Your father teaches at Lincoln? That's just too cool!

Of course I went to Lincoln Middle School, still have my yearbook from 8th grade there in 1973 too. I dust it off every now and then and reminisce

I also went to Kishwaukee from 1st-5th grades. Honestly, I still think those old schools are just awesome buildings.

I am positive we bought shoes from your Grandfather too. Shoot, my mom probably hauled me down there every year when I was little. We'd eat lunch at Maid Rite and poke around the Ben Franklin 5-10¢ store on the way home.

Rockford's public golf courses are some of the finest I've seen anywhere. Those first few years I mentioned I lived across the street from Ingersol Golf course, way out on the west side, on "Daisy field Rd", in a little pink house, no less

Wow OM! That's a pretty cool childhood experience.

I got put onto the outdoors by my father. I would get taken around
the outdoors up here on camping trips, fishing trips, forestry spring camps, hunting trips, etc. But certainly nothing as adventureous as OM!



(I'm the one on the right with the glasses)

OM that is quite the story. You're parents were certainly courageous and way ahead of the curve as far as I'm concerned.

I asked my mom and stepdad many times over the years why we lived in Rockford and why we didn't move someplace nicer, (and warmer in the winter). The stock response for them, and most other adults I knew at the time there was, "We have jobs, and house payments, and family, you kids are in school, we can't just pack up and leave everything."

I just couldn't buy into that, but couldn't convince them otherwise either. Even as a youngster I knew it was fear that kept them where they were. For me, the fear of being stuck someplace I didn't like became much greater.

When I was in high school, for about two years, we lived in Urbana. What struck me was how people there talked regularly about retiring and moving then to either Florida, California, or Arizona. Right then I thought, why not go there before retirement, while I am young, mobile, and have not yet put down roots?