Interview Question #1

You may have seen Jen's posts on her personal interview questions and her generous offer to spend the brain space to think up some for the rest of us, too. This is the first in a five part series, so stay tuned!

Q1: What is your favorite childhood memory?

A: This is tough one for me to answer because I'm one of those people who doesn't remember doing something until someone else reminds me that I did it (and if you can figure that sentence out, you're smarter than me). I have a great memory for numbers, phone numbers especially, but experiences I have to write down or they get stored clear at the bottom of my brain. That being said, I do have a few that stick with me without outside influence and a large group of them involve my-best-friend-since-kindergarten, Anne. As you can imagine, having been friends with someone for so long we have had our share of ups and downs...but she is a true friend and the closest thing to a true-blood sister an only child could have. ;o) Ironically, she is also my memory box and serves to remind me of all those other childhood memories I have forgotten (sometimes willfully).

Still, there are a few that really stick out:

* Rolling down the hill behind her house in the spring, when the grass had just turned green and everything smelled new and earthy. We would race her brothers to the bottom, and whoever was the most dizzy (and likely couldn't even stand up) by the end, would win.

* The day she tried to "gift" her brothers to me in large brown box. If you've ever had two farm boys unexpectedly jump out of a big box tied up with ribbon, you'll know that it's an experience you won't soon forget. It was around this time they picked up the nickname with which I'm afraid they'll be forever remembered: The Bothers.

* The day her family's wayward sheep, a large, woolly, and bad tempered creature named Maxwell, tried to make me a permanent part of the holding pen fence by repeatedly ramming me into it. "The Bothers" were less than helpful as they alternately tried to help me climb out and egged the sheep on.

* Picking berries every summer. I am a blackberry fiend and she is a thimbleberry fiend, and since we each had the other's favorite berry growing on our property we would designate a day and have a huge berry picking. Between me gobbling all the blackberries and her gobbling all the thimbleberries, we almost had a enough to make a cobbler by the time we were done. Usually not, so we'd throw some raspberries there, too and call it a Berry Buckle.

* The night we were late for our pre-dance dinner in high school (I believe it was winter ball) and I drove us from her house to a restaurant in Clarkston in just under 15 minutes--that's normally a 30-40 min drive. We literally had to peel ourselves off the seat when we arrived.

* Sneaking up behind her and yelling "THIRTEEN YEARS!" at the top of my lungs our senior year, reminding her that she had never given me a school photo in all that time. (She later delivered unto me a box of school photos, all the way from kindergarten on, as a graduation present...probably mostly to shut me up).

* All the times she believed everything I told her--for that, I love her to death and always will.

I look forward to adding the memory of "when Anne called me up after reading this blog post" to my memory box. ;o)