- Did you grow up in an urban or a rural environment? How would you describe the geographic area where you lived? Was it mostly buildings or mostly trees? Four seasons, or always warm or cold?
- What about the place in which you resided? Was it a house, an apartment, a mobile home, a boat, or something else? Did you like it and do you miss it now?
- What about the bedroom you had in the home? Did you share it with someone or did you have it all to yourself? If you shared, with whom? How was the space decorated?
- When you did family activities at home, in what room did you spend your time? What did you do together? TV? Cards? Board Games? Reading?
- Did your friends’ living situation seem similar to your own? Did you prefer to be at your friend’s home or did you prefer your own? Did your friends like to hang out at your house?
- What kind of school did you attend? Large or small? Religious or secular? Public or private?
- Did you attend church, synagogue, temple, or some other religious facility? If so was it large and ornate, or small and homey? Did you feel comfortable there?
- Did you have a hang out spot? Skating rink? Mall? Burger joint? Bowling alley? Friend’s house?
- Where did you typically go on dates (if you dated)? Movies? Out to a restaurant? At home watching tv? Library? Gym? Dances? Clubs? Mall?
- What kind of place did you live in when you first moved away from home? Was it a big adjustment or were you ready to strike out on your own? Describe your first place.
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I grew up on a dairy farm in Vermont. We had two hundred acres we could explore including streams, pond, forest and meadows. One of my favorite places was the maple grove.
We had a large farmhouse with an attached apartment for m dad’ parents and my moms parents lived in the bigger part of house with us. Next beside that a large woodshed. Across from it was a tool and storage double garage structure. We had a huge hay barn, cow barn, grain house and a milk house. My favorite was the grain barn, loved the scent of it.
I shared a bedroom with my sister who is six years older. We had a window that opened out to the porch roof and we’d go out there and sit and in winter we’d dive off from it into huge drifted snow.
My dad worked a long day at a machine shop and got up early and went to bed late because of farm chores added to the job. He would play the piano, fiddle or banjo and we’d all sing. We listened to old radio mysteries, etc and played games as kids in family gatherings. We read books incessantly. We had a huge attic complete with trunks of clothes and a Victrola and 78s so imaginations soared.
My best friends were two sisters who lived a ways from us. No, their home was definitely different as were their parents.
My first school was one room with about four kids in each class from 1-6 grades.
We rarely attended church but when I was in high school living in town I attended church myself. We moved to town when I was 15, after selling the farm. I wish I had that farm now.
I had a few hours between high school and when my dad was done at the machine shop driving us home. After homework I sometimes had a coke and French fries at the local drug store fountain. A group of us would go candlepin bowling and the firehouse put on a dance every Friday night. No actual dates but we would meet in those venues. After I turned sixteen I was allowed to date a little but like most teens my dad didn’t like my choices😀And if he did, I didn’t.
When I first moved away from home at 18 I lived in a boarding house a few towns away run by a French lady. I loved listening to her talk and she was a dear woman. There were three other people living there too. We shared everything. Quite different from home but I liked it. I had a small bedroom with a sink, that was all. Later I moved into a tiny apartment in a rundown tenement with one of the other boarders.
The Bag Lady 
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