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I live with my husband of 36 years about 20 miles north of the 45th parallel at the northern end of the Door Peninsula in northeast Wisconsin. I have 3 grown children who are absolutely great folks and thankfully able to support themselves. When my kids come to visit, they visit in the house into which they were born. They can sleep in the same bedrooms they slept in when they really were kids. My husband and I are both service brats, meaning our dads were in the military, his in the airforce while my dad was army. I was born in Oklahoma and from there lived in Colorado, San Antonio, TX (my folks' hometown), Huntsville, TX, Kansas, two location in Germany (West Germany then), Virginia during high school years, and San Marcos, TX for college. Then there were two years in Ecuador as a Peace Corps volunteer before moving to Ellison Bay, WI in late 1978. Living "up nort" was a challenge, and even more so living in a seasonal resort community, but after 30+ years I am acclimated. Acclimation and assimilation not withstanding, my personal culture and mindset is deeply grounded and formed by a number of factors: growing up the 3rd of 7 kids; despite moving regularly, being raised in a Southern/Texan household (I still say "ya'll" and "fixin to" and so do my kids for that matter); living much of my formative years in the South both on and off-Post; and finally, despite graduating from an honors program as well as studying/working in other languages, the vast majority of my grown-up life has been spent in blue collar work in the hospitality industry waiting tables and tending bar with a few inroads into skilled labor work in the form of sewing for 2 small, cottage style businesses. Oh yeah, I have also picked apples, cleaned motel rooms, dug and planted gardens, pruned and dead-headed plants, all to pay bills and put food on the table. With the exception of my childrearing efforts, my grown-up life has not been as fulfilling in a career sence as I envisioned, but my working life has provided insight I might have missed in a different setting. I have continued in my educational habits of studying, learning, and explaining how we got where we are and how we can continue to create a society which, at all levels, is edifying for all of us.
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