I do not do good with facts, tending to get them all comfabulated somewhere, and to back it up with paper, well there are a dozen places I could have put those pieces of paper...in my living room alone. But I shall endeavor. The box full of all my old stuff from my lives gone by is the best place to start I think. A dozen little pictures flash through my mind of me putting bits and pieces of my life in it. I was born in Bridgeport General Hospital, located in Bridgeport, Connecticut. that is from my birth certificate and a hospital certificate with my footprint on it.  I have a baby book that chronicles my life up to grade school which I do not really remember. I was healthy and loved, from the entries I read in it. I have several pictures of my birthdays from this time period; I was spoiled too.
            I entered school in Center Annex School, in Seymour Connecticut, grades K-2. I have class pictures with those grades on them with the name of the school. I was cute and for some reason always laughing, go figure. I remember moving to Maine after that and living with my grandparents for a time. I have the class picture that says I went to school at Jefferson Street School during my third grade with a certain teacher from that class but that is a different story. My grandparents have long since sold the house, and  the school is no longer there, sadly. Long after I had moved away I fell down the marble stairs of the front entryway of that school and severely sprained an ankle. I figured it was a parting gift.
            We moved to Orrington, Maine in the middle of the school term, so I was not in Old Town a whole year. I have my brother's fifth Grade picture which says he was in South Orrington Elementary Fifth grade. He did not move to Orrington alone, much as he would have liked to have gotten rid of me, I just had to tag along. I do not know why mother gave me his pictures, I think to get them out of her drawers. I have a few more class pictures of different grades through the years in Orrington, I had a lot of hair.
            I participated in our country's bicentennial events as per the Orrington newsletter dated...OMG! 1976! I demonstrated the fine art of dipping candles. the picture of me in frontier garb working over a vat of hot candle wax is too grainy and yellowed to tell what the candles looked like but I think they were ok, little skinny maybe. I graduated elementary school in June of 1978. I have the graduation announcement stuck in my baby book
           I have a bit  more stuff from high school then I did my junior high years. A program from the basketball games at the Bangor auditorium, John Bapst High School letter from doing the rally squad, (think pom pom girl) Finally a copy of my high school diploma, which is stuck in the baby book with my eight grade graduation announcement. I have tenderly preserved my next document a DD-214 which says I joined the military on June 20, 1981. I remember that day and the bus ride that took me from my life as a daughter, sister, child, to my life as a sailor, wife, mother, and friend.