Growing Up 1/23/17

Hello Friends~ 
  As I recommit to blogging more regularly in 2017 I decided to use a '30 Day Blog Challenge' list as a prompting tool. The next entry according to the list is "Growing Up".  So, if you are a regular reader let's see if there's something new you didn't know and if you are new to the blog, welcome! 

   "Growing Up" is the title of this next prompt and so let's dive right in. 
  I was born in October of 1961 and am the oldest of two children. The 60's were a pretty turbulent time in our country's history. Civil rights, the space race, the cold war, the counter culture and more. I however, was blissfully unaware of all this. I was born in Kansas to college student parents who worked very hard to give me a good life. When I was five my dad's job moved us to the small town of Freeport, Illinois. 
  

Krape Park's Twin Caves

In my recollections, this town was just like TV's Mayberry . I walked back and forth to school and came home for lunch. I played in fields a couple of blocks over from our house. I rode my bike everywhere. I walked to the local mall and spent the whole day with my friends... hours without cell phone leashes. 
I loved our town's massive old Carnegie library, I loved going to Krape Park, ice skating on the river and sledding near the bandshell. I even fell into the river once near the Twin Caves [and was saved from drowning, but that's another story].

Of course there are things about growing up that aren't like a TV show. I had chores which I despised, I got into a fight once in high school , I got in trouble for cutting through the church yard when I'd promised not to... and was ratted out by a red mitten...
[that's for you dad :-) ]  and a bunch of those other things through your childhood that help to form your character. 
  
When I was 15 we moved yet again for dad's job, this time to Lawton, OK. It was a nice big house, with the only tree on our block. Instead of spiders or roaches, we had to watch for scorpions in the house. My dad was actually at training in Ohio almost the whole time we lived there, which was only 6 months!  Here I had my first date, lettered in my first team sports and had to learn to make friends with people who hadn't known me most of my life. It was pretty tough, and as an emotional teenage girl I wasn't very happy about that move.

Then dad got promoted once again, and we were off to Tyler, Texas for my senior year of high school. This was a much better situation. It was still hard to make friends, but I played sports and had some part time jobs, both of which helped me meet people. 

I graduated and moved on to Tyler Junior college for two years. 


Then... you guessed it dad got transferred again. Although I was 19, my parents insisted I move with them to North Carolina. As a young adult I was pretty ticked off, but hind sight is 20/20, and it was really for the best. I ended up at University of North Carolina at Wilmington and that was a great choice for me. 
So, there is a brief synopsis of my 'growing up'. I am truly blessed. All that moving as a kid was great training for being a Navy wife and mother to my two kids who also had to move a lot. 

Thanks for stopping by~ 
Tammie :-)