February 6, 2010

It is a weekend again. Time is going so fast. I have so many things I want to do and I just don't have the energy or the breath to do them all. Last Thursday I went to a quilt shop in Lockport. I love fabric. I wish I could buy it all. There are so many beautiful prints and colors. I want to make a couple of applique quilts that I have the patterns for. They were from a web site called bunnyhill.com The quilt from last year has a basket for each month with different things by the basket or in the basket. The one she is giving out this year is snowmen. They are BOM or Block of the Month. You get one block for every month. I have decided to make both of them. It will be a great way to use up a few scraps and not have to buy alot of fabric. I only had to buy the snowman white fabric so far. I hopefully will start getting the fabric together for each square today. I also want to finish my raggy quilt so that I can get it finished.

Now back to growing up in Florida. When I got to Florida I was around 10 or 11. I am not sure what month we got to Florida but I believe it was at the end of 4th grade. There were not many kids around as there were not many houses in the area. The first person I met was Rosalind. She lived down the street and was a few years older than me. She invited me to a party and it was a party of boys and girls and they played spin the bottle which at 10 or 11 I had no idea what it was all about. They also played hide and seek but when you got found by a boy you got kissed. I left the party pretty quick as these kids were too grown up for me. I never went to Rosalinds house again and I believe within a few years, I had heard that she was expecting a baby. For the first year down there, I was pretty much alone and was young enough that I could play with my cut out dolls and collect my movie star pictures. Mom and I would go to the movies at least once a month in downtown Tampa. After the movie we would stop at this drive in that made milk shakes, I believe they had 34 flavors of milk shakes. I always got vanilla and it is still my favorite. I used to look forward to going to a large theater in Tampa with the treat afterwards.

Chuck had a girlfriend across the street and if I recall she was pretty but she also had another boyfriend and dumped Chuck for him. Chuck only had a couple of years before he graduated high school and I don't remember him being around too much. I do remember he got the large bedroom and I got the small one.

Things were different when we moved to Florida. Most of the time I would take the keys and open the restaurant and make my own breakfast and get myself off to school. Mom and Dad would be sleeping as the restaurant/beer joint was open until
1 AM and by the time it was cleaned up it was probably 2 AM. I was pretty much on my own when we lived in Florida. I would have to occupy myself and take care of myself. When I got home from school Mom would make me a hamburger on the grille or I would make myself one and I would have a coke and a hamburger almost every day. Naturally I gained weight from eating the snack after school. When supper time came I usually sat on a beer case and used a couple of other beer cases for my table. We rarely ate in the restaurant and if I did I would sit at the end of the bar.

I started school in the 5th grade and went to Sulphur Springs school. The classrooms in the lower grades were barracks. My 5th grade teacher was Mrs. Miner, I believe. I was way behind everyone and had to learn my times tables as they were almost through them. It was hard for me to get used to the school down there. If you misbehaved the teacher would hit the back of your hands with a ruler and if you really misbehaved you would be tied to your seat with crepe paper and if you broke that crepe paper you would be spanked in front of the class. Fortunately I was very good and never got hit. We also started out the day with a Pledge to the Flag, and a prayer and a bible quote. Where I lived was called the "Bible Belt". I was a good student and got very good grades and eventually caught up with the rest of the kids. Even in those days, Chicago schools were behind and what I didn't realize at the time, Florida schools were also behind.