Where Were You?

[quiet bear]

I learned this at the powwow this past Saturday. I thought it might be fun here.

I wasn't sure if this was considered a game, or something for the Atruim, or even possibly History.

Anyway, how it works is, you pick a person, and give them a time, and they relate where they were and what they were doing at that particular point in their life. They can tell as much or as little as they want. Then, they pick another person and time.

If you don't want to participate, you can just say 'pass'.

Ok, I will start.


beyelzu...summer of 1981...where were you???

[Legs]

so we wait for bey before continuing? it sounds like a interesting thread though, qb :yup:

[quiet bear]

Hmmm...I guess it would be best to choose someone who is here. LOL.

Ok, then, I guess bey will get his turn.


Legs......summer of 1981.....where were you??

[Legs]

Summer of 81, well had just completed Grade 11 at a Catholic High School somewhere in Canada.

During the summer I worked fulltime at a lawyers office doing general office duties - I secured this employment through a school co-op program and had worked part time there through the school year.

I also recall my best friend making me go to some country concert with her in Toronto - the band was Alabama? or something like that. :shudder:

Also, one of my older sisters married that summer and we had these awful ruffly dresses with Princess Diana feathery hats and netting :blink:

I also remember being really excited to be going into Grade 12. :vibes:

Incidently I was still a virgin :blush:


Widget, where were you in same year, the Summer of 1981?

Good exercise walking down memory lane, qb

[Widget]

1981 My son was born, my daughter turned 3, I opened a second store 50 miles from the first store somewhere in Canada, I sold my Trans-am for $2000 likely worth 8 million at the Barrett Jackson auction this year, however I did only pay $6108 for it in 1976, that included the 8 track.

I wondered how I intended to pay for my mortgage renewal considering the lending rate was now at 23%, Canada Savings Bonds were paying 19% interest.

I rented out the top floor of the house to a bunch of hippies, they were pulled over in front of the house one night as the cops were investigating the white stuff in the plastic bag, turns out it was soap powder and they were indeed returning from the laundromat.


Time flies, I spent THIS weekend racing with my son,as he passed the Lamborghini in the front straight, it's hard to believe that the hood of this car is worth more than I paid for a whole vehicle back in 81.

What was Dingfod doing that summer?

[Dingfod]

The summer of 1981 I spent a great deal of my time off work with my baby daughter. In our hilltop townhouse apartment at the edge of town, a suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma I would often rock her in our living room while watching Graham Kerr cooking up a storm on The Galloping Gourmet. Oft times she was wearing only a diaper, falling asleep with her little body and head against my shirtless (and hairless) chest. We definitely bonded, she turned out to be Daddy's Girl.

My wife had returned to her part-time job at Walmart. We also babysat my youngest sister's daughter, who was about 10-11 months old, quite a bit, as my sister was in a tempestuous marriage with a Pakistani.

After a trip to Texas to visit Grandma and Grandpa In-law in our 4 month old Chevette, I traded it off for a brand new Pontiac Bonneville SE Brougham. The Chevette was cramped, almost dangerously underpowered, and on the trip it only got 28 mpg. The new Bonneville with it's 4.4L (265 CID) V-8 got 22-24 mpg and was almost as luxurious as you could buy in 1981.

I also sold my 1974 Mercury Capri to my college student brother Jim for $600 cash and he took over the remaining 8 months of $100 payments. I intended to buy a motorcycle, but couldn't get financing, so I bought our second Chevy Vega instead, a well-worn 1975 model with a three speed manual transmission and no air conditioning.

We moved from the hilltop apartment to a brand new brick duplex apartment, which also had a garage and a wood-burning stove. My parents moved into another of those just down the street from us a few months later.

At the end of the summer of 1981, the Sunday before labor day, I found an ad for a plant operator job in Wyoming, one which I eventually got hired for. It wasn't that I had a bad job, I was a lab analyst in a fertilizer plant, a job at which I was very skilled. I was just bored with it.


pescifish... same question... where were you in the Summer of 1981?

