How It Started ~ Backstory Part 1

 If you’ve actually read the first half-dozen or so posts on this blog, then (thank you for sticking with me and) it probably makes sense for me to share a little more about who I am.  I’ll take a few minutes to do that today…

I’m a member of that sliver-of-a-generation that grew up after computers became a household luxury, but before the internet was more than a glorified encyclopedia.  I knew the dial-up tone as something other than a retro sound-byte.  I trekked the Oregon Trail, and died of dysentery.  I blew up the stupid Lemmings when I ran out of patience.  I had the OG Nintendo when it was still new.  And yes, I did try to shoot the Duck Hunt dog.  

I was born and raised in 1980s rural mid-Michigan, in a town so small that it had to buddy up with the next one over just to collect enough kids for a school district.  The high school itself was in the middle of a sprawling corn field, surrounded by thousands of acres of farms and small country homes.  The junior high didn’t exist at all.  Previous buildings had been condemned, and for many years the entirety of the 7th and 8th graders learned in six double-wide “modulars” parked out behind the high school.  

Elementary school was exactly what every country kid from the 80’s remembers;  Rectangular pizza, obnoxiously loud bells, hallways that smelled of white glue and disinfectants, broken water fountains, strict librarians, and playgrounds filled with prickly grass and metal equipment not designed for the faint-of-heart and sure to sear your skin off on warm, sunny days.  

The town was made up of a lone stop-light at the intersection of two small streets.  The “Main” one was lined with small, slant-roofed, one-story buildings pretending to be big, square two-story ones.  We had a grocery store, a “party” store, a bar, a few churches, a gas station, a barber and a salon, an insurance company or two, a cafe, a pizza place, a bowling alley, a drug store and a walk-up ice cream shop.  (Disclaimer: For a while we did have a movie rental shop, but it eventually closed up when it failed to compete with Blockbusters opening in the larger towns nearby.)  If that sounds big to you, just know that I could walk it end-to-end in under 10 minutes on my skinny little chicken legs before I was old enough to drive.  Other than the movie rental shop, the other businesses never changed in all the years I lived there.  I’d been in pretty much every one of them, and many of the houses that lined the dozen-or-so criss-crossing side streets, by the time I graduated high school.  

The cross street that met Main at the stop light basically went from the elementary school to the ball fields, where it dumped into a dusty parking lot.  The light was completely unnecessary during my lifetime.  If you’ve ever seen the movie Cars you can imagine growing up in Radiator Springs and you’ve got a pretty complete picture of my childhood. 

The main industrial attraction in the tiny town was the milk-processing plant, tucked away a couple of blocks from main street.  Dairy farmers from miles around would send their milk to be dried and packaged there.  Massive, shiny milk trucks would roll through at all hours of the day, and there was a distinct odor that surrounded the place.  

My grandparents lived across the street from the milk plant during my earliest years, and my dad hauled milk as a side-job on the weekends.  I rode along on his route frequently, visiting farm after farm and harassing the calves and barn cats alike.  We’d head back to the plant at the end of a long day and I would poke around there while he unloaded and washed out the truck.  It was a busy plant, servicing a huge area of mid-Michigan farms.  (Note: I could still walk the perimeter of it in about 5 minutes if I wanted to risk being flattened by a milk-truck.)

All those acres and miles of farmland also meant a lot of hunting.  Hunting and fishing were regular activities for a kid growing up in my area and era, and were the primary hobbies of most of the adults as well, my dad included.  Deer, geese, rabbits, squirrels, turkeys, ducks… I’ve eaten them all, and hunted most of them.  But I preferred fishing to hunting.  “One more cast” was probably one of my first full sentences.  I fished every opportunity that I had until I was in high-school.  

High school in the 90’s was entirely different and entirely the same as it is now.  The same ever-changing fashion trends and Friday night football, the same band-nerds (I was one) and ceaseless gossip.  The same popularity war, same sports rivalries, same class-skipping excuses…  But we passed notes instead of texting, and suspension was real trouble because there was no “in-school” option and your parents were sure to deliver the harsher punishment.   I’m old enough to remember when MTV actually played music videos, and “chat-rooms” on AOL meant that no friends would be calling you for a while.  I was of the Brittney Spears, TLC and Backstreet Boys generation that rocked bright and baggy sweaters and side-pony-tails while we wrapped 40’ phone cords around our houses trying to find a comfortable and private place to talk about who liked who.   

I had a brother, and pets.  Oh so many pets.  Queeny was the first.  My parents had her before they had me.  She was a sweet little beagle, who passed away when I was in high school.  Rusty and Marcus were basset hounds (Rusty a mix) who I barely remember because they died when I was young (we got both of them later on in their lives, but early in mine).  Missy was my first - and only - dog of my own.  Someone dumped her on the side of the road, and when my parents couldn’t find a different home for her they gave her to me for my 6th(?) birthday.   She was a mutt; probably a border collie and australian shepherd mix, according to the vet.  She was sweet as pie, terribly disobedient, and fast as the wind.  She had two litters of puppies - 12 pups in each, fathered by a local stray - before mom got her fixed.  

We had cats, too.  Sugar pie was a fat orange tomcat who had a wandering habit.  Bootsy was the most beautiful calico you could ever pull out of a wood-pile stray litter.  She and Mittens (a black cat with a white nose and feet who showed up in our garbage can) had a litter of kittens before mom got her fixed too.  Later on came Smokey, Tabby, Charlie, and eventually Cinder - who my dad called Kink - and they all have special places in my memory.  There were fish, too, and rabbits, and gerbils, and - for a short time - a pet baby raccoon who would steal the cat food and wash it off in the flower pots after mom watered them.  We called him Buddy.  I’ve already told you the chicken story…

But back to High School...  I was a band nerd (the band nerd, and drum-major, actually) and “ran” track.  By “ran” I mean that I slogged my way through practices and put in a decent (though never competitive) 100m dash so that I could high jump and pole vault.  I wasn’t great at either, but since pole vaulting was a brand new option for girls at OEHS I was able to squeeze out a few more inches than the other three brave pioneers and hold the school record from my freshman year through my junior year.  A knee injury, a job and a busy school and social schedule kept me from joining the team my senior year.  That was the year I started dating my good friend, who would one day become my husband.  

I loved high school.  He hated it.  I excelled in language, music and arts, and life sciences.  I couldn’t do math to save my life.  History, Chemistry and Geography were his favorites, and my rivals.  Physics was the downfall of my GAP.  He still can’t use correct grammar or spell worth beans.  I like the red and purple skittles, he preferred all the rest.  We were a match made in heaven.  We graduated together in 2021.

After graduation I attended Lansing Community College and he went to MSU.  He proposed after our first year of college, and we were married after our second.  I worked and paid the bills, he went to school and studied, and by the time he finished his bachelor’s degree our first baby was on the way.  That is when the real adventure began.