dunno if ya'll are gonna believe this or not...

I think this is my earliest memory. well, I used to think I was reincarnated from a cat, because I can remember crawling around, but that's another story. may actually be part of this story.

I'm a wee tyke. i'm in a high chair. my mom is tryin to feed me beans. I didn't want to have anything to do with them. she's spooning them into my mouth, I'm spitting them back out. my mom thinks it's cute. but my dad starts freaking out. he starts yelling and screaming. he's in the air force. "I have to eat beans! why won't the goddam baby eat the beans!" he pitchs a major fit. yelling and screaming. my mom picks me up and takes me into the other room, where *my* playpen is. I can still hearing the yelling and screaming from the other room.

i've been told it's highly unusual to have pre-verbal memories. I dunno. I've only mentioned this to a couple people, so I have no idea about that stuff.

in my late 20's my neighbor, Manny, gave me a car. it's a Ford Capri. this is a '74 capri. made in germany. bosch ignition. basically a v6. I pulled the heads off and reconditioned them. reseated the lifters, replaced a few parts. it was hella zippy. but my dad was helping me put it together. he mostly left me alone, with a chilton manual.

one day when I'm in the middle of tearing the guts out of this thing he has chili going on. I loved his chili, but he'd have to cook up the beans seperate. so he says he has chili going on and I start bitching about the beans, and he goes, "you know, I must have really traumatized you about beans."

the conversation didn't go anywhere after that, but I took that as an affirmation that my early memories about him freaking out were accurate.