Personal History for Christine Mines

Dedication Chapter

Title of Your Autobiography

Here, There and Everywhere

About the Author:

I'm 63 years old and have only fuzzy recollections of a lot of my early life, although certain things still stand out to me, and I'm trying to recapture as much as I can. Plus, I have the help of about 7 notebooks full of diary entries I kept from about 1974-1987 or so.

I grew up in a small steel mill city in Ohio, when TV was still in black & white, transistor radios were still a thing and cars didn't come with seat belts. Everyone smoked, and people loved the Marlboro Man. I remember hearing the news about JFK being shot, and watched the moon landing live on TV. My mom was religious and moderately strict, so I didn't even have a job other than babysitting for neighbors.

By the time I got to college, we were still creating our class schedules on paper, but some classes were starting to use computers in class. All the terminals were connected to the mainframe computer. You could say I was an early adopter. :) And I had the time of my life at school there.

After college, I worked, got married, moved around a lot for my husband's job, had 3 daughters, got divorced and settled back in my college area, which I dearly missed all those years. There's lots to do here, the job market is good and the cost of living very reasonable. I'm really very content these days.

I'm a copy editor, proofreader, writer for a living, so I hope I can write this in a way that people will enjoy reading. 안녕!

P.S. Some details withheld for public sharing.

Words of wisdom, favorite quote, or words to live by:

I love quotes and have long lists of favorites. I'm a big fan of "Strength and Honor" from the movie "Gladiator."

And lots of lyrics from BTS songs! Like:

I’m the one I should love in this world,
Shining me, precious soul of mine.
I finally realized it, so now I love me,
Not so perfect but so beautiful.
I’m the one I should love.

All the underdogs in the world --
A day may come when we lose
But it is not today
Today we fight!

Cast stones at us
We have no fear anymore
We are, we are together bulletproof

I want to tell you that darkness
Exists everywhere, don't be afraid of it
Whatever night may swallow me, I won't give up
The fight for you, we'll shine

If you would like to be contacted by someone who reads your biography, please include a current e-mail address. Remember, it is entirely up to you if you would like to make your biography public and it is entirely up to you if you would like to include your e-mail address for others to contact you.

cmm.family.friends@gmail.com

Just The Facts

In a few pages, what is summary of your life story?

I have mixed feelings about my own life, ha ha! Sometimes I think I've done so many cool things and lived in so many different places, that I have a lot of fascinating stuff to look back on. And other times I think if I could go back to the day of my birth, I would do just about EVERYTHING differently!!! I have a lot of regrets.

I've just started telling my story, not sure where it will end up.

Please enter the date you began answering these questions.

April 23, 2021

What is your name (first, middle, maiden name, last)? Do you like your name? If you could, would you choose another? What name would you choose? Who were you named for?

Chris M. My married name was XXXXX, but I got a legal change in 2017 back to my maiden name.

My mom named me after her sister, sort of. Not really in honor of her sister, but because she liked the name.

When I was in grade school, I thought my name was too plain and didn't like it. I would rather have gone by Tina than by Chris, but by the time I thought about it, Chris was already etched in everyone's minds.

But I always felt a special connection with other people named Chris, maybe because it was just rare enough that we felt happy when we met someone else with it.

Are you male or female?

Female

In what country, state, and city were you born? What hospital?

What is your birth order?

I'm the oldest of 5, with a sister, brother, sister, brother following me. The first sibling is just 13 months younger than me, and the youngest 14 years younger!

How old are you today? How old do you feel?

I'm 63, as of a week ago. Physically, I definitely feel my age, but mentally I feel about 23. I've tried to figure out why that particular age, actually, and I think it's because that's when I was happiest and felt the best about myself.

Do you speak any foreign languages?

Not fluently, but I took Spanish in school and still remember a fair amount of it. At least, I can remember it pretty well if I read it, but if I try to say something in it, the words don't come easily.