[pescifish]

Great summer for me! Thanks for asking, Dingfod. :hug: You and I both bought our first brand new cars that summer. :miniglomp:

Out of college for a year, promoted to lead to post-acquisition software development group (salary had increased 75% in the course of that year), money starting to pile up and really starting to find my 23 year old stride in project management of way cool stuff. My coworkers at the booming geophysics company were 20-somethings and/or young PhDs and we were a close knit social group similar to the sitcom Friends.

Near the end of that summer, disgusted with how my beloved VW rabbit hardtop had been murdered (needed a new alternator and a head gasket after bad repairs), I pointed at the brand new shiny VW convertible on the showroom floor and drove it off the lot. It felt mighty fine to be able to do that! So fun, that car.

My dad almost died a couple of times that summer, so I spent a lot of time with my parents trying to figure out how to manage with his latest reduced set of capabilities. I was begining to understand how fucked up my mother was and had moved into the "it's like water off a duck's back" phase of dealing with her abuse. [Doesn't work, btw, but it wasn't until later that I figured that out.]

I was happy and secure and successful. I had been financially independent from my folks for a few years by that time and settling into a bright and exciting future as a young adult. I had a group of intelligent, fun and loving friends. I was glad to be single after living with my college boyfriend during my senior year [relationship had a natural deadline when he left for France to study after my graduation.] I lived in a 900 square foot 2 bedroom apartment in the beautiful town of Sierra Madre. I used to take 20 mile bicycle rides on the weekends along the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains.

Ok, quiet bear -- you started this question and it's had some great mileage and results, so I'm gonna stick with it. Summer of 1981, where were you?

While we're waiting for qb, I invite anyone who sees this thread and wants to share their Summer of 1981 story to post! (I hope that's ok and won't ruin the game, quiet bear.):yup:

[Ymir's blood]

Between elementary and middle school, living with my parents. That was the summer we moved back to Raleigh, IIRC. I was a quiet introverted child, but not yet suffering from depression.

[godfry n. glad]

The summer of 1981 was miserable for me. I had lost my first real job out of college in March and the prospects did not look good. Unemployment was something of a cushion, but the requirements to collect were a pain in the ass.

It was the Reagan depression.

[beyelzu]

while it was changed, im going to anwer anyway.

the summer of 81 i was four living at home, my mother still suspected that i was retarded cuz i was just learning to speak and had a speech impediment. but that was because of my really bad hearing. later that year i think my dad and mom separated and dad took me and my sister to texas.

[viscousmemories]

I turned 13 in 1981, so for anyone who knows my background: that's when the shit started to hit the fan. I don't want to buzzkill this thread with the details. :shiftier:

[beyelzu]

I turned 13 in 1981, so for anyone who knows my background: that's when the shit started to hit the fan. I don't want to buzzkill this thread with the details. :shiftier:
yeah, i kind of went with a milder version of that year myself.

:tmgrin:

[MonCapitan2002]

I'd like to answer the question. I am afraid that by answering the question, I would be dating myself. I shall answer anyway.

I was a baby doing the things babies do.

[Moxy]

Haha, this thread is making me feel pretty young.

[Julie]

I was 4.

I spent that entire summer destroying the very large stump in my back yard and digging mud pits and Making a huge mess of myself. That is also the summer I learned the joys of applying salt to slugs.

[Moxy]

I was 2, about to turn 3. I think I spent most of the summer playing in the little pool out back, or maybe in the sandbox. My brother was born in Sept. of '81. He just got married this past August.

[balluga]

I wasnt born yet, so I have no memories of the summer of '81. I wasnt born until late December of that year.

[godfry n. glad]

I wasnt born yet, so I have no memories of the summer of '81. I wasnt born until late December of that year.

Zygote!

[Sock Puppet]

I had survived junior high, and was on my way to freshmanhood. I don't remember if that was my last year of Bible Camp, or if I'd completed my sentence and had convinced my Mom that I didn't need to go back. I spent most of that summer playing crappy Atari games and generally avoiding ... everything.

[MonCapitan2002]

So it looks like you blocked it all out.

[Moxy]

How about another?

Where were you in the fall of 1986?

