That would be Navy boot camp at 19, San Diego. Stuck in a barracks with 59 other kids that didn't have a clue. Made a few friends there and at Aviation Electronics school in Millington Tenn. Both were short stays and too busy to really get a feel of.

My station for the next 2 1/2 yrs. was Monterey Ca. at a small auxiliary landing field. We had search and rescue helicopters and WW 11 era planes for the officers at Navy postgraduate school to get flight time in. Still have one friend from there I keep in touch with.

Ah special places. Nice warm cozy feelings. Thanks! I like your visual Suze. Don, heavy happy sigh. Naval Post Graduate school. Mmm. Bronzed beauties. I do mean the guys. Coppertone always brings back that memory. That and the big ball room I could envision the ball that had taken place just seeing the confetti on the floor. Mommy in her ball gown and daddy in dress whites. Aw, that makes me cry now. They were a beautiful couple. My first place after leaving home? You guys make me see how spoiled I have lived even if I've never lived in a mansion. Do you want to know about the dorm I lived in or the first real home I had after I left school?

I'd waited a year to attend MTSU. My best friend throughout high school was a year behind me and I wanted to wait for her. I spent that year making friends at my mom's office, thinking, insurance, ick, but I can stand a year. Ended up loving every minute of the camaraderie and fun we had in that office. Little did I know I'd do that for 17+ years!!! But I digress. Staying in school during the week and at home on the weekend, we alternated driving "home". MTSU is known as a "suitcase college" for just that reason. There is nothing to do there, so everyone leaves. It was a reasonable size room with two huge windows that overlooked the lawn and trees the size of buildings. It was one of three of the original buildings built in 1911 for Tennessee Normal school and it smelled, looked, and felt like it. We'd have to take our key every time we left the room because the door automatically shut and automatically locked. My roommate friend came to be too dependent upon me having a key and one day she asked me if I had my key I said no. You shoulda seen her go ballistic! Good thing I did have it, but I think she learned how much she took me for granted. In those days, dorms weren't co-ed. Ever. There was visitation on Tues/Thurs for us, next door it was Mon/Wed and as I stated before the grounds were empty by midday on Friday, so no need for visiting. The hours were 6-9PM. How archaic? Since it wasn't co-ed, if the handyman came to fix something you'd hear "Man on the Hall!" once they entered. That's because there were only two bathrooms total for the whole floor and one might be in half dressed mode. It had two toilets and two showers, three sinks and a couple of mirrors. People would hang out in the halls smoking. Clove cigarettes were popular then and the halls would smell of cloves all day long. Not so bad I guess, coulda been cigars. There was good food and you could get anything you wanted that you'd get at home, from baked chicken to huge sandwiches. But no fast food. We had a vending machine in the lobby of our dorm and my friend would "borrow" enough to buy some candy while we studied (she paid it all back one year much later on when she paid for a trip to Disney World for me). Dr. Pepper and peanut M&Ms. Always brings back studying thoughts. And we had one tv for the whole dorm! We'd try to finish up lab work (beakers and scalpels away!) by 3 so we could watch Days of Our Lives. Those were the days. Little did I know how good they'd be.

My grandparents had paid for the first year, my mom was too poor to pay for anything else, and I didn't know how to apply for and get FAFSA. Phooey on my high school for not telling me. Shame on them. I was poorly equipped. But I went to back to work at the insurance place and found a friend who introduced me to my first husband. He'd attended MTSU. He'd sold cars where I bought my first car. He'd even worked at Willis Corroon! Which is where he'd met my friend. We'd all go watch the Nashville Sounds play or hang out at Bennigan's eating and telling jokes all night long. Greg and I married and moved to Murfreesboro on the river. It was a beautiful place that had leaves that looked red and gold in the fall, pines that looked lovely sprinkled in white snow, and then the red and gold trees would be covered in blossoms come spring. I guess they were Bradford pears. That place was a two floor townhouse. It had a grill in the kitchen and huge dining room. There was a wood deck out back and you could sit with your morning coffee looking at the lazy river and trees or watch the fog lifting. It's also the place were I met the love of my life, Keegan kitty. He'd sit on the steps and headbutt Greg with such love and deference. Greg would call him Keegan bunny as those tiny little legs would hop from step to step until he reached the top. And the reason he picked him out is because he was orange and white, go Vols! I hated UT. At least Keegan was cool. We'd spend our weekends with TA, Jay, Rita, Kathy, Kenny, going to ball games, eating out, or just telling TA to shut up ;) He worked for TBI and said he loved to take homes from "widows and orphans", boy he was a pistol. Some days we went to the ball games, some days hockey, and some days they'd watch NASCAR. One particular New Year's Eve we had a party where Kathy and I sat talking to each other and staying pretty sober. There was a friend of a friend who got noticeably tanked and we saw eating dip with difficulty. We didn't remember it being chewy, so we went to see what was going on. The jar had been dropped and had broken glass in it! Kathy and I never forgot that. We were silly kids having fun. I miss those days some days, but mostly not.