I'm currently trying to learn Korean, and it's slow going at my age. I started trying to learn random things in Korean after falling in love with Korean TV shows and music, and went from book to book and app to app, not finding any of them quite right. Now a native Korean speaker is tutoring me, and that's helping a lot. But I still work full time, and don't have a lot of energy for studying these days.

Are you right-handed or left-handed?

Right

Your Family and Ancestry

List the names and birthdates of your mother, father, maternal grandmother, paternal grandmother, maternal grandfather, paternal grandfather and other great grandfathers and grandmothers. What did you call them?

(names and dates withheld from public version)

I called my parents Mom and Dad, although later my dad became Pops, for fun, after I read a short story in literature class, in which a young boy hilariously said "Hey, Pop, you old dust mop."

I never new my dad's mom, since she died when Dad was young, and his dad died when I was 3, so I don't really remember him. But they tell me I called him Popine. I have no idea where that word came from!

My mom's parents were Grandma and Grandpap, although later I thought of them as Gram and Gramps. Gram was really sweet and a great cook. Looking back, I think she was kind of like a mother hen. Gramps was funny and a great story teller.

Do you have brothers and sisters? What are their names? When were they born? Do you remember the first time you saw them?

I have two younger sisters and two younger brothers.

(withheld)

I was too young to remember the first 3 when I first saw them, and it's funny, you'd think I would remember the first time I saw Kirk, because I was 14 then. But I don't have a specific memory of the first time.

Where was your mother born? Where was your father born? What circumstances brought your parents to the place where you were born? Were there people already there whom they knew, or did they come into the community alone? Was the community welcoming to them?

My mother was born in a tiny village in western Pennsylvania, the third of 8 children. There wouldn't have been a hospital close, and she may have been born at home, but she isn't sure. Mom's parents were both born in the area, but all their parents were immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

My father was born in the same city I was born in. And probably in the same hospital, but I'm not sure about that.

My dad's dad, Roscoe, came to Warren with his family when he was about 14, in 1903, from Clarksburg, West Virginia. Dad's mom, Rhea, was born in Warren, and I think she and Roscoe might have met while attending the same church. Most of Roscoe's side of the family has been in the US a long time, one line going back to 1630. Rhea's side is mixed, with her mom's side here for quite a while, and her father's side seemingly came here to escape the potato famine.

Mom followed one of her sisters to Warren, because of job opportunities there. They shared a room in a "rooming house" near the GE light bulb factory where they got jobs. Mom also worked as a waitress in a diner (not sure if before, after or concurrently with the factory job) where she met Dad. She says she saw Dad from behind and mistook him for someone she knew, so she tapped him on the shoulder to talk to him and was surprised to see a different face than she expected. But they struck up a conversation and the rest is history.

Tell about your aunts and uncles. Did they play an important part in your growing up? Do you remember any special aunts and uncles?

Now we're getting into some longer stories! Depending on the questions that come later, I may expand on these, but I'll start with this for now.

My dad had only one sister, five years older. She lived about an hour's drive from us, in a suburb of Cleveland, with her husband, who was an only child. Aunt Trish and Uncle Bob had no children of their own, and were fairly well off, so they were very good to us. I guess we probably saw them several times a year at least, until they moved to Florida in 1973. Uncle Bob was an electrical engineer at NASA and transferred from Lewis Research Center in Cleveland to Kennedy Space Center, living in nearby Titusville.

But while they lived in Cleveland, after we reached a certain age, they took us two by two to spend a week with them during the summer. They bought us toys and clothes, took us to nice restaurants and to places of interest like the Lake Erie beach or the zoo. When we got a little older, they started taking us on little trips. I remember going to Detroit to Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum one year, and to southern Ohio to Serpent Mound, Portsmouth and Coney Island in Cincinnati another year. We were at a motel in Portsmouth when Mom and Dad called to tell us Kirk had been born.

