{"id":1986,"date":"2016-08-03T11:13:25","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T15:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=1986"},"modified":"2016-08-09T23:09:50","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T03:09:50","slug":"project-52-seven-years-old-meeting-my-lifetime-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=1986","title":{"rendered":"Project 52 – Seven Years Old – Meeting my Lifetime Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"1971_06<\/a><\/p>\n

Seven weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52<\/a> — for 52 weeks, I’m going to post each week about one year of my life.<\/p>\n

Already it seems very strange to me that I only lived in the Seattle area for four years. It was a lifetime at the time!<\/p>\n

It especially seems appropriate to assemble this post from California, from the same place we moved to the year I was seven years old. I’ve been visiting family this week for my niece’s wedding, and spending some time at my parents’ house — which is still the same house in Wilmington we moved to in 1972. I got to go through photo albums and scan more pictures for the upcoming years. Of course, many of the photos I won’t post here — of the house or of church or other everyday things — sparked so many memories.<\/p>\n

The picture up above is the first one I’ll talk about. If you look closely, you might be able to notice that the eye away from the camera is a black eye!<\/p>\n

We had the appointment to get my seven-year-old pictures taken — and a morning before it, my parents were playing tennis. We kids were running around on the tennis courts. I was running from one side of the net to the other — and tried to run in between the net and the post holding it up. It turned out that the rope holding the net up was right at my eye level — and I got a black eye.<\/p>\n

I turned seven years old on June 14, 1971. We were still at the house in Carson that summer, and I still played with my best friend, Karen Iwata. Apparently we went over to each other’s houses in the summertime, too.<\/p>\n

\"1971_07<\/a><\/p>\n

Here I am playing in the bushes with Karen and our next door neighbor, Debbie Wardrop.<\/p>\n

\"1971_08<\/a><\/p>\n

And that’s another picture of Karen and me.<\/p>\n

In Carson, our house was so small that Becky and I shared a room.<\/p>\n

\"1971_07<\/a><\/p>\n

Hmmm. I know most of the time we had these as bunk beds. Probably to make more room. Becky would hang down from her bunk and annoy me. I wonder if this was after or before that. The doll on my bed is Newborn Thumbelina.<\/p>\n

\"1971_07<\/a><\/p>\n

And here we are in order. In July 1971, Ricky was still 9 years old, Becky 8, me 7, Wendy 3, and Randy 2. This would have been not long after Becky and Wendy both got glasses.<\/p>\n

Here’s a very happy family picture playing Ring-around-the-Rosie.<\/p>\n

\"1971_08<\/a><\/p>\n

And Becky and I were still<\/em> bought matching outfits:<\/p>\n

\"1972_02<\/a><\/p>\n

Third grade in Carson, I loved my teacher (the same one Becky had before me, and I think Ricky, too), Miss Kita. My best friend Karen was still in my class.<\/p>\n

Miss Kita had lots and lots of “centers” in her classroom — things to do, games to play, great activities for when you finished your work. That was the year we learned multiplication. Karen and I tended to be the first people done — so lots of play time.<\/p>\n

Then — in February, our family moved to Wilmington. We moved into the house my parents still live in today. <\/p>\n

They were told that the local school wasn’t a good one, and we started going to Long Beach Brethren Elementary School.<\/p>\n

I did not<\/em> like my new class. Miss Kita was young and fun and her classroom was full of fun things to do. Mrs. Monroe was very old — and said that when you finished your work, you should work on multiplication flash cards. Well, I already knew my multiplication tables. Eventually, we worked out that I could read after doing my work, but it was a far cry from Miss Kita’s class.<\/p>\n

When we found out we’d move, my friend Karen started playing more with a girl named Suzanne. I didn’t feel as included. Then we moved and the new classroom was so awful in comparison.<\/p>\n

However — little did I know that two friends I met that year would last me the rest of my life.<\/p>\n

I don’t think we were really best friends until fourth grade, but in third grade I already did some playing with Darlene Sasaki and Kathy Morris. Years later, when my husband left me and got himself sent from Germany to Japan, unaccompanied — I moved to Herndon, Virginia, where Darlene and Kathe live now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seven weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52 — for 52 weeks, I’m going to post each week about one year of my life. Already it seems very strange to me that I only lived in the Seattle area for four years. It was a lifetime at the time! It especially seems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-project-52"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}