Sandy, Patty, and My Golden Childhood

When I was a kid, I grew up in a small California town. It's now a HUGE California town. I feel bad for the kids growing up there now. It's nothing like it was when I was young, and they will never know the joys of leaving your house in the morning and not coming home until dark, being busy and having fun all day long with just your imagination and your friends. Getting dirty playing on 'The Hill", or in one of the many citrus orchards - that was a joy! I played with our neighbors, the Shisler's and later, the Snead's, but my best childhood friend was Sandy Noon.

Sandy and I both had somewhat unique situations in our families. She was the youngest child in a single-parent family, and while I had a more traditional two parent family, my mom worked outside the home which at the time was not traditional. What that meant to us both was that we had very little parental supervision during the day. We were basically good kids, though, and rarely got into significant trouble.

We had other friends who came and went to our little group, but I think the most constant person would have been Patty Kindred. Patty lived catty-corner from Sandy's house and had a younger sister named Margaret. She had an at-home mom and a working dad. Patty's dad was significantly older than her mom - 24 years older as I recall. I remember him as being a grandfather type and jolly. I remember her mom often sitting on the lawn in the front yard pulling weeds. The lawn was a dichondra lawn which is  rather like a clover lawn, so it didn't need mowing, but weeding was a must and Dora (Patty's mom) did so - often. Patty also had a cool playhouse in her back yard. I loved that playhouse and wanted one of my own.

Sandy had an older sister Pamela, and a brother Jimmy. Jimmy was exactly one year older than Sandy and they shared a birthday, which I always thought was cool since I shared a birthday with my twin brother David.  I remember that Jimmy had some anger issues and often beat the garbage out of Sandy. She took it fairly well, but I found that I tried to avoid him whenever possible. Pamela was enough older that I really had little interaction with her.

Another thing about Sandy's home that was different from mine was that it was ALWAYS clean. Sandy and her siblings had chores that they had to do every day like dusting and vacuuming while her mom was at work so when her mom came home the house was clean and tidy. Our house in comparison was not clean and rarely tidy. When Sandy's chores were done we could play, so sometimes I helped her. It was a foreign concept to me, since I had no assigned responsiblities in my own home.

Sandy's house had a large den or rumpus room at the rear. We spent many hours playing that it was our 'apartment' and we were young professional secretaries. That was the ultimate job in our eyes back in those days. There was also a phone (not installed, so it didn't actually work) that we played with often. I'm sure it helped hone my improvisation skills later because we would carry on long conversations with the 'person' on the other end of the line. As we grew older some of our first boy-girl parties took place in that room.

Sandy's mom remarried and the family moved away when we were young teens. I was devastated. We kept in contact for a few years and Sandy was one of my bridesmaids when I got married, but time and family got in the way and we lost contact. The last time I saw Sandy she had stopped by our apartment in San Luis Obispo (Bruce was a student at Cal Poly) with her young son, Nathan. She had recently been divorced and was heading north in a station wagon with a trailer. At that time I had two small children and was busy raising them.

I had tried to find her over the years with no luck. I tried computer searches, plus I didn't know what her last name was anymore. Long story short...we reconnected a few month's ago via Facebook. It turned out that she lived about 30 miles away from me in Oregon and had been there for many years! It was so amazing meeting again after all these years! We've kept in contact and try to get together every week or so. It was like finding my long-lost sister! I love her and cherish our time together.

Oh yeah...I'm supposed to title these things...

I've been spending a few days with my son Steve's kids while he and Beth are visiting my younger son Kevin and his family in Texas. It's been fun. The kids pretty much take care of themselves, so my main use here is to sign for an emergency room visit, should that occur. It has not.

I went to granddaughter Pierre's music program at school the other day. I was surprised to find that she is among the minority. Most of the kids in her class are of Indian or Asian descent. I guess that the main reason for that is that this is the Silicon Valley and since computers and tech are a world-wide business it would make sense. It's much different from the California I grew up in. Different isn't bad, it's just...different. (I'm so deep sometimes...)

Last night Maddie, Pierre, Ceddy and I went to the local college planetarium. It was a program aimed at  kids, but I still enjoyed it. When we came outside after the program was over we were able to identify Orion's belt, Jupiter and of course the full moon. It was a good program and I'm glad we went. Wills opted out, choosing instead to spend the afternoon with a friend at a horror movie. Yuck.

I'll be heading back to the great northwest on Tuesday morning, then off to the coast to take care of my library duties. I've got my library work down to a science. It takes me about an hour and a half to find 13 pages of books, movies, recorded books, cd's, etc. When the list is larger it takes more time, but since this is the 'off' season, 13 pages is about the norm.

A big deal in my life is my new hearing aids. I've known for several years that I needed them, but since I don't have much control of the finances in the family, it was put on a back burner. It finally got so bad that I would explain to anyone new that I came in contact with "I'm deaf, so if I respond inappropriately to something you've said, assume I didn't hear it correctly." I found that I was avoiding people a great deal and trying not to make eye contact with anyone, lest they make a comment that I wouldn't hear. In the rare cases that that happened I would just smile and nod. One really annoying thing for my husband was when I would startle when he would suddenly be in front of me. What he didn't realize was, I didn't hear any of the 'hints' that a hearing person hears, like the rustle of air, or footsteps approaching. All of a sudden he would just be there in front of me and I would startle. He got angry and said "I live here, too!" Well then make a little more noise so I can hear you, buster!

I think I'm coming out of my shell a little since I'm now among the hearing again. I don't avoid things nearly as much as I did. The HA's are still being fine tuned, but I'm getting used to them. Now when I take them off it seems like someone has put both hands over my ears to muffle the sound. I'm amazed at how loud I used to have the tv volume! They aren't perfect - there are still things I miss, but it's SO much better than it was. I'm amazed that people don't mumble nearly as much as I thought they did!

OK...that's enough for now. Later, skaters...

Yikes! It's been over a year since I posted on my blog. My brother Jim points that out to me from time to time, but I just didn't seem to be able to get my act together. I read my last post and it looks like I owe some wedding pictures, but since it's been so long I think I'll just write a little and try to get back in the groove...

Kerry and Jordan's wedding was over a year ago so as is often the case...a new baby is on the way! Kerrick James Kerr (as of this writing anyway) is due on or about April 1, 2013. We are all very excited since we haven't had a new baby in the family for 7 years. I can't wait to get my hands on the little bugger.

The kids grow up way too fast! Ben is 13 years old today, and stands about 5'10" and still growing. Fast.

Bruce works more hours than ever and travels nearly as much now as he did 20 years ago. As for me, I spend most of my time working on crafts or the computer. I volunteer at the Lincoln City Library once a week, and also at the Willamette Heritage Center as a docent. I've been doing both those things for several years now. I'm alone much of the time, but my kids try to keep me busy with projects for them. This year I recovered a chair for Kerry which was fun. Strangely enough it ended up back at my house because of lack of room at their house. It's o.k. because it looks lovely in my living room in Salem. I now have its companion chair that I need to recover, so that is an upcoming project.

I'm using a MacBookPro that my son has loaned me so I'm having a bit of a challenge learning to do things the Mac way. It'll be fine I think.

Aha! I figured out how to add pictures. This is the chair I re-did. Since I can add pictures with the Mac I'll add some wedding pics to the next post. I need to download them from my iPad.

Until next time...