Little did you know...

* I was on my high school's Quiz Bowl team.

Several of my friends were on the team. I had a few smart friends, and a few dummies. We all hung out together. I walked to/from school, and passed by their practices on the way out of the building. Eventually I just started hanging out, then they just asked me if I wanted to come along for the meets. We were terrible--I just went for the free snacks and fun times!

One of the only specifics I remember from a meet was at a tournament. We were actually doing okay, but every point was important to win. The question was "What is the state motto of Missouri?" My friend Frank buzzed in with (finger pointed very resolutely) "I know this one! It's 'The Do-Me State'! When I think about this, 12 years later, I still smile and often laugh outloud!

*When I was in 3rd grade my house burned down.

My mom, brother and I packed up and went to Tennessee to visit for a couple weeks. My dad had to stay behind and work. One afternoon we got a call...

Earlier that morning our across-the-street neighbor called my Grandpa to see if he could get in touch with my dad at work. (Before cell phones, if anyone even remembers this time!) He told him that he thought he saw flames coming out of our house. Sure enough, right after my dad had left for work some wiring faulted and sparked. Thank goodness he didn't sleep through his alarm!

Lots of things my mom had been saving were lost--her wedding dress she had made herself, our baby clothes, lots of schoolwork and projects. Luckily she had JUST moved all the pictures to a heavy wooden chest in the least-burned area of the house. They were all smoke stained (to this day they smell like smoke) but saved. I am very grateful for this.

My family lived in a hotel room for a period of time. My parents took my brother and me to Toys R Us and let us pick any toy we wanted. I chose a red-headed Cornsilk Cabbage Patch Doll. If anyone comes to my house these days, it's the one Jordan plays with now. After some time in a hotel, we lived with my grandparents until our new house was built on the same lot the old one used to be on.

*I spent the most of the summers of most of my growing up life visiting my grandparents in Tennessee.

My dad's parents retired to Tennessee, and we would drive down every summer. Sometimes we would all go as a family the whole way, and sometimes we would drive half-way and my Memmy and Granddaddy and Aunt Theresa would meet us and 'swap us out'.

Our summers were spent outside because according to my grandparents that's where kids belong in the summer! I have lots of summer memories..some of my favorites...

• One day my brother was out riding his bike and found a smooshed dead snake in the road. Being the sweet boy he was, he picked it up, brought it home and put it on the top step of the porch. Being the lucky girl I was, I was the first one who walked outside and let out a nearly-heart-attack-induced scream!!! I bet he would have felt bad if he had given Memmy a heart attack!
• My brother and I often went to spend the afternoon with our childhood friend Jonathan. Jonathan was a year older than me, and he would take us for rides in the fields on his four-wheeler. I begged and begged him to teach me how to drive it, and one day he decided to. The problem is that he stopped it with the back wheels in a ditch. I was very naive, so he told me to get on and I did. Then he told me to give it gas, and out of the ditch I went, and the four-wheeler tipped up on the back two wheels then rested on the roll bar. My brother and Jonathan laughed and laughed and laughed at me--before helping me out of my predicament!
• Some of my favorite times were when we got to go anywhere! My Granddaddy had had a stroke and was paralyzed on one side. My Memmy didn't get her driver's license until she was like 70. So...we got to go somewhere whenever someone else would come take us... We would go down to the river and fish. We would go to church. We would go to our cousins' house. We would go to town for grocery shopping. Side note--Memmy didn't like to take us kids into Kroger, so she would leave us in the car with Granddaddy the WHOLE time she did grocery shopping. Granddaddy would always be smoking his SwisherSweets cigarillos, and with the car off and the windows down so it would be equal opportunity for the humidity in and out....man, Memories! :)
  

*In elementary school I was THE fastest merry-go-round pusher in the school.

It was fifth grade. I was the tallest. (This is the truth! About 7th-8th grade all the other girls got their growth spurt but not me!) Kids would line up and wait their turn. I kid you not--every recess I was "on duty" at the M-G-R to do some pushin'.

*I have never seen E.T., Goonies, or most of the StarWars movies. I really have no desire to ever sit down and watch them, either.

There's really not that much to elaborate on these. I never saw them, and don't want to. Jon gives me a hard enough time, so no one else needs to! :) I think in 3rd grade my mom took my brother and me to see Return of the Jedi at the theatre. I technically must say I've been to it, but I honestly slept through the whole thing. The summer after my sophomore year in college, I spent 6 weeks in Venezuela. That was the summer Episode One came out, and the group I was with really wanted to go see Episodio Uno. I was outvoted. Had to watch it-but at least it was in English and they had to read the Spanish subtitles!

My favorite movies as a child were Flight of the Navigator, Airport 1975, Homeward Bound, Grizzly Adams. We didn't have cable and I don't even remember a VCR until I was older so we watched whatever was on TV.