Sunday, August 27, 2006
Well, welcome to my new blog. The purpose of this blog is to capture the memories I have of growing up in Florida while they're still somewhat vivid in my mind. I'm going to attempt to do this grade by grade, and then perhaps Alicia (my sister) can help me fill in the gaps on some things, once I've put them down on...er...webpage? I want this to be a positive experience, and perhaps we (you and/or I) can learn some things from my experiences.
I'm going to primarily concentrate on the Ruskin years, as we only had about 2 years in Deer Park, but I'll use this first post to talk about some of the Deer Park stuff.
To start, I guess I'll characterize our arrival in Florida. My parents were both Idaho-born and raised, and both went to school at Brigham Young University (my mom also went to Ricks College). They got married, had me, and then went through a complicated dance of moving from place to place as my dad continued his education, taking us through Nebraska, Wyoming (where Alicia joined us), and eastern Utah for education and summer work. Upon obtaining his MBA, my dad got a job with Farm Management Corporation as the head of farming for the Deseret Ranch in Florida, just outside of Melbourne. We moved down there and lived in a relatively quiet place called Deer Park. I was a pretty outdoorsy kid in that era, because I remember far more about the outside of the house than I do about the inside.
Given that this is a blog, which is generally used to chronologically record events, I'm going to drift a bit from that model and post up some topic headings in the blog entries, and then fill them in later as I get time. I think I'm at the point where the topic headings mean as much or more to me than the actual details, so I'll just shotgun them out here and hopefully fill them in later.
I'm going to primarily concentrate on the Ruskin years, as we only had about 2 years in Deer Park, but I'll use this first post to talk about some of the Deer Park stuff.
To start, I guess I'll characterize our arrival in Florida. My parents were both Idaho-born and raised, and both went to school at Brigham Young University (my mom also went to Ricks College). They got married, had me, and then went through a complicated dance of moving from place to place as my dad continued his education, taking us through Nebraska, Wyoming (where Alicia joined us), and eastern Utah for education and summer work. Upon obtaining his MBA, my dad got a job with Farm Management Corporation as the head of farming for the Deseret Ranch in Florida, just outside of Melbourne. We moved down there and lived in a relatively quiet place called Deer Park. I was a pretty outdoorsy kid in that era, because I remember far more about the outside of the house than I do about the inside.
Given that this is a blog, which is generally used to chronologically record events, I'm going to drift a bit from that model and post up some topic headings in the blog entries, and then fill them in later as I get time. I think I'm at the point where the topic headings mean as much or more to me than the actual details, so I'll just shotgun them out here and hopefully fill them in later.
- My dog(s) Spike
- My cat (and his namesake, my best friend) Ralph
- My friend Robert
- Alicia and I dig a pool
- My black bike
- The school bus (including the "walking home from the church building" incident)
- Field Day, May Day, Thanksgiving
- Miss Porter's kindergarten class
- Miss Ollis' 1st grade class (my introduction to the "Gifted" program, and the girl I had a crush on because her hair looked like George Washington's)
- I saw Santa Claus' boot!
- Toy tractors for Christmas from Grandpa S. (one big rule of mine--except for teachers and other public persons, no last names. Too many freaks out there.)
- Going to the beach (boogeyboarding)
- Church memories (Stake Conference in Cocoa Beach, 16 clear stones from the backyard)
- The Ranch (the rodeo, pig food)
- The house (Growing popcorn in the front of the house, the football incident, our pool)
- Deer Park wildlife (deer, rabbits, snakes, turtles)
- Family visits (Grandparents, aunts, uncles)
- My bus referral
- Glasses!
That's a pretty good list. I was such a silly kid. But I remember having such a good time.
Well anyway, I think I'm done for the night. For my next post I'll either start fleshing out our move to Ruskin and then 2nd grade, or I'll go back and fill in some of the gaps here.
*** 9/1/06 I came in and added a few more items to the list. Amazing how the memory opens up when you poke at it!
