In December 1983.

I was five, and I believe this was about a month before I officially became obsessed with dinosaurs. This far back, I remember events (like Christmas) and otherwise unfixable moments... I won't know for sure exactly what month or even what year I'm remembering.

That said, for as long as I can remember (certainly as far back as the mid-eighties) there is a moment that I associate with the early winter in 1983. I went to Valley School at this time, which is a private school that has spent most of its history leapfrogging from one facility to the next. When I attended, the school was based out of a one-story brick building in the middle of a great field surrounded by suburban subdivisions. This was Grand Blanc Township. One of the sides of the school faces a low slope, and on the first day that is snowed, sleds were dispensed. By sleds, what I really mean was that they had rolled red and blue sheets of plastic with grommet holes at the end to attach a yellow cord. When we unrolled these and layed on our stomachs or sat with our feet the length of the sheet, we could use them for sleds. I think that they were designed with this in mind. One of nostalgia-inducing toys that would probably never be allowed anymore.

Where were you in December 1983?

Diary: In September, 1983.

When going back this far, I have to fall back almost exclusively upon confirmed and memorized facts rather than actual memories. I'd just turned five years old. My brother had been recently born, and my sister was two. In either late August or early September, I started attending Valley School which was, at that time, located in Grand Blanc Township. I do remember, albeit indisinctly, the way the school looked. It was at the "end" (or maybe the "middle," but if so, it was well-isolated) of a subdivision, with a slope inclinning to a basin where the school and parking lots were located. The school was flanked by a hill on one side (which we'd use for sledding when it started to snow), and on the other a broad field with a stream running at the edge. I remember that the school was outside of Flint, and my parents drove me there each morning. I want to say that this was most often my mom, although my dad dropped me off some times too. Also, I remember that we had to take at least a hemi-pretzel exit ramp from the expressway, and this was one of my first memories of such a plan. The way the road curved so insistantly as it road struck me as strange, or maybe even funny. But I don't know for sure which of these impressions were from September '83, and what came later.

Where were you in September 1983?