grandma made most of my clothes until i was in about 4th grade. hardly ever did i have a store bought dress or shirt or jeans. she made my clothes because it was cheaper than buying them but at the time i remember thinking how weird it was for people to buy clothes. why didn't their grandma make their clothes? i didn't understand.

she worked for many years in springfield at a place that is no longer in existence on the square called turners. she was a seamstress there in the lingere department and took care of the special needs of women who had not been treated kindly by the force of gravity as they chronologically advanced. i'm not sure how long she worked there but i remember when i was a little kid and we'd go downtown on the bus (which was a special treat) everyone on the street and in the store knew her. she was like a celebrity or something i thought. then we would go over to buck morton's pharmacy for a real fountain coke. those were special days.

now turners is gone and buck morton's is a silk screening place. and grandma's gone too.

i want you to know this about my grandpa....
grandpa, here again talking about my mom's dad, was a very somber-seeming person. he was a gardener and a good cook they say, but i preferred my grandma's cooking. he did a lot of things for a living. the only thing we have documented in photographic form is him as the deputy sherrif for greene county missouri. i remember him saying that he worked in a candy factory (he hated candy as a result), he farmed, and i'm not sure where my grandparents got all their money but they were quite well off but i never realized it growing up. he was raised in mississippi and had an older brother harry and a younger sister, goldie. i don't know much more about him unfortunately.

he died when mom's third, now exhusband monte lee "pete" hunter murdered him in our house. grandpa was in the bathtub and pete held his head underwater until he drowned. grandpa never wanted an autopsy after he saw what they did to grandma so the cause of death was attributed to "died of a short illness" but i knew better though i'll not share my reasons how i know but i do know for an undisputed fact that my grandpa was murdered in our house.

the countries of my ancestory are.....
my grandma's parents were from england and germany
my grandpa's parents were from prussia

tv shows i enjoyed when i was a kid were.....
i loved sesame street! it was my all time favorite. character was oscar the grouch -- i could really identify with him on some level! *L* i also liked super grover. he was funny!

beyond sesame street, i liked the electric company, zoom, and my favorite cartoon was fat albert and the cosby kids. i thoght that black people were only on tv, they weren't real so when i actually saw a black person, i was freaked out. it was like seeing a real unicorn or something!

when i got a little older, there came a fellow named "dudley doo-right" of the royal canadian mounted police. i was obsessed. from that point on, dudley was who i enjoyed watching most. being a fickle child wasn't easy you know!

in the afternoons after school is used to......
practice my piano. that's all i was allowed to do and then when i was finished, i got to do my homework and then if there was still any light left outside, i could go out and play. at the time i hated it but little did i know that it would give me discipline when i got to be an adult so i would prioritize hat i needed to do.

games i liked to play as a child were.....
monopoly was my all time favorite and i have still not lost a game!

people described me as a child in this way....
well behaved. i remember that people used to always say that about me when mom and i would go somewhere. "my, she certainly is well behaved" they would say with me right there like i was the family dog and couldn't speak english. i always hated that. but i was well behaved because if i hadn't been, i wouldn't be typing this right now! mom would have absolutely killed me!

the pets i had growing up were....
all kitties except for one stupid dog. the first kitty i remember was fluffy. he was called fluffy because....he was fluffy! mom was always really original with our pet names. while we had fluffy, bob le duc got a stupid dog named tippy who liked to pee on things so he got to live outside. i used to try to ride him like a horse because he was big, but i got in trouble for it when bob le duc was around! after grandma and grandpa moved to rolla, we had to get rid of the animals and i was sad that we couldn't keep fluffy.

my best friend during childhood was.....
this is a multi-person response. one of my best friends was our next door neighbour, paula potter. she was 6 years older than me but we used to run amok together and play together. she had all kinds of cool toys. my other best friend was kara mitchell. she and her little sister leah were adopted by the mitchells who owned the local bank. mom always thought kara's parents were snooty, but they were always nice to me. kara and i met in first or second grade and stayed best friends until i left rolla in forth grade. some years later when i was attneding smsu, i ran into her again and golly had she changed! when she was little she used to be really cute but time was not her friend.
and in fourth grade there was bridget bogan. she was cool. her mom was one of those home school people with bridget's brothers but she got to go to public school. we stayed friends until we drifted apart after junior high. we used to keep in touch writing letter and things but after awhile the letters stopped coming and i quite writing too. when last i knew of her, she was studying architecture at lawrence kansas.
in springfield, it was lee ann davidson. we used to go everywhere and do things. she was a lot of fun and we used to laugh a lot. after she got married, we don't really communicate anymore.
and then there is my friend patricia. we met in junior high and didn't really get to know each other too well until high school. it was our inherent love of bargain hunting that brought us together i think. we're still reelatively close and she has married a nice man, jim who i also consider to be a close friend.

