I was born as the fifth addition to my family on a sunny Saturday morning in May of 1969 in Peoria, Illinois. The world was only beginning to heal from those deep wounds that resulted from the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. Our military men were embroiled in a brutal conflict on Asian soil far, far from home. Neil Armstrong was only a few short weeks away from doing something that no other human had ever done by taking that "one small step for man." The US was awash in turmoil over women's rights, desegregation, the rights of people of color and the Vietnam conflict. This is the world into which I was born. But me... I was oblivious.
My world consisted of two parents, one sister and three brothers. Since I was my parents' unexpected, late in life child that meant that the age gap between my siblings and me was larger than in most families. I barely remember any of my three brothers still living at home. I remember the two oldest sharing an apartment together across town. The third oldest joined the navy when I was very young as well. I do remember my sister living at home. I'm pretty sure I was a bit of a pesky tag along to her during her teenage years. My second oldest brother got married when I was six and my sister got married a few days before I turned nine. After that I was alone.
My world was alive with the sounds of strummed guitars, Sunday School songs, Simon and Garfunkel songs and old hymns. The intermittent swoosh of cars passing on the state highway outside our house shushed me to sleep on those warm summer nights with the windows open. We didn't have central air in those very early days of my childhood.
The television waves were filled with Marcus Welby, Lassie and Gilligan's Island Reruns, Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, Sesame Street, Days of Our Lives, Captain Kangaroo, The Electric Company and To Tell the Truth. Remote controls were non-existent in our house and if the grown ups were watching something, I watched the old black and white set in the basement. We had our choice of 4 different channels.
The outdoors was my playground, at least for a large portion of the year. Our fenced backyard was lined along one side with the neighbors' honeysuckle bushes. The large wild cherry tree in our yard and the enormous weeping willow tree just behind our fence in the neighbors' yard provided shade. At one point I had one of those 12 inch deep kiddie pools with the metal sides and the liner. I would drag the picnic table bench over to the edge of it and jump off backwards into the water, doing the "Lipton Tea Plunge" for anyone who cared to watch. I also had one of those ever popular red tricycles with the tassles in the handlebars and spent a good many hours circling the driveway on it. All the while wearing my "movie star" sunglasses, because, you know, I was fabulous.
This is world world into which I was born. These were the things that mattered to me. This is the world that I knew.
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