I came into existence November 2, 1990. Born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to two God-fearing parents with bible degrees. My father (Rick) was from a small town in Southern-central Pennsylvania and my mother (Sandy) from a very small town in Northern Wisconsin. My father made his living as an auto parts salesman and my mother was a missionary in West Africa before she met my dad. How did these two souls find each other? My grandfather on my Dad's side wanted to donate to a mission and wanted to know the person he was helping. So he was put in contact with my mom via letters. He eventually mentioned he had a son and put them in touch via letters as well. My parents wrote back and forth and I believe sent photos of each other. Keep in mind that there was no internet nor widespread cell phones back in the 1980s. So letters took three weeks to travel halfway across the world. My mom eventually went home on a brief furlough and met my Dad in person. Something began to form between them, but my mom eventually had to go back to Africa. Near the end of her service, my Dad flew out to Africa to get her. They came back to the USA and were married in October of 1989. Then they started dating as my mom likes to say.
My parents lived in Wisconsin that first year as my mom had been away from her family for so long which is how I ended up being born in Wisconsin. After a year, my parents joined a Christian group called Christ for the Nations and ended up moving to Dallas, TX. In May of 1992 my sister Sarah was born. She was born in the very hospital John F. Kennedy was taken to when he was shot. Being 1.5 years old, I really have no memory of the days I spent in Texas.
After a year, my parents left Christ for the Nations and moved to Hanover, PA near where my Dad is from. We moved into a duplex owned by a missionary couple who were currently overseas. Believe it or not, my two year-old brain decided to start recording memories here. I remember that yellow duplex located on Walnut Street. And all these stories I'm going to share are mostly straight from memory. Not from pictures, nor my parents, but from my own recollection.
I remember my friend Daryl who lived on the other side of the duplex. Then the house next to us had some older neighbors who I was terrified of because they seemed like the grumpy type (especially when we launched toys into their yard). My parents used to buy food from the Schwann Truck and I expected ice cream every time. We had a swing set I climbed all over and a green turtle sandbox that we played in. A few particular memories were on nice summer nights we'd take walks around the neighborhood and sometimes end up at the nearby park. I'd pay attention to the sun setting through the leaves on the trees, the dogs we passed by on walks of their own, and the random things happening in the neighborhood.
But there is one memory my two year old self somehow retained in full detail and to this day, I don't understand why it's this one. One afternoon, my mom was taking me upstairs for a nap. That day I really did not want to. So I put up a little bit of a fuss, but she finally managed to get me in bed. I waited until she left and I heard her go all the way down the stairs. Once she did, I got out of bed and grabbed the yard stick that was propped up against the wall. I stood on the bed and looked out through the nearby window. I saw my mom hanging up laundry on the clothes lines. I took the yard stick and began banging on the window and calling her name to see if she'd notice. I saw her stop, look around, look up, and head back toward the house. She came up into the room and found me happily tapping on the window. She then took the yard stick from me, put me back down in the bed, and told me I needed to go to sleep otherwise I was going to be in trouble and have to go to bed earlier. I became compliant and fell asleep. To this day I still don't understand out of all the awesome things I could've remembered, this memory was it.
A few other memory fragments include waving goodbye to my dad as he left the house for work in the mornings, my grumpy neighbor tossing my squeaky bat from his yard back into ours, sliding up and down the stairs without getting hurt, climbing the doorway frame, protecting my Sesame Street table from my little sister, and playing with my next-door neighbor Daryl. I wish I had more full memories from this stage in my life, but unfortunately children's brains in the early stages don't retain all that much. We weren't long for the house on Walnut Street, but more of that to come later.
Author's note: I realize when I introduced that I was doing this that I called it an autobiography. Well it's actually going to by a hybrid autobiography/memoir as not only will it tell my history, but will at times focus on a collection of memories from my life.
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