Trish and Bob were highly educated and were elegant and classy, but not in the least snobby about it. They were my role models and I can't say enough good about them. I'm sure I'll be mentioning them a lot, later.

My mom was the third of 8 children. The oldest was the only boy, David. Most of them stayed in Pennsylvania, and we didn't see them as often, but Aunt Mary, who had lived with Mom in Warren, got married and moved to Lorain, Ohio, another suburb of Cleveland that wasn't too far away. Aunt Eileen ended up with her husband in Akron (Barberton, actually), which wasn't too far either. But we were never as close to any of them as to Aunt Trish and Uncle Bob. Perhaps because they all had their own kids who they were busy raising.

Did you play with your cousins? Who are some of the cousins you know best?

I had no first cousins on my dad's side, and about 20 on my mom's side! None of them lived in the same city as us, so we didn't see them often enough to become really close. Plus, I was a shy kid and usually intimidated by my cousins. Aunt Mary's oldest, Mauro, better known as Chacho, was a month or two younger than me but always showing off his knowledge when we were young. Aunt Eileen's oldest, Donna, was pretty close to my age but got along better with my one-year-younger sister, I think.

When we visited Mom's family in Pennsylvania, we mostly saw Aunt Christine's kids and Uncle Dave's kids. Little Dave and Kim were closest to my age, but I don't remember Dave being around much. Him being a boy, he probably didn't want much to do with us girls. Most of the other cousins were a few years younger than me, and I probably spent more time with Mom's youngest sister, my Aunt Linda, who was just 3 years older than me. She was so beautiful and popular and loved horses, so I kind of idolized her.

We had more distantly related cousins in town on my dad's side but hardly ever saw them outside of annual family reunions. We did get hand-me-down clothes from a few of them, but never were that close with them. I always got the feeling my dad's generation kind of looked down on as as poor relations. But I could be totally wrong about that. But there were a few occasions we saw some cousins while out shopping or whatever, and they didn't even recognize us! They had never paid enough attention to get to know our faces, which felt insulting. We all still go to annual family reunions and everyone is pretty friendly now, though.

Was there someone your family was particularly proud of?

Oh, yeah, that would definitely be Uncle Bob, the NASA engineer. (I love this question, ha ha!) Especially after he transferred to Kennedy Space Center and worked on some big rocket projects. He would bring us mission patches and information packets when they visited back in Ohio, and sometimes show us schematics of the electrical systems he helped design for the rockets. He worked on Atlas, Titan and Centaur rocket projects.

After he retired from NASA, Uncle Bob worked 3 days a week as a contractor for an aerospace company at the space center. He was still working at age 76 when he died unexpectedly. His coworkers were so fond of him, dozens of them attended his visitation and graveside services. A few of the top people even took us to dinner and invited us for a private tour of the space center, and shared many heartwarming memories of Uncle Bob. We all had to get government clearance and be fingerprinted to visit behind-the-scenes places like Uncle Bob's office, launch control centers and the beach house where the astronauts used to stay back in the day.

After several delays, the last rocket project Uncle Bob worked on was ready to launch in 2009. My siblings and I were invited to the launch as VIP guests. We were allowed into the rocket assembly building to stand right next to it a few days before it was rolled out to the launchpad. A dedication to Uncle Bob was painted on the rocket. "In memory of our colleague and friend, J. Bob Reiss, The NASA and ULA Team"

We were told that such dedications are pretty rare.

If you could do anything differently about your family, what would it be?

I would try to be more affectionate and patient with my younger siblings, and more attentive to my older relatives. Now that I'm really into genealogy and family history, I wish I had listened to more stories and spent more time with relatives who are gone now.

Was yours a religious family? Did you attend services together? Were these dress-up affairs?

Yes, yes, yes. But stories for another time. :)

Did your family say grace? Did you sit down at the table together for every meal?

We always had dinner together and said grace before eating. Mom was Catholic, Dad Episcopalian, and they had slightly different prayers for grace. Dad, joker that he was, liked to tease us once in a while with the funny ones like "Father, Son and Holy Ghost, who eats the fastest gets the most."

