Born: 31 October 1962. Bunker Hill Air Force Base, Indiana. At least that is what I'm told. I was pretty young back then. The base was later renamed to Grissom AFB and then later was closed down due to military cut baks and base closings in the 1990's. I lived in a duplex in Peru, Indiana. Again, that's what I'm told. I do vaguely remember a moment sitting on the porch in a white plastic baby seat. I was wearing a little red flannel jumper and sitting next to a Basset hound. I didn't much like that dog and he didn't like me either.
I next moved to a white house in Florida. I think it was base housing at Homestead AFB. I can remember a few more things about that place, but not much. I had my first birthday there, then my parents ruined it by giving me a little brother in December 1963. I wasn't done enjoying being the only child yet. One one nice hot day, I was out in the yard in my stroller wearing nothing but a soggy diaper and a smile. My dad was watering the lawn and decided to soak me. We were having a blast, he ran in the house and snapped a picture of me. That picture later made it onto a calendar.
When I wasn't torturing my new baby brother, we would drive my mom nuts. OUr favorite was to run from the far end of the hallway, through the kitchen and out the open door. We would jump and see how far we could get into the breezeway between the house and the garage. On a good run about halfway. That fun would end with mom either screaming at us to stop or by her shutting the kitchen door and making us lose our stride just before the big jump.
While I lived in Florida was when JFK was shot. I don't think I remember it. There was one morning when my dad left early on a fishing trip with some of his Air Force buddies. Mom didn't like not having him around on his day off. She was listening to this little old white plastic radio. She got real upset about something. Not too much later my dad came home early from fishing. He was also listening to the radio, and the same thing that upset my mom made him come home early. I don't know if it was the JFK shooting or not, but I think it was.
I had lived in Peru for around a year, then Florida for a year. Now we were back in Peru. Not only that but in the same duplex, just on the other side. It was here that I realized that my birthday fell on a holiday. I don't know why my mom tried to shield me from that fact. We were having our own little party with the usual cake and ice cream. Mom was a little upset that no neighborhood kids came to the party. A knock came at the door. Mom wouldn't let me go see who it was. There were other kids all dressed up. Wow, that was wierd. Hey! She is giving them candy from that bowl that we bought. I thought that was for me. Why was my candy being given away? Just because kids got dressed up and asked for it? Did they do this at other houses? Forget the birthday party, get me dressed up and lets get candy!
We ended up living at Peru again for about a year. My dad got out of the Air Force and worked at a factory called Square D. They made electric parts. When he got a job at MacDonald Douglas in St. Louis, Missouri, we moved. This time to Picker Street in Wood River, Illinois. Only about a block away from Woody's Chicken, Prairie Farms and the A&P. The A&P was there for a long time but was later taken over by Wal-Greens. The Woody's Chicken went out of business and some new kind of restaurant went in there. It had big yellow arches and was called McDonalds. Not the same one where dad worked at though, they still made him drive to St. Louis. Yeah, I know the difference now, but not back then. The Prairie Farms also closed up and later became a Kentucky Fried Chicken place.
We lived on Picker Street for at least a year. It was 1966 and my parents decided to have another baby. I was more ready for it this time. My sister was born while we were visiting my Grandma in Indiana. Instead of staying just for the weekend, we got to stay a little longer. Still another year later, in 1967, I was getting ready for stuff like kindergarten, I found out we were going to move. In July of that year we moved to South Roxana where I stayed until I graduated High School and moved out. I'd say more about all that, but then those aren't my early years.