i was generally popular because....
i was always very outgoing and friendly. in grade school in rolla, i was in the popular crowd and knew no other way of life. when we moved to springfield all that changed. it took me until high school to move out of the "b" group and into the "a" group. it's funny when you look back and that all seemed to be the most important thing in the whole world.

i remember these birthday parties...
when i was in kindergarten or first grade mom threw a big birthday party for me. it was like 10 girls and she made me invite 2 boys, per askland and harold german. i didn't like harold but i had to invite him so per wouldn't feel ackward mom said. it was circus themed and we still have the little animals from on top of the cake (believe it or not). it was pretty fun. we had games and prizes and of course, presents!
the next birthday part i had after that was after we went to live with my grandparents and it was small. there was the new next door neighbour, sandra hancock, leigh nichols from up the street, stephanie farmer from across the street, dawn finn from up the street and bridget bogan. i don't remmeber a lot of what we did but i remember i didn't have to invite any boys and i was happy about that!

i had a childhood crush on this person.....
in retrospect i think it probably was a crush that i had on michelle matukewitz. she was a transfer student in fourth grade and i really liked her the moment i saw her and wanted to be her friend. we were school friends but i don't remmeber doing anything outside of school with her.

i really enjoyed this grade in elementary school....
it had to be fourth grade in rolla. i was at the height of my popularity and had lots and lots of friends. my teacher was mrs. snow and she introduced me to something i liked and could easily understand (at the time).....science! we got to do experiments and draw them. i loved that class!
the only elementary grade i liked after that was sixth grade because i had a few friends finally in springfield. mostly it was because of my teacher, mrs. billie hornback. she was really cool and reminded me of my second grade teacher, mrs. heintz.

i didn't really like junior high because......
my grandma has just died before seventh grade. having been the most important person in my life up until that point, it was difficult to handle and i still don't quite know how to handle her being gone. so i was miserable and depressed a lot of the time which made me loads of fun to be around.
eighth grade was better. i was putting grandma's death beind me a little and grandpa helped with that by moving in with us. i enjoyed having him there. apparently pete didn't feel that way.

my most memorable teachers in high school were.....
i would have to say that miss debusk, although i didn't like her and the feeling was mutual, is memorable just because i only saw her wear the same pair of shoes twice and it took her 2 years to do it. that really sticks out in my memory!
my favorite teachers were mr. bob holden who taught band and mrs. strube who retired after my freshman year of choir. she was a tough old bird, but she'd either make a heck of a singer out of you, or you'd leave the program altogether. kind of like the military of choir directors but she was good and knew her stuff. she was replaced by barbara bishop buffington banta who was a lot fo fun but not nearly as stern.

when i was very young i thought i would be a......when i grew up.....
believe it or not, i wanted to be a nuclear physicist. why? because they make lots of money and it's an important sounding job! i wanted to also study the phenomen of human spontaneous combustion. i was a pretty weird kid i suppose.

i began gong to college......
while i was in my junior year of high school because i wanted to get college over and done with. i wasn't sure what i wanted to do so i went into music at first. i took 3 years of music and then i dropped out for about two years and when i returned to school at drury college, i had no clue what i wanted to do with my life. so i found out about this place on campus called the career center where i went to take a battery of tests and things to determine what i would be most well suited to do. the repsonse came up overwhelmingly in favor of graphic design. i've done it ever since and am very happy in my career.

one of my strongest college memories is....
from biology. the night before biology my "little brother" james and i got very trashed at a fraternity party at his frat which was right across the street from the biology building at drury. i was so drunk i passed out and wound up staying the night there. unfortunately the next day in biology was fetal pig day. i got up late and ran nausea-ously across the street and up the three flights of stairs to the biology class only to have to run for the trash can and puke right in front of the whole class. it was so embarassing! i was so obviously hung over it wasn't even funny (at least not to me at the time) and the stench of the formaldahyde definitely triggered my reverse gear in my tummy!

this is how i got to school in elementary school.....
i had to walk up hill both ways to school. no really! we lived at the bottom of a hill and the school was between another hill when we lived in rolla. once we moved to springfield, the lady caddy corner across the street used to take me. in junior high, lee ann's dad used to take me and then when i finally go a car in high school, i took her until she got her car.

