Birthday Timeline~ Part 1

In four days I will be forty years old. Forty! Wow! Four decades of life! In honor of this milestone birthday, I have decided to create a sort of timeline. One day for each decade of my life.

So to begin......I was born on July 23, 1968, here in Oak Ridge. I was the first born daughter of James & Mildred Bean. We lived in Clinton, in various houses for most of my childhood. When I was four my mom had my sister, Kathy. We enjoyed playing together as children. Some of our favorite games were, make believe,house, dolls, Barbie's, paper dolls, Little People, coloring books & crayons, the usual for the time. I played outside most all the time in the summer. Swinging and swimming in the creek were favorite ways to pass the days. Summer vacation meant a lot to us as children. I remember making playhouses under the Hydrangea shrubs and Mimosa tree in my grandmother's yard. Every year in August, before school started back we would take an overnight trip to Cherokee, NC to visit the amusement park there, called Ghost Town in the Sky. I loved those trips, they were a special treat for us. We didn't have a lot of money most of the time. We also went to the county fair every year.

I went to Dutch valley Elementary school from second-sixth grade. My favorite teachers were my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Beets, who was very kind. And my sixth grade teacher Mrs. Tackett, who taught me discipline and honesty. Christmas and Easter were especially exciting holidays when I was a child. We got together with my dad's very large family and there were many, many cousins to play with. it was always a very happy time. When i was ten, my sister and I were riding in the back of my dad's old pickup and it stalled on a railroad track. We all got out of the truck safely, with only a few scratches, but a train that was coming totalled the truck. What a way to end my first decade, for many years after, I had a dread of crossing railroad tracks, and trains held no interest for me. To be continued.........