Debbie Reynolds' wonderful idea and challenge, What We Have In Common - Getting to Know Each Other Better, brought up all sorts of memories. Here are ten that I'm willing to share.
1. I bellydanced for about 25 years. Not professionally, but for the sheer joy of it.
2. I was raised a preacher’s kid and spent most of my childhood growing up in the woods in a church camp in East Texas.
3. When I was a child, I didn't have to be asleep, but I had to be in my room by a certain time every night. There were only three valid reasons for coming out: to go to the bathroom, if I were sick or bleeding, or to look something up in the encyclopaedia. I was born with the desire to research, and they learned early on not to fight it. They ended up putting the set of encyclopaedias in the hall right outside my bedroom door. As you can imagine, google is my friend!
4. My first lessons shooting a handgun were taught by a Texas Ranger when I was about 11. I learned to shoot a rifle when I was 8, taught by my Daddy. I’m very good with a rifle; not as good with a handgun, yet. Used to be pretty good with a bow and arrow, too.
5. I was a hippie. And a biker chick (British bikes only - Triumph, BSA, Vincent, and the like). Heck, I was 18 in 1968! Enough said?
6. I used to be a personal chef. Not professionally trained, trained by 30 years of cooking for family and friends. When my children grew up and left home, and I realized that there were just the two of us and I was still cooking for teenagers and all their friends, I decided to get paid for doing what I'd been doing for free all those years. Cooking is still something that centers me and makes me happy.
7. I’ve seen the Beatles live. Also Jimi Hendrix. And Jim Morrison. And Janis Joplin. And Cream. And the Jefferson Airplane. And Joan Baez. And B.B. King, both young and old. And Johnny Cash. And Arlo Guthrie (from about 8 feet away). And many others. (See #5 above.)
8. I had nutria and possums as childhood pets. Also had 40 snakes of assorted kinds, venomous and not, in jars in my back yard when I was five. This was so that, growing up in the woods like I did, I would know which ones were safe to pick up and which were not. I've been all about the animals for all my life.
9. I was once a personal injury legal assistant. Medical malpractice. Specializing in baby cases. That will burn you out quick, thus the “used to be”.
10. I’ve studied reiki, rebirthing, Silva Mind Control, and a variety of other similar disciplines. From my father I learned to look for the things that are the same among all religions and disciplines, once the cultural overlay is stripped away, because there lies truth.
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