Good morning! I’d like to share a tale with you, the kind of boring but still slightly fascinating tale of my life. I’m going to break this up into pieces so as not to bombard anyone or make this indigestible. I’m not sure how many right now, so we will see. Part 1 of ?
Let’s begin at the beginning, or I suppose a little before the beginning. On my mother’s side of the family I come from Native American descent. Grandpa claimed we were also Scandivian and Irish, but, we have no proof. Some of my earliest memories are with Grandma and Grandpa travelling, and I am positive I’ll probably write about them again.
On my dads side of the family, we have very little idea of his father’s genealogy. He passed when my dad was still a child, and I’m not even certain I’ve ever seen a picture of him. My dads Mom was a German immigrant. Her parents scooped up their children and fled to America as refugees. Some of the kids were born in Germany, some born in the United States. She was quite elderly by the time I came along and through the years had lost some of the strings to her mind. She frightened me as a child because she had a catheter. Its only now, as an adult, that I wish so much I could go back and listen to her story and learn more about her life.
My dad was an electronics technician for the public school system, and my mom stayed at home with the kids. I was born the youngest of 4 and the only girl. But the majority of what I remember about my childhood was with my grandparents. Grandma is the one who insisted I play the piano and would sit with me for hours and help me learn it. She would buy me books and more books and then made me a binder so I could catalogue all the books I’d read. Grandpa taught me how to cook, because that’s what he did. Grandma tried to teach me to sew. Most of my childhood I spent with them and the travel trailer driving every which place in the country. One random thing I remember was sitting in the back of the van thinking they had such a cool vehicle because it had a television! You could watch VHS tapes on it. And a seperate radio in the back you could plug headphones into and listen to whatever you wanted.
Grandma loved wildflowers and we’d stop on the side of the road so she could take pictures of them. If there happened to be a sign for a historical location or natural wonder, we were stopping and looking. We went to so many small and random museums. We never stayed in hotels because both my grandparents preferred camping. We had everything; lanterns, gas stove, tools for cooking over the fire, a campfire coffee maker. I believe this gave me both the love for adventure and love of the outdoors. Grandma was determined to teach me everything she knew. It was incredibly important to her that I know and appreciate our family heritage. So I learned about the Cherokee; their language, their customs, the leaders, their journeys, their games, their pain. Grandpa was more laid back and jovial. He had a wit sharper than Zorro’s sword and he did his part to share some of that with me.
We went to so many places over the approximately 10 year span I travelled with them. I’ve seen the four corners, the sand dunes, the Silverton train, the Sioux reservation, the cliff dwellings, new Iberia, the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, and much more. I didn’t stop travelling after they couldn’t anymore. It was in high school that I went to England and Spain. But it was those childhood road trips that have made the biggest imprint on my mind. My grandparents, particularly my maternal grandparents played a big role in my upbringing, even more so than my parents.
My dads father died long before I was born, his mom died when I was young, about 8/9 I believe. My mother’s mom died when I was 15 years old, and I remember it very clearly. My Grandpa passed when I was 26, while we were on vacation to visit him.
Dose of Sunshine 