my first job for pay was.....
technically it was baby-sitting for this lady named nancy. she had two little kids, tara and danny and they were a handful! beyond that, i go tmy first "real" job at cinema six at the battlefield mall. i served concessions for $2.85/hour, which was student wage at the time. i quit when they accused me of taking $10 from the drawer when it came up short. i told them if i were going to steal, it would have to be a lot more money than just $10, i'd have to be able to live off of it for the rest of my life in some foreign country. after that i got a job at ktts being the fair girl and handing out fans at the fair. it was easy and paid well at the time. after that, i worked at taco bell for about a month. i hated it and one day i slipped and fell and sliced open my arm. it was pretty gnarly looking and i still have the scar. my manager had to drive me to the emergency room at springfield community hospital which was the closest one at the time. ater that i worked in phone sales where i was very good at being one of those annoying people who call during dinner to ask you if you want to buy siding, magazines, tickets to the policemen's ball, etc. at some time in here i worked wih my mom for this evil little man named bill viles. (the name says it all) at b.j.'s trophy shop. that didn't last long and i soon went to work at k-mart being the assistant manager of the deli. it too was a suck job but it made me want more from life so i went to work in ava, mo at this nursing home and i got a little experience and then got a job in springfield and that's what sparked the whole medical career.

i remember this about my mom's job(s) growing up.....
i remember when my mom first got a job after i was born. we lived in rolla (at 43 green acres drive) and she went to work for wal-mart. they were new in town and i was about 6 and in the first grade. she worked for probably the nicest man in the whole world to work for, larry francis. she did the cash report there and really seemed to enjoy her work. when we moved to springfield, she worked as the district manager's "girl friday" more or less. she went around the area and helped stores get their accounting systems set up and things like that but it was short lived. they eliminated the position and she went back into the cash office. after 13 years with wal-mart, she quit to "retire" and it took 3 people to replace her. i was really proud of that.

i remember this about my dad's job(s) growing up....
i remember he was always moving every few years and getting a new job. the first job i can clearly remember him having was in brownsville texas where i think he worked for zenith. then he moved to paris illinois where i have no idea what he did but he wan't there long until he moved to marion indiana where he worked for several years. then it was off to this little town, baxter springs, kansas where he worked for ace electric. now he is living in republic, mo and working for diversified plastics.

i disliked this work responsibility growing up but it has helped me later in life...
actualy it's the combination of things. when i was 5 my mom started making me make my own bed and pick up after myself. that was my responsibility and if i didn't do it, i got in trouble and didn't get any allowance. as i grew up, my household responsibiities grew and the same rules applied. as an adult i think that really helped me see tha value of helping out and maintaining a nice house. as an adult i can definitely see the value in helping out..... difinitely!

this is what war meant to me growing up....
i rememeber we were driving to springfield to see grandma and grandpa and i asked mom if when we went over the next hill if we were in any danger of getting shot or bombed. she asked why on earth i would think that. i told her i heard a man on tv say that the us was at war with vietnam and i wondered if vietnam was going to get us. she said that there was no way they could but i didn't think she knew what she was talking about because if we could get them, certainly tey could get us. i didn't know that there were such things as "third world countries" then.

i liked this kind of music growing up......
i remember watching the "porter wagner and dolly parton show" and thinking that if he'd just shut up and let her sing, it would be better. aside from that, i liked the popular music of the time. one of my favorite songs was by blondie, "rapture" -- i loved to roller skate to that. as i grew up, my musical tastes didn't change differently than the times did. my favorite music is still what i listened to in high school -- yes, 80's music. i like some of what's out there today but if i have a preference, it's 80's music.

describe where you lived growing up.....
well... it's a complicated story and one filled with lotsa moving around but here it goes...
when i was born we lived in a trailer in springfield, missouri. it's in the trailer park across the street from sam's on sunshine until i was about two. knowing that the gods do not like the nomadic spirit (where do the tornadoes hit first?) it wasn't long until my parents divorced and we moved next to my grandparents on rogers, also still in springfield. we had a little house next to theirs and rented it from i don't know who. i spent a lot of time at grandma and grandpa's. it was always nicer there for some reason. at some point while we lived there, mom met some guy named bob le duc and shortly thereafter they got married and that's when the moving really started. we moved to st. robert and lived in a trailer there too. there were huge (well, to a litle kid they were huge) black angus cattle behind the trailer. i remember we spent one christmas there but don't remember much else about being there. from there we moved to 43 green acres drive in rolla, missouri. we stayed there until bob le duc was beating the shit outta my mom too much for her to be able to stand it so they got divorced, edna sumner (our landlady who was the biggest bitch this side of the mississippi) raised our rent -- after all, what a disgrace at the time to have a divorced woman and her daughter living in her rental house. so she raised the rent to $150/month. we had to move so my grandparents sold their house in springfield and moved to rolla to be with us and to help mom raise me. we got a house at 415 hutchison drive in rolla. we stayed there until after i was in 4th grade and in the summer before 5th grade we moved into an apartment in springfield. grandma and grandpa moved also to springfield and lived in a small duplex not far from us. it wasn't long after that that my grandpa bought us a house in springfield on west whiteside. so before i started 5th grade, we got all settled in and then fifth grade began. that's where i lived throught high school. beyond that, it gets a little more complicated but i moved out and lived in an apartment in what used to be the servants quarters in an old house in springfield on mt. vernon street. after that i moved into a different apartment behind dillions on sunshine and stayed there for quite awhile. that was the party house. i had so many parties there it wasn't even funny! there were many mornings i got up to the stench of old cigaretes and beer in the carpet squishing beheath my feet. (ew!) during this time i sowed some wild oats and lived in a variety of places. eventually i moved back in with my mom to save money to move to chicago. i never made it to chicago. instead i moved to st. louis where i stayed for five years, and pretty much in the same apartment complex. then i got a wild hair up my but and moved to washington state to everett and that's where i am still. so far anyway......

