Our niece Madie is going to Oklahoma State in the Fall for her Freshman year of college. Jim and I wanted to go to Stillwater with her and scope out her dorm etc. While there we drove around Stillwater, which happens to be where I grew up until I was twelve years old. I still consider it my hometown and have the best memories from living there. I think it's because my Aunt and Uncle lived in the same town with my older cousins as well as my Grandma. Every week on Wednesday night, my Aunt Nila and Uncle Carl would come to our house with their dog Fritz and have an ice cream cone with us. I looked forward to it every week.
That's the only time I've ever lived with family in the same town that we did things with all the time. Now that I have very little family, I really miss those times. I wish my kids had family like that to spend quality time with on a weekly basis.
When I was a kid, my Grandma (Mama Lou) was a fraternity housemom. She lived in the fraternity house with her own little apartment throughout the school year. She ate every meal with the boys and taught them manners and etiquette classes. When I would eat dinner at the frat house, I would have to eat ribs or fried chicken with a knive and fork.
Imagine being eight years old and having to eat like that in front of 100 cutie pie fraternity boys. It was so embarassing but I loved every stinking moment of it. I think this is where my boy crazy started. OSU fraternity boys!
My parents would even go on vacations and leave me with my Mama Lou for the week. I loved it. She had a cook named Amy that would make me cinnammon toast in the mornings with chocolate milk. In the afternoons, about ten of the boys would come into my grandma's apartment and watch Jeopardy with her. Every day they did this. Now that I'm an adult, I realize how sweet that was to spend time with their Mama Lou. They loved her just like I did. She was the best.
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Delta Tau Delta fraternity
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| My first church, Salem Lutheran |
After driving around campus, we went by Eskimo Joe's and my church,
Salem Lutheran, where I was baptized. My Dad was best friends with our
pastor David Turner, who was our backyard neighbor. We are Lutheran
because my Dad just loved David. He was such an interesting person and
very sweet.
We finally drove by the house on McDonald Street I lived in when I was in Kindergarten and First Grade. My parents rented this house and I remember it being a little odd. They had a basement that had two poles on either side of the house and I used to spend hours roller skating down there. There was also a mud room that really freaked me out. It seemed huge but in all honesty it probably wasn't. I used to think the window on the second floor on the house right in front was soooo big. In my mind, it was a gigantic, huge picture window. Funny how things look so small as an adult when they were gigantic when you were a child. The hill on the right also seemed like a mountain. I remember running up that hill all the time thinking I was king of the mountain. Now that I look at it, it's barely a hill.
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This house looked much better in the 70's
The house below is our final house in Stillwater. When we moved here, we thought we had made it. It had a swimming pool and my parents were so proud. I spent my days hitting tennis balls against that brick wall. That's when my love of tennis started.
The last house we lived in in Stillwater
The temperature guage on the wall below is the original one that my parents bought for the pool area in the early 80's. I thought that was awesome that it was still there. Old looking but still there. |
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This backyard about killed me.
We had a beautiful pool back here with gorgeous landscaping that my Dad worked so hard to put in. |
Who fills in a pool? I was so mad that I called the real estate agent (it was for sale for $182,000) and asked when they filled in the pool. It's sad when you have such great memories of pool parties, swimming all summer with your friends and it's gone. Just dirt.
This is the Country Club where I first took golf and tennis lessons. I played golf here every weekend with my Dad, my Uncle Carl and my cousins Brian and Craig. I'm seeing a pattern here and now know why I prefer being with men than drama filled women.
My greatest regret is that my boys didn't get to grow up next to a Country Club with a pool, tennis courts and golf course. They've missed out on a lot of fun being stuck in a boring small town.
My elementary school Sangre Ridge. I loved it. It was an open floor plan, we had no structural walls separating classes, just partitions. It sounds strange but it was the best place to go to school. My favorite teacher was Mrs. McPhee, she was the first teacher to really convince me that I was smart. I love her for that.
This is a picture of my last school, the Paul Miller Journalism school at OSU. I still work at the same job I was recommended for by my public relations professor Brooks Garner. I love that. So thankful!
