"Here's My Story And I'm Stickin' To It"

Chapter One: WAY BACK WHEN?

 

I was born in the late summer of 1964 but it wasn't until around Christmas time that I went home to live with my new adopted family. We lived in a  suburb of Seattle, Washington. My dad was a fireman at the time and my mom was a stay-at-homer. My two older brothers  were also adopted as babies. I guess that's why the music video you heard  playing means so much to me. It's also about children who are adopted into loving homes.

SIDE NOTE: I did have a chance to meet most of my birth family back in 1993. And some of us still stay in touch . What an adventure it has been! 

I guess you could say I acquired my entrepreneurial spirit at a fairly young age. When I was 4 my dad had to retire from the fire department due to a back and shoulder injury. He then decided to own and operate a little mom and pop True Value Hardware store.  So when I was very young I got to go to work with my dad on the weekends.  My "job", so to speak, was to dust shelves, count nuts and bolts and hand out penny candy to the customers. I know, not necessarily something you'd put on a resume, but I think the experience definitely set a precedence for my life.

When I was 7, my older brothers and I took over the grounds maintenance  responsibilities around where my dad's store was. My cut was $30  a month. Not much these days... but heck, back in the 70's it was a lot. I loved buying gifts for people, so having  a regular salary was quite helpful for that. Of course, I did save a lot of my earnings for a major purchase later on. 

 SIDE NOTE: It wasn't all work and no play though. I  took modeling and singing lessons, as well as ballet, tap, jazz, and polynesian dance lessons for 7 years while my brothers took karate. We also went skiing and dirt bike riding EVERY chance we got!  But I did have to give most of that up after I was in a fairly serious car accident that left me kind of messed up for a while.

Anyway, I did the clean up kind of work till I was 14. But by then  it got  a little embarrassing to  seen by my peers  picking up trash and watering Rhodies on the weekends. So I did what any self- respecting teenager would do... I quit, and got a job working nights and weekends at the local Dairy Queen (with all my other self- respecting teenage friends of course) Man, was that place fun. I still wonder what the owner was thinking leaving the business in the hands of ONLY a bunch of teenagers every night and on the weekends. The store motto was "let's have fun sucking all the air outta of the whip cream cans and feeding all of our unemployed friends." (BTW I still do feel really bad about that! Sorry Mr. Johnson!) But much to our demise, with in a couple of years, the DQ was sold out from underneath us and turned into a Happy Teriyaki joint. Just not the same, so it was time to move on....in stlye!

I  used all that cash I had been saving to buy my first car ~ A beautiful, red, 66 Mustang Convertible ~  

(This picture isn't my old car... but looks JUST like it) 

 

 

Since I now had a  major responsibility  to run and maintain,  I immediately took a job at the local Hallmark store. I must say, a more quiet and less messy environment was a nice change of pace.  However, since the possibility of advancement there was next to nil I started researching my viable career options. 

Side note: Life as I knew it all changed when I was 16  years old, and my parents, after 34 years of marriage, ended up getting a divorce. I guess it's all too common now, but back then it was more of an exception to the rule. At least it was in my circle of friends. It was an extremely difficult time for our family. And I felt I was needed to stay close to my mom to help her out.

That takes us to ChapterTwo - Working My Way To The Top (or Not)