the clothing fashions of my childhood were:
well it's difficult to describe. my grandma made most of my clothes for me when i was little but was always very careful to keep me in style. remember i was a kid inthe 70's so everything that's "totally in" right now in 1999 was in in the 1970's. a frightening thing to wake up and realize.

for awhile i thought i would marry this person, but didn't....
gee that's a complicated story. and one that will perhaps be told at a later date.

my first serious romance was with...."
steve gooch. and boy am i glad it is over! we were together from my sophmore year of high school until i was almost 21. then i discovered something wonderful about myself and my first serious romance was with a young lady. we were together from when i was 20 until i was 25. we then went our seperate ways and i moved to st. louis. she got married to a man who used to beat the shit outta her. isn't that nice?

i regretably lost touch with this family member after we grew up.....
i have a cousin cathy who got married my sophmore year of college but i had a concert i had to be at and couldn't go. so i didn't get to see her and literally no one in the family has haerd from her since. she was the closest to my peer group and the only other person in that group but she had more than her fair share of problems.

one of my mom's strongest characteristics is......
she's true to her word. be that good or bad, if she tells you she's going to do something, she does it. only recently have i come into contact with people who don't do that. it's almost a foreign concept to me. if i tell someone i will do something, i do it. i admire that in mom. she's also very emotionally strong. she had to be raising a child without a husband and the times were such that that sort of thing just wasn't done.

we had these pets.....
we had several pets when i was growing up. the first kitty i clearly remember was fluffy. he was named that for reasons too obvious to mention. mom named him. anyway, we had to get rid of fluffy when we moved in with grandma and grandpa and for years i thought he had been put to sleep but mom says that a nice lady came in and rescued him. he was a nice kitty. then we had this stooooopid dog named tippy. he was bob le duc's dog. i hated that dog. first, he was bigger than i was and rambunctous and not disciplined at all. i tried to like him, but he used to pee on everything and knock me down so there wasn't much to like now was there? let's see... after that whole thing, we moved to springfield again from rolla and mom got a house and a cat. his name was apollo, after the greek god of the sun because he made me smile and mom said it was like a ray of sunshine.... awww.... yes, we're a silly little family like that. i digress... and we had him until an unfortunate acciendt involving a hay baler and a big field behind our house.... and that's all i have to say about that. after him, i got sam who met his untimely death on the grill of a car. then we got percy who died after about 10 years from feline leukemia. while we had him, mom got spunky. last year spunky played traffic cop for the last time and passed away. mom was devistated and has vowed after these cats she has now pass away, she'll never have any more pets. she had spunky for about 15 years. we also got a husband for mom named pete. i don't guess he really counts as a pet, but we did have to clean up after him a lot. he brough with him a stoooopid dog named ginger and a manx cat named grumpy. neither of these animals were very nice. later they got divorced and he had gotten another cat named porky and he and spunky were gay lovers or something. they had a connection that defied that of a normal animal relationship. when porky got sickly and couldn't eat anymore, spunky went and got him his favorite food: pigeon. now this is a little gross, but it was really sweet. spunky opened the bird for porky and placed it in front of him then sat back a few feet. when porky didn't do much, spunky rubbed him and rubbed him until he ate a little. it was really cool their connection to one another. porky passed away from cancer shortly thereafter. spunky lived only a few months more. some time in there i moved out and got taegwyn (it means beautiful and fair) and while he's a beautiful cat, he has his own sense of justice, that's for sure!) when mom fell and broke her back, i gave him to her for indoor companionship and she has him still. i now have gazpacho whom i've had since he was 3 days old. to learn more about gazpacho, please visit him online!

i told you it was a work in progress.....!