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I had the privilege of moving to the Pacific Northwest in 1963. I was 13 years old. I lived in Nebraska for those first thirteen years of my life. If you've ever driven through Nebraska or lived in that state you know it's flat as a pancake. The only rises I can remember were the sand dunes. But to a child it was what I knew and I loved my time there. It is where my love of cowboys came from. My uncle was a mustang rider in the rodeos around our area. Evey spring he and his men would round up the wild mustangs then break them and ride them during the shows. 

I was raised on a farm and every day we had chores. Feeding the chickens and the pigs that we raised for food.  We grew our own food. My grandmother taught us to can and preserve all the fruits and vegetables we grew. It was one of the most memorable times of my life. 

I went to a one room schoolhouse that had grades kindergarten to sixth grade. It was here I made friends and learned everything I needed to know to survive in life. However, life changed drastically when my father was injured on the job and had to quite. We had to move from the farm and move into the town, North Platte Nebraska. City life was vastly different from country life. We learned to adapt. For the first time I attended a public school in a two-story brick building.  Lincoln Elementary and it was two blocks from our home so we walked to school. How many of you have walked to school? It was so fun meeting the neighborhood kids gathering and walking the few blocks to the schoolhouse. 

Here is what happened in 1961. I was in first grade.

What Happened in 1961?

MAJOR EVENTS:

• Outgoing President Eisenhower issues warning of a "military industrial complex" developing in America
• President Kennedy establishes Peace Corps
• Cuban exiles fail in their bid to invade Cuba through the Bay of Pigs; President Kennedy accepts responsibility
• Soviets built a wall dividing East and West Berlin
• Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann tried in Israel, found guilty
• "Freedom Riders" travel throughout the South to test and promote integration measures; many are assaulted and beaten

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY:

• Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes first human in space during a single-orbit flight
• Commander Alan Shephard Jr. becomes first American in space in a suborbital flight aboard Mercury 3; Virgil Grissom follows in similar fashion two months later
• Soviet space probe Venera 1 becomes the first man-made vehicle to reach another planet when it arrives at Venus
• First lasers developed
• Anthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey discover Homo habilis in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania

SPORTS:

• World Series: New York Yankees over Cincinnati, 4-1
• Ty Cobb dies

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT:

• Movies: West Side Story, The Hustler, Judgment at Nuremburg
• Songs: Moon River, Where the Boys Are, Will You Love Me Tomorrow, Blue Moon, The Lion Sleeps Tonight
• TV Shows: Bullwinkle, Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, Hazel, Dick Van Dyke Show, Top Cat
• Books: Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein; Catch-22, Joseph Heller; The Carpetbaggers, Harold Robbins; The Making of the President: 1960, Theodore White; The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone; The Winter of Our Discontent, John Steinbeck
• Henry Miller’s 1934 novel Tropic of Cancer published legally in the U.S. for the first time
• Ernest Hemmingway dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound
• Gary Cooper dies

EVERYDAY LIFE:

• Electric toothbrushes introduced
• "Frito" corn chips appear
• Average Cost of a new car $2,850

FUN FACTS:

• "Barbie" gets a boyfriend when the "Ken" doll is introduced
• The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) started
• Barack Obama, George Clooney born

I be back with more about my life. Let me know if you enjoyed this.