Thirteen

Hello all,

We angels got together and decided to write about thirteen things we know. What does the word "thirteen" bring to mind when you first hear it? Is it a fearful connotation? Curiosity? Luck?

We each have our own emotions attached to the concept. As a writer, I fancy my words can evoke pictures, feelings and sensations from my readers. I hope I'm hitting the mark by my use of words as pictures on paper.

My thirteen items will be the best memories from one of the thirteen states where I've lived. For those uninitiated... my father was a military man who was stationed all over the country. When I left home, I had the itchy foot and continued to follow the wanderlust to satiate my own desire to see the world. I'll try not to take up two pages with my recollections!

I'm going to start from the East Coast and go west. These memories span a childhood starting sixty years ago. I suspect things have changed a bit since I was there.


1. New Jersey - Walking to school in the snow; crisp air, the crunching of new snowfall beneath my boots.
2. Virginia - Thunderstorms to rattle the buildings. The sounds of rain pounding so heavy on the roof I thought the angels were tap dancing and, afterward, the smell of freshly washed grass.
3. North Carolina - This memory is when I was four years old. Walking barefoot down the lane to the farm, the dirt so soft it squished through my toes with the consistency of silk; warm and velvety to the touch. The smell of fresh tobacco leaves hanging in the barn drying.[NOT at ALL the same as cigarettes.]
4. Florida - I could wax poetic for pages about Florida. I went here after I left home and spent five years in the Sunshine State. I visited Disney World the first year it opened. Hours and hours were spent on warm, white sands gazing at the turquoise blue of the Gulf; coral, peach and pink colored clouds reflected off silver-topped teal blue waters. [Told ya I could go on forever!]
5. Alabama - We moved to this state right after Martin Luther marched in Birmingham. [Yes, I'm that old.] I have memories of hot, muggy summer nights on the front porch swing of our home sipping on cool glasses of iced tea. Lazy days fretting about what to do while listening to the British revolution of music on AM radio. [What I wouldn't give to have that time back again!]
6. Texas - Stationed here a mere six months, I have very vivid recollections of Mt. Franklin towering over the town and being so close to 'another' country tweaked my young curiosity about another culture. I learned a very important lesson during this short lived duty station. I'm truly blessed every day of my life. A quick trip to the border town of Juarez, Mexico exposed me to what real poverty was and helped me to appreciate everything I had.
7. Utah - What a magnificent land! The beauty of the earth is heart stopping. Zion National Park has rock formations that will boggle the senses and the canyons and valleys going from the salt flats to the mountains behind Ogden and Salt Lake will render one speechless with their colorful majesty in fall.
8. Nevada - My memory is from when I was two and a half. I recall stepping into Lake Tahoe and the water being so clear and cold my teeth chattered.
9. Idaho - I experienced the panhandle, Coeur d'Alene and Orofino. High desert punctuated with tall pine trees towering up the mountain sides. Hidden lakes interspersed throughout surprise the traveller.
10. California - I moved up and down this large land quite a bit. As large as eight or nine states put together on the East Coast, California has the same diversities one would expect in such a variety of states. But I'll be brief: I went to Disneyland the first year it opened. I lived in southern and northern California and camped in many of the national parks. Suffice it to say California has the contrasts of tiny towns and big cities; deserts that reach 120 degrees in the summer [Death Valley] and mountains so high they will kill you in the winter [Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevadas].
11. Oregon - My current home. Ocean to desert in less than six hours. Big cities and small towns; Portland, the Columbia Gorge and Pendleton roundup. Everything any one could wish for is in this state the size of Germany. And great people to boot!
12. Alaska - Darkness twenty hours a day [great when you're a twenty something nightowl!]and ice crystals in the air. It reminded me of someone dumping sugar which froze in place from a plane. Nose freezing the moment you take a breath; and when I visited the Portage Glacier, light blue glacial chunks so close to the shore you could crawl on them.
13.Hawaii - Soft trade winds whispering across your face as you listen to the rustle of palm trees providing shade; warm, friendly people who remind you life is too short to worry and a sense of well-being unmatched anywhere else in the United States.

Those are my thirteen most vivid memories of amazing places I've lived. In all my travels I've learned each place has positive points and negative points. I choose to dwell on the positive.

What are your thirteen positives?

Sable Angel