Steve Lundeberg

I used to pride myself on having a fantastic memory. A particular talent was remembering exact words of conversations from years earlier — that and being able to recite all manner of sports facts and figures, particularly in my favorite sport, baseball.

Nowadays, well, the memory is just not as good as it once was. I guess I would put it this way: I can still recall a lot, but not as much as I used to, and a lot of it not is anywhere as close to as clear as it used to be.

Even eight years ago, as I geared up for my 20-year high school reunion by flipping through a yearbook, I was startled by how few classmates I actually remembered. At Rex Putnam High, I felt like I knew, at least reasonably well, pretty much all of the 300 kids in my class, but as I went through that annual, it was almost like I was perusing a yearbook from a school I’d never attended.

Thank goodness for name tags. And a well-stocked bar.

Anyway, on the subject of memory and memories, I thought it would be fun, just for kicks, to flash back at my earliest memories, from birth to that somewhat magical age of 16.

– This sounds sort of odd, but I’ve always remembered one particular day, playing with my somewhat older neighbor Patty Hoag, where I recall thinking to myself, “I am 1 year old.” Does that memory really date to age 1? Hard to say. But I’ve always thought so.

– When I was about 3, we arrived home from a weekend in Seattle to find our house full of wood-boring wasps. That is a day I definitely remember.

– At age 4, my family visited my Auntie Irene and Uncle Dick in Oceanside, California. I remember the orange trees at their place, but mainly I recall going to Disneyland and riding in the Autopia cars with my big brother, Duane.

– Just after turning 5 in August 1968, I started kindergarten. My primary memories of that year were that I didn’t like our mandatory rest time, and the mock presidential election the class held that fall. Nixon outpolled Humphrey even among Riverside Grade School 5-year-olds.

– In first grade, I remember having a pretty cool teacher named Mrs. Weber who seemed quite old but in all likelihood was in her 20s. Because a few years ago, Mrs. Weber happened to be a patient of my brother Duane, now a Portland physician. She was, at most, upper middle-aged, Duane said. He added, with some pain, that Mrs. Weber recognized the name, asked if we were related, and said “Steve was one of the nicest students I ever had.”

– In third grade, our teacher, Mrs. Enger, died of lupus, which was very sad. A young teacher named Mr. Wong took over, and we didn’t like him at first, but he and I later became friends and played a lot of pickup basketball together.

– Sixth grade was brutal. Mrs. Decker was really mean, I got braces, and then two weeks after school got out, my dad died.

– Seventh grade was all about survival in a crowded junior high of 800. That’s where I also had the worst coach ever, Mr. Hinds, who scared me away from interscholastic basketball forever.

– Eighth grade featured the day I got those stupid braces off, still one of the happiest days of my life.

– Tenth grade: First-ever over-the-fence home run. Actually went deep twice that year, a towering shot to center and a line drive to right. Both feel like they just happened yesterday.

– 16th birthday: Passing that driver’s test will remain a highlight for as long as I live, though I scored just an 86 and thought I had driven flawlessly. But what the examiner told me afterward, explaining how I hadn’t used my mirrors enough, has stuck with me: “Always remember half the world is behind you.”

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