As I sit pondering the events in my life, I realize that some of my childhood memories are a bit strange.
- I lived in a small town most of my life and we really didn’t have some of the normal activities that many of my college friends talk about all the time.
Our town was a typical one stoplight town with a small general store, post office, and a gas station. There were no movie theaters, shopping malls, or recreation centers to hang out in. When my friends talk about these things I find them very foreign and often wonder what they would think about the big barn parties we would have back in high school. I grew up in the midwest too, which meant that we had some pretty harsh temperatures to contend with, there was no heat or air conditioning in those barns either. Unlike my friends, we couldn’t party somewhere that was climate controlled, except for the bonfire we may have outside when it was cold. When I first went off to college and moved into the dorms, I was thrilled to not have to hang out in the elements anymore. When my friends wanted to head to the local park on a really hot day or go ice skating in the winter, I opted to hang back in the comfort of the building and they could never really understand why. I figured, if I had the option of staying in and having complete control of the temperature, why would I subject myself to the elements to try and have fun? We come from totally different worlds and that is what makes life both confusing and interesting at the same time.