[Crumb]

I was turning 10 years old in fourth grade, living in Hines, Oregon shortly after my parents had gotten divorced.

[Sock Puppet]

I was recovering from a foot injury I'd sustained over the summer, which kept me out of Berkeley for the fall semester. (Well, I could've gone; it's not like I was on a basketball scholarship, but I did need a surgery, and the whole incident went down during the time I would've been signing up for classes.) I'd started the previous semester, so I was technically a student there for 2 years before I actually took classes during a fall term.

[viscousmemories]

I turned 18 in the fall of 1986. My mom had kicked me out two years prior, so I was living in a rented room on campus (in Ann Arbor, Mi) and working on-again, off-again at a fast food restaurant. (On-again, off-again because as a result of walking out when I got fed up - and for other even less interesting reasons - I was fired and rehired 7-8 times over the course of that year).

As a consequence of my intermittent employment and fondness for drugs and alcohol, I wasn't paying my rent and was acquiring food by writing bad checks. I had recently taken and passed my G.E.D. exam, but in the two years since I had quit grade school I had lost interest in going to college. So, I enlisted in the US Army and moved back in with my mom until my activation in February, 1987.

[Leesifer]

I was 20 years old and probably still recovering from my holiday in Benidorm that summer.

[Legs]

Too many dang kids at ff
:oldlady: :larrow: Legs

[ceptimus]

In '86 I was working for a gauging company based in Warwick. I had a company car, so I'd sold my own Ford XR3i. I also owned a Yamaha FJ1200 motorbike, and I used to go to work on that, when possible, even though it meant paying for my own fuel and leaving the company car at home. Most weekends and holidays, I was spending my time at the Bidford Gliding club (or Avon Soaring Centre, as it was known then) flying gliders.

In the fall, a group of us from the gliding club went to fly gliders at Feshiebridge, in the scottish cairngorm mountains - we used to go there at that time of year as the weather conditions were favorable for producing the 'wave lift' phenomenon that allows gliders to fly much higher than usual (the current world record stands at over 50,000 feet (http://www.eaa.org/communications/eaanews/060831_fossett.html)). Of course, we didn't get that high in Scotland, but I made one flight over 15,000 feet, to get my Gold Height award.

[godfry n. glad]

Lessee...I completed my first year of marriage and was deleriously happy in that way. I was still working at Sunflower Recycling as a hauler/office manager, but I was making plans to go back to graduate school and get my teaching certificate.

My wife and I probably spent our free time stealing rocks from nearby state parks...to make garden pathways.

I probably planted my second rose that summer and started what was to become the garden at Ravenswood. It would have been the first year of the Somewhat Annual Ravenswood Invitational Half-Court Croquet Tournement.

It was a summer of lots of good times and smiles.

[Dingfod]

The Fall of 1986 started with us winning $100 worth of groceries at a local merchant sponsored Customer Appreciation picnic. It couldn't have come at a better time for us, we had been eating our freeze-dried food storage for about three months due to cutbacks in hours at work and some mistakes made in paying bills. Why we had a year's supply of freeze dried food on hand is a story in itself.

We were living in a small town in Southwest Colorado in the mobile home we had purchased in Wyoming. I had to be at work at 7:15 in the morning, but work was so close I didn't get up until 7:00, which still gave me enough time to stop at the store for lunch stuff before getting to the plant in time to be the one that unlocked the gate. I would get home from work about the same time as our daughter got home from school. My wife was working as a cook at the local cafe, working evenings until 10:00 PM or so.

My work schedule at the time had me off every other weekend, 10 days on, four off. We had a routine on my weekends off that had me getting up on Saturday mornings and making breakfast, pancakes, bacon and scrambled eggs, or ham and cheese omelets. Once we all had our breakfast, we would load up in the car which we had just leased, a 1986 Chrysler Laser Turbo, and drive the back way around to Telluride.

In Telluride, we would walk the quaint old mining town's main street and have a sandwich at a pub there. Then we would drive over Dallas Divide, through Ridgeway to Ouray Hot Springs to take a dip in the hot-warm-lukewarm waters of the developed springs. From there we would drive over Red Mountain Pass to Silverton.

