‘Twas born the late 50’s. My earliest memory is of vacationing on the old farm up north. The kitchen had a single hand pump for water. There was an out house and a dug out cellar with homemade canned food. The table was a Crome and red marble affair and I could hear, because I remember the sound of cricket’s songs.

I remember playing red light, green light in the long evenings. Cap guns the smell of the spent caps. Riding my older sisters hand-me-down too big bike. Entering completely child run pageants. Mum’s on the party lines all of them working together to keep an eye on the neighborhood and kids. The evening news going on about war and vividly recall the footage of the little girl running down the road in pain and talks of agent orange. The woman from Kent state screaming. The hubbub of hippies and communes. On a happier note my oldest sister buying her first car after graduation, a baby blue mustang, and going off to a new life. Drive in movies on summer nights. Snow forts and igloos in the winter. Mostly I remember my pony and my dog, we spent many an afternoon just wondering the country side with a can or two of mandarin oranges for a lunch supplemented with wild rhubarb and other plants.

And oh, not to forget! The Kennedy assassin, watching the funeral on tv and seeing a little boy around my age solemnly walking in his suit. I didn’t really understand but was struck by sadness for him. Then later the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther king.

The duck and cover drills in school. And girls being required to wear skirts and dresses even in winter.