Yesterday I looked through my scraps of fabric and came up with enough scraps to make a quilt that I had bought a pattern for a few months back. Today I will do a few more cuts of fabric and will start sewing it together. It is a raggy quilt so it will look better when it is washed and dried. I also want to dust mop the floors today. Cleaning the house is a pain as I have to keep taking breaks to catch my breath.

I have put down a lot of memories of growing up in Hinsdale, Illinois. The memories of growing up there with my brothers around and the family, the whole family of aunts and uncles, cousins are wonderful memories. Christmas's, family cook outs, family picnic's in Rocky Glen (now Waterfall Glen, named after a friend of my fathers, Bud Waterfall), playing with friends, are all such wonderful times that I had growing up. I sometimes wish I could go back and relive them all. It was a real happy time in my life. There are a million more memories buried in my mind and occasionally one sneaks out but by the time I start to type this, it disappears back into my memory section of my brain. LOL

When we sold the house in Hinsdale, everything got sold, all the furniture, dishes, all that we took was bedding, a stand up radio and clothing. We moved to Chicago as I said before and I hated it and couldn't stand not having anything to do. I went to school which I hated and came back to Grandma's house, which I hated. Nothing was the same. I don't remember seeing my Dad too often either. With him living at Aunt Anna's and us living at Grandma's, there never seemed to be time to see my father. He was also taking trips to Florida to find a business that he could go into. I remember him looking into a Trailer park but know of no other ventures. I sometimes wonder why my father looked only in that area. Was it because the dog track was only a mile away?

Anyway, Chicago living was miserable for me and was glad to finally hear that we were moving to Florida. When we traveled, Mom always fried up lots of chicken so we would have something to eat on the way. I don't believe there was a cooler in the car, we just ate the chicken until it was gone. It is amazing that we never got
E Coli. She would also buy a lot of fruit. And my Dad would stop at every ice cream stand on the way. My Dad loved ice cream. In those days ice cream stand were quite popular. They were everywhere.

My Dad bought a 1947 Cadillac and we drove that to Florida. I hated driving through the mountains. In those days the roads were narrow and only two lane. I would try to sleep the whole trip. We would wake up really early in the morning about 5 AM and get on the road and drive for about an hour and then stop for breakfast in a small diner either on the side of the road or in the middle of a town. There were no expressways and you traveled from town to town. Dad would drive and stop for ice cream.

My dad always drove fast and always wanted to be first. He was always passing up a bunch of cars just to come across another bunch of cars. He was not always the most courteous driver. I remember him cutting off someone because he didn't like the way he drove. I also remember him making someone go off the road so that he cold punch him. Dad was scary at times but never at home. I would usually sleep on the floor of the car when we went through the mountains because I didn't like driving on the side of a cliff. If we were to go over the side I didn't want to see it. LOL Interesting, we always made it over the mountains in one piece.

My Dad would drive until about 3-4PM and then would stop for a motel or a hotel if we were in a big city. We went out to eat and then usually we would go out to see a movie and then back to bed. I believe it took us over 3 days to get to Florida in those days.