In Silverton we would wander the town, looking at all the souvenir trinkets. We started a tradition then of buying a Xmas ornament from a store that specialized in Xmas decorations on each visit to Silverton. From Silverton, we would drive down to Durango to eat at the best Mexican place around, Francisco's. Their carne asada burrito was a tasty spicy treat.

After church on Sunday, we would often take a drive in the Land Cruiser, up to The Dolores River Overlook, have a picnic lunch. That evening I would make a pot of my world famous chili and some cornbread (out of the nitrogen-packed cans of cornmeal from the food storage).

Life was pretty good back in the Fall of 1986.

[viscousmemories]

Man, I can't remember yesterday with that level of detail.

[godfry n. glad]

1986 is a whole lot clearer than yesterday, son.

[Legs]

Interesting memories everyone :vibes: I'd like to hear more about that freeze dried food. :scratch:

Okay, 1986. I was 21 and living in Toronto where I rented 3 rooms in a house for 75.00 a week. The owner of the house, George, was a single Dad with a 10 year old son named Victor.

George began reducing my rent when I started looking after Victor & cooking for them both - it was a great arrangement, we were like a little nuclear family. This was the house that was haunted by Victor's grandmother and she let herself be known in several ways to me, but that's another story.

I was also working full time at a tour operator based in Malton, right by the airport. We offered package tours to the Caribbean/S. America as well as charter flights to the UK/Europe. I was able to travel often, ridiculously inexpensively so I took advantage of that and was frequently off on a trip somewhere, either for business or pleasure.

I remember the day the space shuttle Challenger exploded, I had heard voices outside my office talking about an explosion at take off and I thought they meant one of our charter flights. Then I turned on the radio and heard the news about Challenger.

[Julie]

The first Sunday of September 1986... (Fathers day in NZ)

it was the best of times.....

I was 9 years old and thats when we moved back to Canada from New Zealand (No knockin on NZ I'm a proud Kiwi...but I'm an even prouder Canadian....)

After 22 months and 7 days of living in NZ we came home. They had just brought in GST in New Zealand (and at something like a whopping 14%!) and the recession in BC was comming to an end...

My Dad had just turned 40 and for his 40th Mom bought him a ticket to go back to Vancouver for a visit and to see Expo. He was back in Vancouver for two weeks and the first words out of his mouth when he got back was "Pack up were moving home!" (Ha ha! We corrupted a good Kiwi boy to our Canadian ways!)

3 days later my Mom sold our house while Grocery shopping (No shitting!) and two weeks later we moved back home...not only back home but back to the same neighbourhood even.

Spent the next 7 days at Expo '86. Then back to school (Ahhh no summer vacation for us that year!)

It was terrible and awkward. In the 22 months and 7 days I lived in NZ I had picked up an accent, My clothing was COMPLEATLY different (and we couldn't afford new clothes for all of us) and I had been immersed in a vastly different culture. I was different. Differnt and friends at school do not mix.

My hair was cut in a Mullet.

NO one, EVER, should wear a mullet....especially a 9 year old girl.

It was the worst of times...

Fall of 86 was also the year I started getting cronic migranes (Hormone related not stress related) and was in essence when my life slowly started to fall apart.

[D. Scarlatti]

Man, I can't remember *yesterday* with that level of detail.

No shit. However, I have a document proving I was at the Kingswood Theater in Barrie, Ontario, on August 2, 1986.

[Legs]

NO one, EVER, should wear a mullet....especially a 9 year old girl.



:: we need a mullet smilie ::

:shudder:

[D. Scarlatti]

Oh sorry, Fall of '86. Another document shows I was at the Concert Hall in Toronto on November 9.

[Johnny Pneumatic]

In the Fall of '86 I wasn't even two yet, so I was doing the sorts of things that people who aren't even two yet do.

