We moved so often when I was growing up in a U.S. Air Force family that packing our all our belongings and leaving town seemed a routine occurrence. Some of my earliest memories involve long car trips. Once, there was a long boat trip across the Atlantic to Germany.
My two younger sisters and I would sing songs we had learned in school for long periods, until dad would finally tell us to stop. We played the usual road games, and colored when we were younger. Reading wasn't a good idea, as it would usually lead to car sickness!
There were no fast food restaurants in the 1940's, so we had lots of roadside picnics after shopping for fixings in local stores. There weren't Interstate highways either, so we drove through the main streets of towns along our route, sometimes stopping at local diners or restaurants for meals.
Upon arrival at our destination, we had to start all over again making new friends, and learning to get around our new schools and neighborhoods. We learned to rely on each other! The older we got the more difficult it seemed to break off tender buds of friendship, and to leave behind all that had become familiar.
We used to love the stories our mother told us about her own growing-up years in a small rural north Florida town, where she had lived since she was small. Everyone in town knew all there was to know about their neighbors! It was as foreign to us as another planet. We enjoyed visiting our mother's hometown, but it could not be the place for us that it had been for her.
In 1958, I graduated from Melbourne High School on Florida's east coast. I attended this school from my junior year until my graduation. I met and married a young man from that area, and we had children and were together for many years. Still, I do not feel a deep attachment to my classmates, although I did form some friendships while I was there, and attended one reunion (the 30th).
My husband was in the U.S. Air Force when we married, having joined right after he graduated from high school, and we continued to move frequently. Even after he left the service, we continued to relocate frequently due to changes in our circumstances.
We eventually moved to Tampa, along with our three eldest children, in the early '60s. The house in which I now live alone is one we bought together in 1964. So I am now "settled" in my older years.
My early life experiences have taught me some good lessons, and some not so good.
The not-so-good lessons have been a rather detached disposition, since in my experience nothing is permanent, and a sense of there being something lacking when I hear others talking about friends they've had since childhood.
As for the good, I have lived in a number of different places, and perhaps I have acquired an education of sorts in having done so!
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