Kindergarten

Our next move took us to Lemoore, CA where my dad served in the Navy.  This is where my memories really start to kick in.  We lived on the last street of the small town.  Across the street were fields for miles.  Sometimes we hid in the corn rows, sometimes we picked the cotton.  The field was our playground.

It was in Lemoore that I fell in love with football. On Sundays, after church, we would watch Marcus Allen play for the Raiders.  On Saturdays, my dad and I would go out into the yard and run pass plays between college games..  As a young girl, I was a pretty good receiver and could throw a decent spiral.  Sometimes the kids in the neighborhood would come over and we would play “pomp” or “smear the queer” (not politically correct these days, but that is what we called it.)  I loved playing out in the yard with the football and especially loved spending time with my dad.  Sometimes we’d throw a baseball too, but I preferred the football.  I got my first black eye when I took a baseball straight to the face. 

In Lemoore we had a huge play house in the backyard.  We grew our own carrots.  We had lots of cats and got our first dog, Brittany, she was some kind of spaniel.  Many of our neighbors had pools and would invite us to swim.  I thought it was magical to swim at night by the light of the pool.  On Friday evenings we often walked a few blocks to the Thrifty store to get an ice cream cone and then pick up a movie.  My favorite movie was “Condorman.”  It seems like we rented that one over and over.  Sometimes we would go for pepperoni and sausage pizza, a big mug of rootbeer and play “Another One Bites the Dust,” on the jukebox.  

On Halloween one year, we created a spook alley in the garage. I thought it was so cool.  We created a headless horseman out of a stationary bike and in one section our guests had to crawl through large boxes and soggy spaghetti noodles.?.

One time, just once, David, Jenny, and I took a hose and soaked the dirt beside the house.  We played in the mud in our clothes for hours.  As you can imagine, Mom wasn’t too happy about it.  If I remember correctly, on another occasion, we tied our babysitter to a chair.  Another night, when my parents were out, I got hot and turned off the heater.  We all woke up freezing the next morning and I blamed it on the babysitter.  Oopsy.  Consider this my confession.

When I was 5, I started Suzuki piano lessons.  I really like it, and learned quickly.  That year in kindergarten I played “London Bridges, and “Ecossaise” for our school talent show.  I was very shy, but had a crush on two boys, both named Brian.  I had perfect attendance that year and in class I loved playing with the big blocks and having snack/nap time.  Once, I got to bring our dog, Brittany, to school for show and tell.  

School talent show

Our dog Brittany

Kindergarten Picture