[Ymir's blood]

Fall of '86, I was a junior in high school. Sort of an in between period, just around the time I met my first real friends and things started opening up to a degree. Within a year's time, I went from a shy loner to an arrogant jerk with a trenchcoat and a bad attitude. Good times. :D

[Moxy]

In first and second grade, my mom sent me to catholic school. It sucked...even back then I hated wearing ties/uniforms. "Dressing up" if you will. Then, in the summer of '86, we moved to central NJ, and I finally got to go to a public school, where you didn't have to wear the same stupid thing every single day. That in itself was very exciting. I was 7, just about to turn 8.

The fall of '86 was third grade. Third grade was multiplication tables, some stuff with electricity, having my teacher actually dump out the contents of my desk on the floor in front of everyone because it was messy and I kept lying and telling her I couldn't find work I claimed I'd finished even though I hadn't, a weirdly obsessive project about France (which I also didn't bother to do even though we worked on it in class every day for like a month), and a big pizza party. I don't think we'd gotten to run-on sentences yet. But, good times had by all. Well except for the desk incident, I'm pretty sure I sat on the floor crying like a little bitch, but it's an ok story now.

[Kevlar]

I turned 18 in the Fall of 86, and started college at Tennessee Technological University. I had gone to a private Baptist school, and was raised by very strict Christian parents, so the college life was quite and eye opener for me. The first week there, I went to all the pre-rush frat parties, and found out how much I really liked beer and weed. I also remember going to see "Ferris Beuller's Day Off", and laughing so hard I nearly passed out. It was more than just a comedy to me though, I really related to his sense of freedom, and I felt like Ferris was talking directly to me.

Little did I know, that would be the best week of college for me, after that things just started spiraling out of control. By the end of the year, I was flunking school, my parents had kicked me out of the house, and I was living with a biker chick who got me talking to an Army recruiter.

[viscousmemories]

I was "fortunate enough" (though I use the term loosely) to discover frat parties in my early teens. I'd just walk in the door, alone or with a friend, push my way through the crowd to the keg and start filling up. Nobody ever asked who I was or what I was doing there, probably too drunk to care or assuming I was the kid brother of one of the house brothers. From what I understand that's virtually impossible nowadays, what with strict regulations on campus parties.

[biochemgirl]

Fall of '86 I was 4 years old playing with all the different animals my mom and dad raised and considering it would have been harvest, spending most of the time at the grain elevator my parents ran.

[Joshua Adams]

I still wasn't born in 86. But at least my parents were married for this one. God I hate you all.

[quiet bear]

Ok, quiet bear -- you started this question and it's had some great mileage and results, so I'm gonna stick with it. Summer of 1981, where were you?




Sorry for the delay folks, I unexpectedly had toleave town for a few days and head downstate.


In the summer of 1981, I was 17 years old, and had just finished my junior year of high school. I had my first car, a 1973 Monte Carlo. Got about 6 miles to the gallon, but man, I looked good. I worked at the Tastee Freeze to pay for gas. (insurance was an unknown thing to me). I had a girlfriend, Lisa, and we played Journey's Escape and REO Speedwagon's Hi Infidelity all that summer in the tape deck. A good summer for me.


Ok, for everyone, but specifically the younger crowd:

Julie....winter of 1997....where were you?

[Cynical-Chick]

Summer of '81.. I wasn't born.
Summer of '86.. I wasn't quite yet 2.


:unskip:

[Julie]

Julie....winter of 1997....where were you?

I was 20. I had just started dateing a new Guy that summer. We had been togeather a whopping 3 1/2 months when we discovered we were pregnant. Right around winter time is when I found out I had lost the baby. I had to have a D&C done. Ended up with complications, depression being the major one. I spent that christmas curled up on the couch in horrible pain, physically and mentally and just watched everyone open their presents.

All in all it was the worst winter of my life.


*edited to add* It was in hindsight ok, it was what cemented Mikey and I as a couple. It made us realise that we did want to be togeather, that we did want to have kids togeather, and that we did want to have them when we were young. It took us untill the next september to get pregnant again....the results of which is lieing on the living room floor watching a show abouts aliens as I type this :)

[California Tanker]

Autumn 1986? I was all of 11 years old, and just moved to Waterloo, Belgium.

