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Early Memories
My earliest memories are from when I was four and five years old living
in a black and white, two story house on Blackbird Way in Pleasanton,
California. At first it was just my older sister Corey and I, and our
parents of course. Coreys friend Michele Sorenson lived across the
street, and I sometimes joined Corey when she visited the Sorensons
house. Micheles older sisters name was Gee-gee.
I remember having my own pumpkin patch in the back yard and carving
one of the pumpkins while it was still green, despite my mothers
warnings that it wasnt ripe yet. It fell apart. Pumpkins are still one of
my favorite things to grow and to eat. That was my first gardening
experience. I also remember seeing Carol Doda on channel 36 and
thinking about how pretty she was. When she came on, I was afraid to
look at the TV. I was shy.
36
Motorcycles
Andrew
I have not had many close friends in my lifetime. About four or five have
come and gone. But my one best friend I have had throughout all my life
has been my cousin Andrew. We always shared the same interests, frogs
and newts and geese, and especially chicks.
4-5
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Sometimes my father would fail to treat the swimming pool, and it would
turn green. And toads and tree frogs would come and lay eggs in it.
Soon the pool would be full of tadpoles. We didnt call them tadpoles
though. We called them pollywogs. When I was eight years old, I had
my first pond. It was a very small pond that was there when we moved
in. I filled it up with water and put some of the tadpoles from the
swimming pool in it. From that point on I became very interested in
amphibians.
The Bible
My mother taught me about the Bible at an early age, and I was very
interested in it from the start, especially the very beginning of Genesis
about the creation and the Garden of Eden. I went to church meeting and
Sunday school all through my childhood. But the most important and
best thing that ever happened to me was when I went on a trip to the
waterslides in Manteca with our church youth group. It was just around
the beginning of high school for me. We had a lot of fun, but the
important thing was when the youth pastor sat us down and talked to us
about the importance of reading the Bible on our own, not just going to
meeting and Sunday school and listening to what someone else has to say
about it. You should read your Bible every day, he told us. From that
point on, I did just that.
I found myself learning and growing during high school, but it seemed
like my cousin was not. He had stopped meeting with the church, and
had never read the Bible. I asked him how he expects to grow. He said
there are other ways. About that time he got into a book by Zecharia
Sitchin. Sitchin writes about space aliens coming to earth and
intermingling with and influencing mankind based on passages from the
Bible and archeological and other evidence. I was a little wary of some
of Sitchins ideas back then and still am today. But this author influenced
me in two very positive ways. The first was that he said the most
accurate translation of the Bible was the King James Bible. I have read a
number of books on this subject and am convinced that it is true. The
best one is called The New Age Versions by Gail Riplinger. The second
was the importance of learning Hebrew. If you can read the Bible in the
original, that is better than the best translation. I am now finally learning
Hebrew after so many years of wishing I knew the language. This is by
far the most important language for everybody to learn because it is the
language that the Bible is written in. It is also the most important thing to
learn, more important than science, math, history and all other subjects.
If I ever have a child, I will have him learning Hebrew from the
beginning. It is a shame that all parents dont do likewise.
Baton Twirling
1977
Birds
I first started to become aware of my love for birds when I was in first
grade. I can remember thinking about how pretty and diverse they were
with all of the different kinds and colors. The first specific types that I
became interested in were parrots, toucans and eagles. I would read
about them in the encyclopedia and look at the pictures. Later my parents
bought me some pet parakeet budgerigars, and I kept them in a cage in
my bedroom. I didnt like keeping them in that small cage. I liked to see
them fly around. So I would often let them fly freely in my room or
sometimes throughout the house. Eventually my father bought me a big
cage to keep in the backyard. We had to cover the cage with plastic in
the winter time, since parakeets are tropical and will die if they are
exposed to the cold. The cage came with two ring neck doves. Thus
began my interest in doves and pigeons.
My mother had a fancy for fancy chickens. The first ones she got were a
pair of bantams that looked rather like jungle fowl, what they say are the
original chickens and which can be found in India, Sri Lanka, Southeast
Asia and Indonesia. They probably were not jungle fowl. We just knew
them as bantams. But bantam is not a kind. It is a generic term for
small chickens. We didnt have a chicken coop, so the hen laid eggs in
our well pump shed. She sat on them and one day a single tiny baby
hatched out. My mother called me over to see it, and when I saw it, I
instantly fell in love. I was yellow with brown stripes just like the jungle
fowl chicks. I was probably about seven years old at the time. That was
the beginning of a growing and enduring interest in chickens.
Biografa
Memorias tempranas
Mis memorias ms tempranas son de cuando era cuatro y cinco aos que
viva en una casa blanco y negro, de dos pisos en Camino Blackbird en
Pleasanton, California. Al principio era slo mi hermana mayor Corey y
yo, y nuestros padres, por supuesto. La amiga Micaela Sorenson de
Corey vivi a travs de la calle, y ensambl a veces Corey cuando ella
visit la casa del Sorenson. El nombre de una ms vieja hermana de
Micaela era Gee-gee. Recuerdo tener mi propio remiendo de la calabaza
en el patio trasero y tallar una de las calabazas mientras que era todava
verde, a pesar de las advertencias de mi madre que no era maduro
todava. Se deshizo. Las calabazas siguen siendo una de mis cosas
preferidas a cultivar y a comer. sa era mi primera experiencia que
cultivaba un huerto. Tambin recuerdo ver Carol Doda en el canal 36 y
pensar en cuan bonita ella era. Cuando ella se adelant, tena miedo de
mirar la TV. Yo era tmido.
Motocicletas
Andrew
Ranas y Sapos
La Biblia