Originally Posted by ribbons

Another early childhood memory is at about age 3-4, I liked a book called, "How To Make Flibbers, etc." that my sister had borrowed from the library. I was fascinated by the abbrevation "etc." in the title, and even more interested when my sister told me it stood for "et cetera" and explained what that term meant. From then on it was "et cetera"-this and "et cetera"-that from my mouth all the time. Around this time, a tree was cut down on the concrete sidewalk in front of our building and wet cement put down in a large square where the tree had stood. After the city contractors left, a bunch of us stood around the square of wet cement and some of the kids picked up small branches and twigs that had been left behind and began writing their names or other things in the wet cement. One of the older kids asked if I wanted him to write anything for me and I said to please write "ETC."