NTM

[Ymir's blood]

'97 was the year my life completely fell apart. For the several years previous, I had been trying to make myself more normal, thinking it was the only way I could ever find happiness. It failed miserably and by the winter of that year, I was in the midst of the worst depression of my life. However, it was ultimately the turning point as well. I spent the next few years as a hermit, but also began to deal with the demons that had haunted me and one by one overcame them. If I hadn't fallen apart so completely, it would have been impossible to have done that.

[Dingfod]

Winter of 1997, I bought a 1977 Ford Fiesta for $200 with the intention of fixing it up for our eldest daughter who was to turn 16 in the Spring. I never did get around to getting it street legal, so I bought her a 1988 Hyundai Excel. Excel, a misnomer if there ever was one. Actually, the little Korean car ran quiet as a Toyota, despite having 118,000 miles on it.

Younger daughter, Roxy, and her friend Alex started soccer practice while the snow was still on the ground in early March. Alex's dad was the coach. Roxy and I went ice skating at Murray Park outdoor rink quite a few times, but Salt Lake County had just completed a new indoor facility in Magna, no further away than Murray Park, so we went there often. Either one, we could combine with a stop for dinner at La Puente or La Frontera (same thing, really) restaurants for smothered burritos with cheese.

Also, during that last winter of my personal mobility (the next one I spent with a cast on my left leg), I spent a lot of time cross-country skiing at Brighton, up Big Cottonwood Canyon out of Salt Lake City. It was not unusual for me to do 11 or 12 kilometers in an outing, but most of the time it was probably around 5 km. I recall working up such a sweat I was down to my long-sleeved t-shirt even when the temperatures were subzero, and keeping a hat on my head was out of the question, too damn hot.

I passed the five year mark at my job. This meant I was vested in the retirement plan and was fully eligible for long term disability insurance. The division of the company I worked for passed it's five year anniversary too, marked by parties, plaques, crystal momentos, and jackets denoting "Five Years, a Hell of a Ride on The Pipeline From Hell."

[MonCapitan2002]

Julie....winter of 1997....where were you?

I was 20. I had just started dateing a new Guy that summer. We had been togeather a whopping 3 1/2 months when we discovered we were pregnant. Right around winter time is when I found out I had lost the baby. I had to have a D&C done. Ended up with complications, depression being the major one. I spent that christmas curled up on the couch in horrible pain, physically and mentally and just watched everyone open their presents.

All in all it was the worst winter of my life.


*edited to add* It was in hindsight ok, it was what cemented Mikey and I as a couple. It made us realise that we did want to be togeather, that we did want to have kids togeather, and that we did want to have them when we were young. It took us untill the next september to get pregnant again....the results of which is lieing on the living room floor watching a show abouts aliens as I type this :)

I feel :cry: about what happened in the first pregnancy. I am happy that the two of you sayed together, though. You should have your kid watch Avatar: The Last Airbender. It is an awesome cartoon. Nickelodeon will have a re-airing of a major two part episode some time this evening.

[mindbender]

Summer of '81... I was conceived (circa. July 12, 1981).
Summer of '86... I was four years old, doing things four year olds do like playing with my toys, watching kiddie programs, swimming in our pool, pestering my big brother, etc.
Summer of '97... I was fifteen years old. I had just found the WWW and was thrilled.

[cappuccino]

We're the same age, mindbender.

Summer of '81 - not born yet but presumbly conceived sometime in August
Summer of '86 - four years old and living in Italy for the summer.
Winter of '97 - my first high school freshman semester :yup: I was either nonexistent or a little squirt when you were out on your grand adventures.

[Adam]

Damn, dingfod, how the hell do you remember that much?

Summer of 81, I was five, living in northwest Indiana with my mom, grandparents, aunt, and uncle. Or my uncle may have moved out by summer, I don't quite recall. We moved from a part of Gary (it hadn't become the murder capital of the US yet, but it was on its way) to Portage in December 1980, and he lived with us less than a year after the move, but I don't remember exactly when he moved out.

