activity 1 wk 10

1.      Please describe a positive scene from childhood in detail.  What led up to this event? When and where did it happen?  Who was involved?  What were you thinking and feeling?  Why is it an important event?  What impact did it have on you?

I can remember being in my grandmother’s kitchen huddled with several of my cousins conspiring how we were going to torment the mean old neighbor Mrs. Tygart.  I lived on a small street in Pittsburgh along with my great grand-mother, my grandma, my four aunts and uncles and my 14 cousins.  You could always find several cousins at grandma’s house at any given time day or night.  There was an old mean lady that lived up the street who would come each evening and eat ice cream on my grandma’s porch.  All the grand children knew she only came for the ice cream because if my grandma did get it fast enough she would ask for it and if she was out of ice cream my grandma would send one of us to the corner store for some ice cream.  On this day we were deciding whether to play loud on the piano, run around the front yard. Or sing loudly while sitting on the porch, all of which would drive Mrs. Tygart insane and she would leave.  We decided to sing.

2. Please describe a negative scene from childhood in detail.  What led up to this event? When and where did it happen?  Who was involved?   What were you thinking and feeling?  Why is it an important event?  What impact did it have on you?

Our house was robbed.  I grew up with a street full of relatives and did not have a fear in the world.  We had a summer cottage and would spend all summer there and weekends in the fall.  We came home one Sunday evening when I was about 5 years old and our house was a mess.  My dad grabbed me and threw me on my aunt’s front porch and said keep her inside we’ve been robbed, call the police I don’t know if they are still in there.  I don’t remember when my mom was after we got home but my mom, dad and I all came home in the family car.  I still was afraid at first and wanted to see what was going on.  I can remember peeking out my aunt’s front window with my cousin Shirley.  My aunt stayed with us while my uncle went to help.  Soon the whole neighborhood joined in the scene because the majority of the neighbors were my relatives.  I was allowed to go home after the police left and the house was in shambles.  All of my clothes were out of the draws and all over the floor.  I had a little tin bank from the 8 o’clock coffee company and it was opened and the money gone.  There was probably only a few dollars but it was mine. 

3. Describe a particular event from your teen-aged years that stands out in your memory today.  This can be positive or negative. What led up to the event?  What happened?  Where and when?  Who was involved?   What were you thinking and feeling?  Why is it an important event?  What impact did the event have on you?

We bought a new house when I was 13 and we had to move from the only street I ever live on.  I was leaving all of my family behind on my old street.  I was excited to have such a big new house but also afraid of leaving.  I was leaving my family where I had built in friends and was going to be on my own.  It was my mom, dad and me moving about 6 miles away.  I had to start a new school and make new friends.  I lived in the city where all the kids that went to my school walked and this new school all the kids were bused.  I can remember my dad having to drive me every weekend to stay at my grandmothers and to play with my cousins.    If I could not go in there one or more of my cousins would come to my house.  My first week at my new house I took my dog for a walk and got lost and was only about a block away but there was a woods between me and my house.  This was a new experience because I knew my old neighborhood and the two neighbors that surrounded my neighborhood.  I changed my physical location but my close ties to my family remained.  This is when I knew they would always be in my life no matter how far apart we were.

4. Describe a vivid or important memory from any time in your adult years.  Again, this can be positive or negative.  It can be about anything – family, work, whatever.  The scene stands out in your mind today as being especially vivid or important.  Please describe what led up to the event.  Then describe the scene in detail.  What happened?  Where and when?  Who was involved?  What were you thinking and feeling?  Why is it an important event?  What impact has the event had on you?

I was married for 5 years and I got the great news I was having a baby.  I couldn’t wait for my husband to get home from work to tell him the news.  He was so happy and wanted to call his mom and mine right away.  That happy moment soon faded into nine months of being sick every day.  I was so sick that I lost 27pounds while being pregnant.  I had to be followed by a risk doctor but I had a healthy 8.5 pound baby boy.  It seems like yesterday but it was really 33 years ago.  I went from an only child to a wife to a mother and then a widow.

 5. In looking back on your life, you may be able to identify particular “turning points” – episodes through which you experienced an important change in your life.  Please choose one key turning point scene and describe it in detail.  If you feel your life story contains no clear turning points, then describe a particular episode in your life that comes closer than any other to qualifying for a turning point – a scene where you changed in some way.  Again, please describe what led up to the event, what happened in the event, where and when it happened, who was involved, what you were thinking and feeling, and so on.  Also, please tell me how you think you changed as a result of this event and why you consider this event to be an important scene in your life story today.

The biggest turning point happened my sophomore year at Fairmont State College.  I was living in a school owned apartment with three roommates.  One night I was sitting in my room when a knock came at the door.  I can still remember what I was wearing; it was a red and blue robe, when I opened the door.  Boy was I surprised when I saw 5 guys standing at my door.  I told them to leave but after I shut the door I reopen it and asked the guy I knew who the blonde guy was.  The blonde came back up the steps and introduced himself as the brother of a friend of mine.  I did not believe him because my friend’s brother lived out of the country but he showed me his driver’s license and he was his brother.  He asked if I wanted to go somewhere but I said no and not with 5 guys.  He asked if I would go if he took them home and I said yes.  This was not like me at all but when he returned I went out.  We went and got pizza and talked and he brought me home before the doors were locked for the night.  When I got up to the apartment I told my roommates I was going to marry that guy.  They laughed but a year later, when he had to go back to Germany to work I got married.  I spent 31 months in Germany and returned back home where I spent 32 years married to that blonde.  His name was Jeffrey Lynn and he became very ill in 2005 and died in 2007.  I lost my best friend but still had the most precious gift he could have ever given me our son Jeffrey Lynn.