- What was your favorite game when you were a child? Were you a board game enthusiast? A card shark? Or perhaps a kick-the-can kid?
I was definitely a board game enthusiast. I had a game that I liked from a fairly early age called Game of the States which was basically a board game with a map of the United States. You hauled stuff around the country in these little trucks. I think you had to make 3 deliveries to win. Later Monopoly was probably my favorite. However, I remember that a bunch of us kids pulled an all-nighter, starting at my house and moving to the neighbor's house later in the evening, on the night we learned to play Tripoley which used cards and poker chips. I would say we were either upper elementary or middle school age at the time, but that game caught our attention!
- Did you play any particular games with your family as a child? Easter egg hunts? Thanksgiving Day football games? Scavenger hunts? Charades?
My brothers were older than me which meant my parents were older. I usually conned them into playing some board game with me, but the "family game" was Rook. Because it was played in pairs, I was probably a teen before I ever got to play it.
- What were some fun places you visited as a child? Did your family go camping? Did you take family vacations? Was there a local destination that was a family favorite?
Most of the places that I visited growing up were camping trips. The exception would have been trips to visit family members somewhere. I remember visiting my cousin in Biloxi. We went to my aunt's house in Iowa every once in awhile. I got to go to Wisconsin a time or two when my cousin moved there. We went to Virginia when my brother got married. I even remember a trip to Bel Air, Maryland at some point before the wedding. My other brother was stationed in Wichita, Kansas and Homestead, Florida at various times so we visited those places too. In fact, I brought home a little black kitten from Wichita and named her "Wichita." We went to the Kiamichi Mountains of Oklahoma every summer to a family camp. A lot of the same families went every year so I made a lot of friends from all over the United States back then. We went camping in Florida, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and probably several states I'm just leaving out. The place we'd go if we just had a short weekend was Sardis Lake in Mississippi.
- What activities did you do with family members? Did Grandma teach you to sew? Who taught you to cook? Did you go fishing with Grandpa? An uncle? Who coached your baseball team?
I liked to go stay with my oldest brother and his first wife when I was young. Sandy was wonderful with me and spent a lot of time with me. He pastored a small church so when they went visiting members I got to see country things I didn't experience as a town resident--things like chicken houses, tractors, horses, etc. I also liked to go over and play with a couple of people about my age. One of them had a pool table so I learned pool. One of my sisters-in-law taught me to do needlework. I don't really remember being taught to cook, but I cooked supper most of the time in high school because Mom didn't get home until around 7 p.m. I remember shelling beans at my Grandmother Thornton's house, but I wasn't very good and someone would always take over my pan before too long.
- Did you enjoy watching professional sports? What was your favorite team? Do you have any special memories of sporting events?
I can't say that I watched sports that much as a kid. I know my family cheered for the Cardinals in baseball (or at least I had that impression). As long as Archie Manning was playing for the Saints, my family cheered for them. Later I remember being more of a Dallas Cowboys fan. My only memories of sporting events as a kid were the high school football games because we just didn't go to anything else. We'd usually have a bag of parched peanuts that we brought along with us.
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