Summer of 86, I was ten, and would have been between fourth and fifth grade, but I don't recall a damn thing about that year that's significant. Mom and dad were married by then, and we were living in an apartment about three miles from my grandparents' place, which is really the place I still thought of as home. The odd thing is, I was really into baseball at the time, so the first thing that leaps to my mind for each year in the mid 80's is what the baseball cards from that year looked like. 86's Topps set had a large black band at the top with the team name in block text.

Sumer of 97, hmmm...I'd gotten married in May and we were living in our first apartment. I had also just begun my first IT job, as the IT director at the company I was doing data entry for found out that I knew how to code and moved me from data entry to his department.

[quiet bear]

For us old timers:


1974 (any time of the year)


anyone can join in

[viscousmemories]

I had also just begun my first IT job, as the IT director[...]
I had to read that sentence twice before I realized your first job wasn't IT director. :giggle:

[Widget]

For us old timers:


1974 (any time of the year)


anyone can join in


Leaving behind my bride of 3 days I found myself zooming my way from the UK to someplace in Canada, to work for a paper mill manufacturing company, within six months I moved to the automotive industry doing engineering and R&D.
The bride(now Ex) arrived a few weeks later, likely the worst x-mas we have ever had (an experience to remember, never to be re-lived or forgotten) it improved from then on.

[Legs]

74 - I was 9 1/2 and my parents took me to Florida for the first time.

We drove in a van/sleeper kind of deal and I had my period. My sister was angry at me - she was a few years older and just got her period too. She said I was copying :brooding:

In Florida we went went to Disney World - for the afternoon :brooding:

I saw the Contemporary Hotel and wanted to stay there instead of the van at a KOA campground. The answer was :nojustno:

We went to the Magic Kingdom and did Carousel of Progress, Country Bear Jamboree and It's a small world - my parents didn't want to do any of the fast rides. We went out to the parking lot to have sandwiches and tea for lunch - it was 800 degrees in the van.

Back inside the park I asked for an icecream and bought from a cart what I thought was an ice cream dipped in chocolate. It was a frozen :sadnana: and an abomination of nature. I refused to eat it and my parents got mad at me. I carried this thing around crying as the chocolate coating cracked and slid off the hideous banana underneath. :lonely:

Lets just say my trips to Disney have VASTLY improved since then.

:pooh::piglet::tigger::eeyore::rabbit:

[Beth]

In the summer of 1974 I turned one.

[Moxy]

Summer of '97...my first summer off after freshman year in college. Worked for a moving company, one of the worst jobs ever. Also played some baseball, but after a couple games broke my finger on a headfirst slide when i was taking third on a passed ball...effectively ending my baseball career. I probably should have kept playing, but I was young, and listened to the dr. for some reason. Spent a lot of nights drinking beers, something I'd recently discovered I really like.

'74? Nope, not yet.

[Dingfod]

In May of 1974, I graduated high school with a 2.97 GPA (4 years of never doing homework). I didn't know then what I wanted to become. I still don't. My friend Greg's dad offered to get me a job at the ammonia plant in our old Texas Panhandle hometown, but recommended I give college a try first. Greg went to Texas Tech, got a degree in electrical engineering and has had a long career with TUGCO.

My summer that year was spent doing the same thing I had for the previous two summers, working for a custom wheat harvester in North-central Oklahoma, Northwestern Kansas, and Northeastern Colorado, driving a combine harvester and wheat trucks.

After wheat harvest, I enrolled at a small junior college in North Central Oklahoma, taking 17 credit hours while working a 45 hour a week job Monday through Friday at a gas station/grocery store, and delivering pizza on the weekends. Eventually, I was failing so badly at school that I dropped all my classes before finals so they should show up as a "W" on my transcript rather than an "F". But, hey, I had money all the time and paid my own way at college.

I turned 19 that October, to no fanfare at all. It was not a remarkable age, as 21 was legal age for males in Oklahoma (18 for females). All a junior college fellow had to do was get their girlfriends to buy their beer. Unfortunately, I had no girlfriend that year, except for Dana the Lesbian and Marcia the Geek, and both of them passed through my life during that last semester of high school.

[Shelli]

I was entering my first semester of college in 1986.