Breakfast together was rare, as Dad would be off to work, then at various times we kids had different school start times. We lived close enough to walk home from school for lunch, but quite often we packed our lunches and stayed at school. I don't remember why/when we stopped walking home. Maybe to have more time with our friends at after-lunch recess.

I raised my kids to say grace, but they've all gotten away from it now. My ex wasn't religious and at one point told me I wasn't allowed to say grace anymore when we ate together. He felt like we were using it to accuse him of something.

When my kids got old enough to have after-school jobs (mostly as restaurant servers), that was pretty much the end of family dinners for us. It became rare that we were all home at the same days and times.

The House of Your Growing Up

What did your home look like? Apartment, walk-up, condominium, or house? What was the color? Was it stone, wood - other? One story or two?

The home I grew up in until I left for college was the same house my dad lived in from the time he was about 8 years old until he died at age 78. Eleven years after my dad's death, my mom still owns the house. It was built in 1916 when few people had cars yet, and didn't originally have a driveway or garage. Now it shares a driveway with the house next to it, and it branches off to a small garage on each property.

The house is a two-story frame style, white with blue trim, with a porch across the whole front. The roof is still covered with the original slate tiles that never wear out, although a couple tiles fell off over the years and had to be replaced. There are still a couple slabs of slate sidewalk too! There is a slight grade from the house down to the street, and when we were kids, on snowy days we liked to trample and smooth the snow until it made a sort of slippery slope that we could slide down on our feet. There's a small back porch with a sort of attached shed on the porch level, for the garden tools and miscellaneous things. At the bottom of the back stairs, there's another slab of slate. Until pollution ordinances made it illegal, Dad burned our paper trash and fall leaves in a special trash can that had a few rows of holes near the bottom for oxygen to get to the fire. Ingenious as he was, Dad improvised a grill out of the trash can lid and a metal rack that he set on top of the can. Charcoal went in the lid, and the rack had short legs so it stood inside the lid but far enough above the coals to cook food on.

Downstairs is the living room, dining room and kitchen, upstairs 3 bedrooms and a bathroom. There's a full basement and attic. The roof is steep, making the attic walls quite slanted, but my dad turned it into two rooms when I was in high school, and my sister and I slept in the front room, and the back was mom's art studio and storage.

At ground level in the middle of the side of the house, there's an outside door that goes down to the basement and up to the kitchen. I still remember when gas and water meter readers would knock on the door and say "Gas man" or "Meter reader" and we would have to let them in to read the meters in the basement.

My dad also remembered the coal furnace and having coal delivered through the shute. He told us a story about a pet white mouse that escaped one time, and he found it in a shovel of coal just before he tossed it into the furnace! Close call!

According to my dad, the living room originally had a separate foyer but the wall was removed before I was born, to expand the living area. It seems the furnace ducts to the front bedrooms upstairs were in that wall, so those rooms were always cold in winter because, of course, when the wall was removed, so were the ducts. There was a furnace duct in the hall right outside those rooms and we had to make do with whatever heat came from that. The register for the hall was on the floor, and many times we would sit on top of it with a blanket around us to trap the warm air and keep it to ourselves.

I can only vaguely remember when dad remodeled the kitchen. It had metal cabinets, I think the lower level ones were blue and the upper ones white. Dad reused them for storage in the basement and they're still there, so I know exactly what they look like, I just don't remember what configuration they were in. Against one wall there was a small table -- one of those classic 50's-style formica-topped chrome ones with vinyl-covered chairs. In red, of courses. And before that, a small wooden table with hand-painted decorations. The refrigerator only had one door, as the freezer was not separate in those days. I can remember having to "defrost the freezer" by unplugging the fridge to let the built-up ice thaw a bit, then chip it out.

