50 years: The First Decade:1964-74

So I am turning fifty later this month. And that of course gives you pause to think about your life. Who am I? Where have I been along this journey? Who and what have made me what I am today. 

My plan is to do a blogpost about each decade. So here goes.

Born: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in Baptist Hospital (now Integris).

Siblings: I was the first child in my family and first grandchild on both sides. By the end of the decade I had a brother 2 years younger, Todd, and a sister 7.5 years younger, Tamara, as well as 2 cousins on each side.

Places lived (US)

• Oklahoma (several places)
• California
• Galveston, TX (where my brother Todd was born)
• Fort Worth, TX
• Pine Mountain, Georgia (Missionary Orientation 



A trip to the Houston Zoo with my mom (1966?)



they still have a lion fountain (2009)

Places lived (Overseas):

Climbing on some ruins in Lebanon (1973)

When I was 8 we moved overseas with my parents serving as medical missionaries.

• Lebanon – 1973, Arabic study for my parents. 
• Jordan – summer or 1973. 
• Yemen 1974 (-1979)

Influences:

• My parents, providing a great home and teaching me to love and honor God from the beginning. And they certainly got me started on my overseas adventure early!
• My grandparents - more of the same. 
• Happy C Boehm – the first teacher I remember very specifically. She came to tutor my brother and me in Yemen using the Calvert Correspondence Course. She was a bit eccentric and had us doing things like making “oobleck” for a Dr. Seuss “Bartholomew and the Oobleck Party”, painting panaromic views of the countryside. She gave me an assignment to find homonyms. I eventually had a handwritten list of 200 or so, that was an early linguistics pursuit.

 Languages:

• English
• French - in 3rd grade in Lebanon, studied entirely by rote watching of filmstrips with an audio track. Absolutely no value was provided from this experience when I started really learning french in 1993
• Arabic - first in Lebanon and then in Yemen. I remember thinking when we arrived in Lebanon that Arabic must be like a code and if I just figured out which letter corresponded with which English letter, I could decrypt it.

Rides:

I don’t recall my first bike ever, but do remember having a great red bike with a banana seat on it, and those wonderful kick brakes and giant raised handlebars. We shipped this in our crate to Yemen. I don't have a picture of it, but this is one that is pretty similar I found on the internet. The epitome of coolness. 

I recall going up and down the big hill on the compound and once I wiped out and walked up the hill and into our house, bleeding but standing very calmly before my mom.

My brother and I invented a bicycle game called “passport” which we played on the tennis court, much to the chagrin I am sure of Dr. Young. The object was to ride over to the opponent’s side of the court and back to yours without him running his bike into yours.

Pets:

• Snoopy, the beagle that our grandparents kept for us when we went overseas.
• Togo, the white german shepherd we inherited in Yemen who would chase rocks.
• Blackstripe, the donkey my brother and I bought in Yemen. The idea was to ride him but he was unridable and so he stayed tied up all day somewhere on the compound grazing to his heart’s content. Eventually we sold him and we always wondered what it must have been like for him to have to work like a real donkey.

 Interests/Loisirs/Memories:

• Jot - I recall watching JOT on TV, along with Davey and Goliath.  
  
• Building forts: In pine mountain, Georgia, they were log cabins made out of pine trees. In Yemen, my brother and I made them out of rocks and mud. They never got taller than about 2 feet high but we had big plans.
• Hiking – lots of fun mountains to climb in Yemen. Not to mention the old Turkish fort which was just across the valley and great for exploring as it was abandoned. 
• I began collecting rocks and also coins while in Yemen. Both of these rather heavy items made their way back to the US when we returned for good.
• Double board monopoly, risk and clue. We had lots of time to kill as MKs and board games were the way to go.

Reading:

• When I first learned to read, I recall just reading out whatever I saw on signs as we went down the road in the car. Unfortunately, I never grew out of this.
•  In second grade or so, I discovered my dad’s old set of Hardy Boys books at my grandmother’s house and began reading these, and doing book reports on them for school. My dad’s set had plain brown covers. I recall at one point listing “Franklin W. Dixon” as my favorite author. Obviously my choice would be different today. 
•  I discovered Tintin comic books while in Lebanon and then totally forgot about them entirely until arriving in France 20 years later for French study.
• “Now that you are 7”. For some reason, I remember getting this book on my birthday, with all sorts of exciting things I could do now that I was indeed seven.
•  Sometime around my 9^th or 10^th Birthday my parents got me a Living Bible and I remember being excited to actually understand more of what I was reading in the Bible.