I only have three vivid very early childhood memories from when I was about 3 years old. Two are traumatic, one is not. I'm not sure what kind of chronological order they're in.

In one memory, I'm riding my tricycle in front of the house on the sidewalk. I fall off the curb into the street, and a police officer in uniform picks me up and carries me to my mother on the porch, while telling me he's going to arrest me for reckless driving. The police officer lived next door and was a good friend to the family. He was joking, of course, but I didn't know that.

In the next memory, I'm roughly the same age and home alone with Dad, and we are making popcorn in the kitchen before watching the Friday Night Fights. (Dad was a big boxing fan.) For some reason, I was standing on top of the kitchen table. I slipped and fell and hit my head on the corner of the table and had to go to the hospital for stitches. I don't remember the hospital, but I remember standing on the table and falling. And I still have the scar.

In the third memory, I'm sitting in the living room watching television, and I say along with the broadcaster, "and now we pause for a station identification." Both my parents laughed and made a big fuss about it, which made me happy.

I have no other solid memories of that period of my early childhood. My real episodic memories don't kick in until a few months later when we moved out of that little house in town into a big farmhouse in the country.