Number One: I grew up…..

….in central Connecticut, the oldest child of two, in a conservative religious loving home.  My parents moved to CT when I was five from northern Maine and we lived in a “trailer park”.

(not mine but very similar)

I grew up in a mobile home, but never really understood that this meant that my parents likely struggled financially.  Maybe I was poor, but I never felt as though I was.  I grew up with no TV until I was 9 when my uncle gave a small black and white TV to my parents.  So reading was a natural pastime, along with lots of outdoor time.

I grew up going to church any time the doors were open – usually three times a week: Sunday morning and night, and Wednesday nights.  My childhood and young adult faith background is Pentecostal, and by the time I was a teenager, it was an awkward fit.   I lived in an area where there were a lot of Catholics, and being a Protestant and a regular church goer made me feel different.  Attending a Pentecostal tongue-talking church was an extra layer of different.   Religious traditional beliefs impacted much of my childhood:  things like not getting my ears pierced (until age 18), no attending movies or playing cards (except I did), rock music was not approved of (favorite album at age 15 – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – Elton John), and short skirts were frowned upon (I rolled mine up).

Hartford Church

I grew up in a relatively strict but loving home.  My mother did not work outside the home until I was 10 years old and until that age, I came home from school to a mom  at home. It felt different after she started to work.  Quiet. But my parents worked hard to provide.  They did not have college degrees.  I imagine that there was not a lot of personal fulfillment in their jobs, but they were probably not  looking for any.  My mother had a couple episodes of clinical depression when I was a child, but I do not recall a specific impact on me.

I grew up with a younger sister who did not become my BEST friend until we were late teens and young adults. It makes me sad now that it took so long.

I grew up in a town that was predominantly white.   In a high school of almost 2000 students, there were perhaps ten black students during my time there (graduated 1976).

And that’s how I grew up.