the time, and that has to be my earliest memory. That is the only memory of have of that car, that we got rid of shortly after we moved into the new house. I have no memory of living in that first house at all.

I mean, it’s a cute story, but I don’t appreciate its causing me to get these ads.

 

[sarahann77]

I have 2 I'm still trying to figure out
1. The Halloween special that only played on Halloween night at 8pm, early 80s. Sha-Na-Na always on it. Didn't think it was the same one each year. I always thought it was called Boo due to the title cards they had before/after commercials. Googling was implying Sha-Na-Na didn't have a hallween special themselves. We'd always come back from trick or treating to have it on.
2.A horror movie that had a head in an aquarium with fish. Another in the early 80s playing on Cinemax or other premium channel at the time. Wasn't supposed to be watching but saw one scene and that just scared me. My brother ended up getting a mask that was green with black hair that was similar of that look

 

[Aladora]

2.A horror movie that had a head in an aquarium with fish. Another in the early 80s playing on Cinemax or other premium channel at the time. Wasn't supposed to be watching but saw one scene and that just scared me. My brother ended up getting a mask that was green with black hair that was similar of that look

"He Knows You're Alone" maybe?

 

[dizneegirl]

Mine was loving this TV show from the 70's on at the crack of dawn, all I could remember was animated people dressed like birds. It was early anime & the name was lost until recently.

DH thanks you for this... just this weekend he was telling me about a conversation he had with someone about watching an old anime show in the 70s. He, of course, couldn't remember exactly what it was. When I saw this, I showed him - sure enough, that was it!

 

[princesscinderella]

I have 2 I'm still trying to figure out
1. The Halloween special that only played on Halloween night at 8pm, early 80s. Sha-Na-Na always on it. Didn't think it was the same one each year. I always thought it was called Boo due to the title cards they had before/after commercials. Googling was implying Sha-Na-Na didn't have a hallween special themselves. We'd always come back from trick or treating to have it on.
2.A horror movie that had a head in an aquarium with fish. Another in the early 80s playing on Cinemax or other premium channel at the time. Wasn't supposed to be watching but saw one scene and that just scared me. My brother ended up getting a mask that was green with black hair that was similar of that look

For number two it may have been from a Tales from the Crypt episode?

 

[sarahann77]

"He Knows You're Alone" maybe?

This might actually be it based on a google image with it. Trailer doesn't look familiar but the photos might be close to what I remember.