Big Puzzle of Memories

I noticed lately, that all my memories of past events are somehow linked to another fragment of a memory. When I was a young teenager, my family owned a van. The van was for the family vacation trips. On one such occasion the entire family, Mom, Dad, Sister and Brother all piled into the van for a cross-country trip to California to visit Nana. On this trip I discovered the art of marathon sleeping. I would wake up to eat, use the restroom and drag my sluggish body into the hotel to shower and return to sleep. The van also had a VCR in it (back before DVD players). My siblings would watch movies like Mac and Me or Super Mario Brothers while traveling to the far west.
The memory of the van is tied to a particularly funny memory of brother choking. I know, I know what a horrible thing for me to suggest is funny, but honestly, it was. My brother was located in the farthest to the back of the van. My sister and I were enjoying the 700th viewing of The Lady in White and all of a sudden my brother started kicking his little legs around. He was not speaking or screaming so of course, my sister and I thought he was just being his jack-ass self (we may or may not have known what a jack ass was). I yelled to my mother who was in the front passenger seat reading and she turned around and with a panic stricken voice said JOSH IS CHOKING. I honestly had never seen or since seen my mother maneuver her body so quickly. Before I knew it she was in the back of the van with her hand all the way down my brother throat. She was doing this scoop thing with her finger. She would reach to the back of his throat and try to scoop the butterscotch (the culprit) out his throat. It seemed to take several attempts, but on the final swipe she seemed to reach down to his stomach and pull that piece of candy out. My bro immediately started to wail. He cried and moaned and my mom coddled and petted. After about five minutes of this I made a simple request. In all my innocence I did not know that it was a bad thing to say but all in all I said it. It went something like this “mom, please put the piece of candy back in his throat so he will be quiet”. Again my mother moved with fervor I have not witnessed since and she slapped me across the face. Not hard just enough to scare me, but all the same, she slapped me.
This memory is immediately attached to a memory of being in Nana’s gardens in Cali, picking up snails, naming them and then letting Nana step on them. She said there were to many snails in California!