Although the town was small (less than 5,000) I spent my first 3 years of school in a large elementary school with about 30 students to the classroom. I lived a rather normal life except that before I started the first grade I began to take violin lessons. My father played the gutar and violin for his own enjoyment and I like most preschool boys wanted to be just like him. It didn't take very long and I figured out that there were lots of privilages that went to a kid who could play in front of 1,000 or more people and I ate it up, taking full advantage of all the perks .
But between my 3rd and 4th grades my grandfather, who lived in Central Wisconsin, was dying of cancer, so my family moved there to help out with his farm. Here I went to a very small rural two-room school for the 4th and 5th grades with a total of about 40 kids in the school and a one-room school for the 6th grade that had a total of 8 kids. Needless to say the good life in Washington state was a thing of the distant past. I gave up the violin because there was no one to teach me. But I would carry a love for all types of music for the rest of my life.
The farm taught me the value of hard work. I longed for my friends back in Washington and a larger school where I could be like a "normal kid".
Because there wasn't a lot for me to do besides work and go to school, this was before the days of TV in Central Wisconsin, and the fact that there was a great bookmobile and library Program available, I became an avid reader. I read everything I could get my hands on. Durring the summer between the 5th and 6th grades my paternal grandfather died. I went to a smaller school but I knew that we were going to move back out west as soon as everything about the farm was settled and my grandmother was settled in in her new location. I suddenly became afraid that I would be hopelessly behind the kids that had been going to real schools out west and begin to study everything I could get my hands on out of desperation. There was no way I was going back a grade or two just because I had had the misfortune to move to Wisconsin. In actuality I was way ahead of my classmates when I finally did get back to the west coast.
I still love reading almost all types of material today and have a rather large personal library in my home. I feel that a lifetime of reading for my own enjoyment coupled with the ability to comprehend what I have read has been one of my biggest assets throughout my life.
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This page was lasted updated 05/29/99
