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What numbers did you memorize as a kid? How old where you? And why?

For me it my address number at some time in the second grade. I really don't remember exactly the why or even when. Yet I suspect it was the second time I went through the second grade.

As to why I can speculate that it was because that school was so darn far away.

Yet it was most certainly not because of my parents. I doubt mom ever knew our address even decades later. And dad never lived with us for him to memorize it.

So what set of numbers did you memorize? When? And why?
Abstraction · 61-69, M
I didn't memorise numbers much that I can recall.
But I recall it started about grade 1, so about 5, lying in bed in the dark and counting 1,2,3... and I realised I could keep counting. The odd thing was I could see them stretching ahead of me visually. When I got to 200 they turned left. I knew a thousand was over on that side because then it turned and went away from me again. All numbers exist in a particular physical space around me and I never thought about it.
Over time I could see the calendar in a circle around me, like a clock, with the months and the days, with December 31/ Jan 1 directly in front and 30 june behind me.
Weeks a different pattern. Dates a complex pattern.
I thought it was normal. I didn't know until middle aged and saw a documentary that i had synesthesia.
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
@Abstraction I wrote some prose once on here that almost sounds similar. It sounds like total nonsense to some, yet has a meaning to me.

https://similarworlds.com/self/curious/3579468-I-am-curious-about-what-not

A reply from that prose 😆

I can't make any sense of it?!😲😎
Abstraction · 61-69, M
@DeWayfarer It would take some reflection to break into your thinking.
How simple is real?
How complex is nothing?
I like these immediately. Obviously my reading would be different to your intent. For me, "why is there something rather than nothing?" is one of the biggest questions. But... what would the alternative to something be (and it isn't nothing in any way we could possibly comprehend.)
How simple is real? Has a lot of applications. But because I'm not dishonest, ever. Because I admit when I'm wrong. Because in the right context I will talk about who I am... it's incredibly simple to be real.
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
@Abstraction your take on that prose is certainly very different than my intent.

My take is perspectives. And the similarities with your early experience is as well your perspective.

The tiny bit about synesthesia that I read is it's about the combination of different senses. That brings about a different perspective.

So what does the color blue taste like? Another prose of my own.

https://similarworlds.com/uncategorized/3903968-How-does-the-color-blue-taste?rid=46572438

I ask you in my first reply ...

What other senses might you think are apart of your visual ability?

That question also involves perspective.

Do you see what I saying? 🤔
Carla · 61-69, F
I had my phone number and address memorized when i was very little.
We lived in the way out and had pretty free rein. I reckon mom wanted us returned if we wandered too far.
I still remember it to this day.
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
@Carla what sadden me is while I remember the exact address, space and even zip code, the whole place no longer exists. They cleared the land some time in the mid 80s. Did go back there in 84 to see an old babysitter. That was a sad situation. Since I learned she had passed away.
Carla · 61-69, F
@DeWayfarer yeah...we moved when i was fifteen. The house burned down long ago. A new house fills it's place.
My sister did go to see the property before it was built upon.
Brought me back an old hearth stone she found on site.

It's sad to know that those we grew up with have gone.
Sutten · 36-40, F
Growing up it was Telephone numbers and Birthdays, because who has time to look up numbers in a phone book and I wanted people to feel special by making effort to remember their birthday and wish them.
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Jenny1234 · 51-55, F
Phone numbers came easily to me. I knew everyone’s number off by heart. Since I got a cell phone , I don’t know anyone’s number
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
@Jenny1234 sadly I didn't know many phone numbers even until junior high. And that was because of a heavy infatuation with a certain girl.

It worked a bit both ways because she often called me at nearly midnight.
Ontheroad · M
I can't remember any except our mailbox number at the post office. From 5 until I left home, I lived in a tiny town and addresses weren't necessary. Everyone knew exactly where everyone else lived.
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
@Ontheroad you might be interested in this very old 1962 picture then!

Ontheroad · M
@DeWayfarer I am amazed by the open spaces, that's almost impossible to believe. I wonder what the population was then.
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
@Ontheroad I really don't know. I was at most three years old then! Yet that's where I lived until 1975.
AthrillatheHunt · 51-55, M
I was bribed w money to memorize my times tables at age 8.
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
@AthrillatheHunt I did like the toastmasters handbook to humor! 🙃😈😁
AthrillatheHunt · 51-55, M
@DeWayfarer that’ll come in handy in any social situation.
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
@AthrillatheHunt I liked it. Yet my humor is a bit bizarre. So I never was a socializer. Actually even as a child I was an introvert. Why I was held back in the second grade.
SW-User
Times tables, lol. Also our address. Some phone numbers. Birthdays too.
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
@SW-User I didn't qualify as a genius in the second grade to memorize times tables. Dad did attempt to ram them in me sometime in the fifth grade! 😂

He especially wanted me to figure out the tax on anything we brought... In my head!

Didn't get that good until college to his great disappointment.
maturedragon · 26-30, M
5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 4, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 8, 85, 90, 95, 100.... was terrible at memorising numbers XD
Jinxie · 51-55, F
Phone numbers, piano finger placements
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
@Jinxie interesting. Piano finger number placements.

Having played classical ever since 14, I never used the finger number placement method as a memory technique. More of by the feel of the fingers and the way you hold your hand.
None. Heart doesn't need brain in such cases.
Dino11 · M
Anything important that I didn't write down.
I remembered my address and my phone number, as well as the birthdays of every family member. In SF some supervisor had the bright idea of requiring young school children to wear dog tags with their addresses and blood types, in case they were in accidents. I still have mine somewhere. Definitely a different time.
hunkalove · 61-69, M
@bijouxbroussard We had those. It also included your blood type.
@hunkalove Yep.
DeWayfarer · 61-69, M
@bijouxbroussard address was the only thing I remember. Phone I wasn't even allowed to touch. Again party line. Blood type I didn't know until after my motorcycle accident. SSN number not until I entered the Air Force at 19. It was my military ID.

Those that I knew of my family was all over the USA and Germany, Mom, my father, my half brother in California, half sister in Iowa, and another half sister in Maryland.

Cousins on my mother's side were all in Germany. I never knew anyone on my father's side, yet from what he told me they were all over the world. Canada, Argentina, Northern Africa and grand mother in then Czechoslovakia.

Could give the months for my half brothers and sisters and a niece, yet that is all.
hunkalove · 61-69, M
I remember being 4 and learning my address and phone number and that my parents names weren't Mommy and Daddy. My 4-digit phone number (before dial phones in my small hometown) is now part of my email address.

 
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