Growing Up in New Hampshire - Early Years

I grew up in New Hampshire. I have been in North Carolina for almost 15 years now so I consider North Carolina my home but I want to share some of the experiences that I had growing up in the Northeast. I will do this in a series of short posts that will serve as both education for those of you who are interested in New Hampshire and for my own documentation of some of my childhood experiences.

I'm going to start with the early part of my life. I was born in a city called Dover and I lived there for the first five years of my life. I am the first of three children (I have two younger brothers). My mother was a nurse and my father a schoolteacher. We lived in an apartment building that had a couple of other apartments. I don't remember much about it except that all of the kids were older than me so I had to sit around all day and wait for them to get out of school. I wanted to go to school too so my mother signed me up for a nursery school when I was very young. I loved it.

Although I don't remember much about those first five years, I know I was happy. I had two great parents, two baby brothers and several friends. I even had both sets of grandparents in my life. They lived about an hour away from us but they came to visit us and we went to visit them often. My grandfather on my mother's side would come to stay with us once in a while and during his visits, he would take me out for a ride in the car and say we were going to get lost. I believed he was really lost for many years until I was in my teens and my mother said that he was never lost and knew every road in the state of New Hampshire. Oh well, it was fun thinking we were lost and I did get to see some places that I would never had seen without him.

When I was five my parents purchased their first house and we moved to Somersworth. I will talk about life in Somersworth next time.

Summertime is Here!!!

Memorial Day weekend has come and gone, the pools are open, and school is just about out for this year. It's summertime!!! Time to take a vacation with your family, visit relatives, relax and not worry about homework, and enjoy the great weather we have in North Carolina. I don't know about you but I love summer. I love the long daylight hours, the sunshine, and the sounds of children playing outside. I especially love spending time at our community pool.

I didn't have a community pool when I was growing up. My friend had a neighbor who had a pool and we were allowed to swim there when the owners were home. Eventually my parents bought a small above ground pool and we had a great time swimming in that. It was in our backyard, our friends came over, and it was not only a place to swim but a social activity and gathering place for all of the children in the neighborhood. Now many many years later, the community pool serves the same purpose for us as well as our children. We all love being at the pool. We know that whenever we go there will be somebody there to sit with and talk to. It brings people out of their houses and provides us with an opportunity to catch up with neighbors who we pass by for the other nine months when the pool is not open.

I'm looking forward to a short vacation at the beginning of the summer, swim meets, camping, cookouts, and summer parties. I love summer and the only thing I don't look forward to is the end of summer.