ETA: I missed a whole page it seems. Oops. :doh:

[godfry n. glad]

Summer of '74:

I was between my third and fourth years in college. I took a job working swing shift at a plating factory. I ran the zinc plating line, off-loading clean, plated parts and onloading greasy, dirty unplated parts. The parts were mostly for connector clamps on irrigation equipment.

I stood as master of the line, which included a number of fiberglass tanks, each filled with a number of solutions, toxic and not. The line consisted of a number of hanger bars upon which various items could be hung for plating. Each rank of hanger bars was about twelve feet long, four foot high and a foot wide. Once one of this was set in front of me, I had to unload all the items on it, then reload new items to be plated. While I was doing this, the line, run by a continuous punchcard program, shuffled around the other ten or so hanger bars through the multiple tanks...Hot water, air, caustic soda solution, hot water, nitric acid solution, water, water, plating tank with electrodes and plating solution of dog knows what (it held about six hanger bars at once).

Occasionally, something would go awry. I had to stop the machine and then go out to where the hangers had come off the bars, with all the pieces and extract hangers, pieces and all from all tanks. Yes, that includes the caustic soda, nitric acid and sulphuric acid. There was enough room to step between each tank, especially with a handhold on the overhead power cable. One had to take the rake with you and rake pieces of metal out of the solution.

Fun.

I remember watching a thunderstorm roll in over the West Hills and lightening strike the transformer on the edge of the parking lot during lunch break.

[godfry n. glad]

Fall of 1986 I was working in the library and taking classes for my teacher certification.

[Dingfod]

I remember watching a thunderstorm roll in over the West Hills and lightening strike the transformer on the edge of the parking lot during lunch break.How did that work? Did the transformer suddenly become a lot less heavy?

Oh... you meant lightning.

Nevermind.

[godfry n. glad]

I remember watching a thunderstorm roll in over the West Hills and lightening strike the transformer on the edge of the parking lot during lunch break.How did that work? Did the transformer suddenly become a lot less heavy?

Oh... you meant lightning.

Nevermind.

Twit.

:fsm:

[Dingfod]

You know you would've done the same for me.

[godfry n. glad]

Oh, indeed. Niggling prigs with clenched sphincters flock together.

Plus, you've adopted the Flying Spaghetti Monster as your sig. That speaks volumes without saying a word. You're touched. I'm touched. I requested that smiley.

:fsm:

[Sweetie]

Summer of '81... I was three. My Mom tried to make me feel bad for peeing the bed around this time, and made a big deal about putting a diaper on me. Her boyfriend of a few years at this time, gave me some really good advice. Go to the bathroom before you go to bed. It worked......mostly. The times it didn't, I was just real smart and made my bed up all nice in the morning. :innocent:

I think I was three. Yes, in fact, I have a pic of me with my fourth birthday cake living at the same place. :chin: My Mom's one friend had a daughter named "Jolene". Unfortunately for her, there was a popular song out there, country, at that time. "Jolene, Jolene, Jolene......Jesus loves you more than you will know......" or whatever. They used to bug her with it, drove her nuts. :D

I've had a few bad dreams from around that time. My Mom's room use to flood, I had a dream a few years ago about it, water, bedroom, drowning. :shrug:

Summer of '86... I was seven. Moved to my now family home with my step-dad. My Mom had us working our ass off in a massive garden. Like, fucking half an acre. Nah man, we moved in summer of '85, I remember learning that it was '84-'85 school year in gr. 1 at my old school, and then we moved.

Whatever, lol! The next summer my Mom still had us working on a massive ass garden. :(

Summer of '97...I was 19. I got married in April, had a one and a half year old. Had a miscarriage in April, was down in the summer, my baby was supposed to have been born at the end of October. However, after the two months of healing the doctor recommended, or just the recommendation not to try to conceive for two months, we had fun attempting in July and August. Was glad not to be pregnant that summer, it was hot I think.

Lived in an apartment, fucking hot apartment at that. I think I had just discovered my favorite book series, Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, it's the best. Spent a lot of time daydreaming.

:shrug:

[Crumb]

Was her name Jolene Robinson? :eyebrow2: