Where Did You Grow Up?

"Where did you grow up?"
     I’m not sure what prompted facebook to add this question to my profile page. Maybe it was the fact that I turned 40 a couple weeks go. Maybe it was a change in their format. Maybe it was just a random pop-up question that was there for a few days. Either way, the question got me to thinking. "Where did you grow up?" It’s not as easily answered as you might think.
     I was born in a hospital in Decatur, Georgia, and, as best as I can remember, my parents lived in an apartment in Stone Mountain (the city not the rock). I know we also lived across the street from my grandparents in Snellville, Georgia, in a house owned by Mr. and Mrs. Meadows. I believe this is where we lived when my younger sister was born.
     Then, on my 3^rd birthday, we moved to a small town not even on the map at the time, Flat Rock, Alabama. That’s where most of my Daddy’s family lived. I have a few memories of the three houses we lived in during our first stay in Alabama. The last one was where we lived when I started school. This is also where we lived when I had my appendix removed and where I got the chicken pox. Our first time in Alabama lasted exactly 3 years.
     Our next move was on my 6^th birthday, just after I finished 1^st grade, this time to Clarksville, Tennessee. My Daddy worked construction and sometimes you just have to go where the work is. I attended Burns-Darden School. This is where we lived when my sister started kindergarten and my mom was put in the hospital for a hernia (I believe) she got "because she swallowed an aspirin and it didn’t go down good." During the 1½ years we lived in Tennessee, we lived in three different houses. I don’t remember much about them, only that one was a two-story brick house in Bel-Air Estates, one was on Lafayette Street, and the other had a room that smelled bad.
     This is where time starts to get a little fuzzy for me. I know we spent a summer in Pensacola, Florida, although I’m not sure what year. We were up early every day, watched the Muppets and Richard Simmons, packed lunch in a cooler and spent most mornings at the beach with friends. I remember going shopping with my friend, Francine, and her getting her first pair of culottes (I think back then we called them gauchos). I remember so many fire ant beds! During our time in Tennessee and Florida, I remember several trips to Alabama and Georgia for funerals. I remember day trips and road trips. I remember family coming to visit.
     Then it was back to good ol’ Flat Rock. The house we rented, to me, was absolutely lovely. Huge living room, hardwood floors, a toy room in the back, a bathroom with a separate tub and shower, and a detached garage. There were beautiful, huge trees in the front yard (which got rolled with toilet paper...a lot). I remember raking up pine straw and leaves to make "houses" and "roads." The house was right next door to the First Baptist Church, which was right across the road from the school. This is where we lived when I accepted Jesus as my Savior. This is where we lived when my Daddy rededicated his life to the Lord and was baptized.
     Then one night my Daddy came home and told us he had bought a trailer (now the correct term would be "mobile home"). We moved into that trailer on a lot rented from Mr. J.W. Mason at the top of the hill, just down the road from my Aunt Mae, and her family. We became close to them as that’s where we spent all our time while we were out of school and Mama and Daddy were at work. At her house we shucked corn, shelled peas, snapped green beans. We played with legos and Hot Wheels and made our pretend houses under her grapevines. It was while we lived here that I planted my first flower bed, morning glories. It was here where I remember having our first dog, B.J. It was here where Daddy got the bright idea to burn out the fire ant hill in the yard by pouring gas on it and lighting it on fire. Unbeknownst to him the ants had a tunnel that ran clear across the property and into the neighbor’s driveway. Whoosh!
     A couple years later, my sister spent the night with a friend in Fabius (actually still part of Flat Rock). When we went to pick her up, my Daddy got into a conversation with her dad and we ended up looking at, and eventually buying, the land next to them. We got off the school bus one day, and our trailer had been moved to its new location. We were expecting it, but it was still a little unnerving. I think I was in the 8^th grade at this point, around 13 or 14 years old.
     Over the next couple years, we helped Daddy build on to that trailer and turn it into a house. We laid block for the foundation, we nailed down plywood for the floors, we hung and mudded sheetrock for walls. I graduated as valedictorian of my 8^th grade class (a class of about 30) and moved up to the high school at Pisgah, which was roughly a 20 minute bus ride to and from the Flat Rock school.  My first room of my own was finished in time for my grandparents to visit around my 15^th birthday.
     That fall is when I met my future husband. We dated for a year and a half before we married on April 14, 1990, a little over a month before my 17^th birthday. We moved into a home two houses down from my parents in Flat Rock. We lived there until that November, when our daughter was 6 weeks old, and we moved into the home of his parents in Dutton, while he went to work out of town with my Daddy. It was while we lived here that I graduated high school and started college. We lived there for almost a year, when we bought our first trailer/mobile home and moved a few miles down the road to Section. It was here that I learned what it really meant to "keep house." It was here that my daughter had her 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd birthdays. It was while we lived here that I graduated college and got my first "real" job.
     After 2½ years in Section, we bought a new (now called) "manufactured home" and moved to the 6½ acres of land my husband had bought alongside his brother in Crossville, some 60 miles from our first marital residence. It was here that our first son was born, I became a stay-at-home mom, and where my children first caught the bus to school. Then, about five years later, in January, 2000, we built a house on the back side of that property. It was at this same time that I started my career as a legal secretary. It was this house that I brought my youngest son home to, and the only place he has ever called home. It was while we lived here that I rededicated my life to my Lord, and all three of my babies accepted Christ. We’ve now been in this house for 13½ years.
     So, where did I grow up? There’s no specific town I call my starting point. I was raised in the South. I grew up under the discipline and freedom of my parents. I grew up beside my sister who, though she annoyed me greatly, was the person closest to me. We share the same memories. She will understand my answer to this question. I grew up at the knees of saintly women, playing under the quilts as they "discussed" life’s issues and offered sisterly "advice." I grew up under "hell fire and brimstone" preachers and the wisdom of truly caring teachers. I grew up at family reunions and weekend volleyball games. I grew up rolling yards and having rubber band battles (skills learned from my lovely Mama). I grew up on the backroads of small communities where everybody knows everybody. I grew up on the interstates between the Tennessee-Kentucky state line, North Alabama, Atlanta and the Florida panhandle. I grew up in the cab of a red 1979 Chevrolet Silverado and the back seat of a 1973 VW Bug, and any other vehicle my Daddy might bring home. I grew up in the yard playing with first, second, third (and maybe even some fourth) cousins. I grew up at my children’s bedside, soothing little ones through sickness, surgeries and broken hearts. I grew up beside hospital beds and in funeral homes. I grew up at home with my parents, I grew up at home with my husband, and I grew up in the home of strangers (before I came to love them as family).
     I grew up in love. Loved by so many, in so many different places. I grew up in several earthly houses; I grew up in the House of God; I grew up believing I have an eternal home built just for me in Heaven.