My husband-to-be was on a destroyer off the coast of Korea when I mailed our wedding invitations in the middle of July. He was due to be discharged in early Sept. and I KNEW he'd be home before our wedding date of 9/22. Even when my father suggested that it might be wise to wait till he was actually in the U.S., I didn't listen. Luckily for me, he got to D.C. the week before the big day. Of course, he didn't have a job and we didn't have a place to live, but my "stars in my eyes" attitude wasn't deterred!

We rented a converted garage just over the MD line, (one big room), that one of his Navy buddies had just moved from b/c he was discharged, too. (He didn't get assigned to a ship and stayed in D.C.) We lived there for one month, then realized with no car and limited public transportation, it wouldn't work. We found a bedroom with bath and kitchen privileges but no living room in a private home and stayed there for two months; then, just up the block an actual one bedroom furnished apartment came up for rent, so we moved, again. Mind you, we hadn't been married three months yet and this was our third move. Since we didn't have furniture or even much *stuff*, it wasn't too bad. The hardest thing for me--at the tender age of 19--was telling our widowed landlady we were moving--but just up the street! For all my imagined sophistication, I was afraid of what she might say. However, the thought of a "real" apartment gave me courage--and she was kind.

Those were fun times; we actually felt like adults--even though we weren't. We didn't have much money--I remember walking ten blocks to the store to return empty soda bottles to get money to ride the bus to work, if money ran out before payday, which it often did. We'd go to my parents' house for dinner on weekends, b/c I wasn't much of a cook. We learned we were going to have a baby, too. Which leads to another move, but this is enough. I think it all turned out O.K., b/c this Sept. we'll celebrate our 58th anniversary and our third great-grandson was born last week.

Nowadays, I think young people have their own adventures--but also think most of them want all the comforts of home, too.

I remember getting money for discarded soda bottles... they paid for shoes and a fancy pleated skirt in HS, and a picture window broken by kid bro's home run.

I remember the first apartment, too. A walk-up (why do they call it that, one climbs not walk) five stories up. Ten long half-flights because those old apartments had 12-foot ceilings. My first kitten after Chi-Chi passed, and when it came time to move elsewhere, the little calico jumped from her travel-basket into the arms of a little Mexican girl who lived on the bottom floor. I always suspected Callie understood more Spanish than English. So she changed families and my new apartment was quietly catless.

My first place was the former servent's quarters in the carriage house of an early industrialist's "mansion" that had been turned into a museum. It had been built in 1903 in the Romanesque style. Big central arch for the carrages to go in and 2 3-story squat towers on each side. My kitchen was on the first floor of one tower,the entrance was off the open area of the arch. You went up to the second floor for the living room in the same tower, Down a hall that passed one bedroom that was over the open arch and only used for storage because it was soooo cold in the winter. My bedroom and bath were on the 2nd floor of the opposite tower. I felt I had the lap of luxery, because I had 2 phones as the bedroom was so far from the kitchen. It had been "renovated" by siding every room with Marlite, a locally made fake pressed wood panaling.

There was a security system for the museum, so I had to be sure I keyed in before I unlocked my door. I can't tell you how many times I forgot. I knew the local police # by heart, so I could call and say it is just me.

I was never scared with all that big empty space behind me except for the time I went out of town to meet a friend to see a movie: Halloween, and I had to come back alone and let myself in that big carriage house.

After I got married we lived there another 2 years. The rent was so cheap I wanted to stay longer but dh and the museum director were as different as could be and it was time to move on.

My first apartment was awful.
It was over a high end fashion boutique.
I was young, away from home for the first time,
just a few months into my first marriage and had just found out I was pregnant.
The apartment had a gas stove and the smell sure didn't
help the morning sickness. I spent most of my time
throwing up my toenails in the apartment or in front of
most of the houses and shops in that lovely little mosquito
ridden town in Mississippi.