The dining room was crowded with a heavy wood table with huge legs, and a matching buffet. Either end of the buffet had a door, and in the right-hand end was some of my dad's train stuff (he was a model railroad buff) and the left side had our winter hats and gloves. The center was two drawers, with the top shallow one having velvet-lined dividers for the monogrammed silverware that was saved for special occasions. The deeper bottom drawer held a variety of items, but mostly I remember it being for our church things -- prayerbooks and head scarves — and spare tablecloths. There was a beautiful desk in the dining room too, with a sheet of glass to protect the top from scratches. The drawers in that held some office/school supplies, alkaline batteries, an early calculator, stamps and letter opener, and so on. That desk used to be in the living room, until we got a second-hand piano that took up the space.

I also have a vague memory of a wringer washing machine in the basement, and also memories of walking a few blocks to the laundromat at some point, perhaps for a short period until between the washer breaking down and getting a new one.

Childhood/Neighborhood

Who were your best friends in your neighborhood? Do you still know them or know what happened to them?

The family who lived one house to the west of us had grown children and no grandchildren. Although they went to the same church as us, we weren't really close.

The family to the east of us had two children. Georgia was one year older than me and one school grade ahead, and Tom one year younger, the same age as my sister Char. We usually played together every day in the summer, and walked to school together. We have a lot of great memories together, and are in some of each other' family photos. We even have some home movies that Tom and Georgia appear in.

Our two houses were close enough that Char and I could easily talk to Tom from our bedroom windows before we went to sleep at night. I don't recall that we did it frequently, but it was fun when we did.

Georgia lives about 20 miles from me now, and Tom about 150 miles. Before the pandemic, Georgia and I had been having dinner once in a while with another of her classmates, Debbie, who lived nearby and who I knew from school too. Debbie just retired, and Georgia hasn't worked full time for a long time, so I hope we will have more get-togethers when the pandemic is over.

I must have met Esther in kindergarten, and we were in the same class every year except when I was in a special "split class" for second grade. Half the class was second-graders and half third-graders, all gifted students. Maybe that was just an experiment, as it didn't continue beyond that one year.

Esther lived around the corner and a few blocks up from me, which was a long way for kindergartners to go, but by second grade or so, we were inseparable, mostly at my house. We played dolls and board games and rode bicycles around the neighborhood. We had frequent sleepovers. Esther had two older brothers who I was fond of but a little shy around. Steve taught me how to shuffle a deck of cards. Her dad I think was a steel worker and her mom had health problems. Like most moms at that time, she didn't work. I remember their house as being kind of dark inside most of the time. Their dining room table was always so piled with coats and things, there was no room to eat there. I don't think I ever had a meal there, just a snack now and then.

In our town, junior high school was 7th and 8th grade. Esther and I didn't have a single class together after elementary school, and we grew apart. She dropped out of high school and we completely lost touch. Years later, when I was home to visit, someone told me she was working at a nearby convenience store, so I went to see her and we talked for a while. I tried to stay in touch, but she never responded after that. I saw her obituary in the hometown paper, died age 58 of something lung related. She had been a heavy smoker since probably junior high. I felt bad that her obit photo was one of those tacky glamour-type pictures that were so popular for a while. She was such a pretty girl when we were kids, with lovely olive skin from her Italian dad and (supposedly) part-Cherokee mom.

College

If you went to college, where did you go? Why did you choose that school? How much was tuition? Was it difficult to afford? Did you receive financial assistance or a scholarship? A loan? Was your school large or small? What was it known for?

I'm skipping ahead to my college years, because they were such a happy time for me. I could probably write a book just about this part of my life. But, oh, there's so much, how will I get through it?

I was a top student in high school, but it all came easy to me, I didn't have to work very hard at it. And maybe because my parents were busy with five kids, work and my mom's illnesses that they didn't give us a lot of individual attention, but one thing I lacked was anyone teaching me to think for myself.

So, when I "decided" to go to college, it was hardly even a decision. It was just what smart kids do, right? We did only a little bit of career exploration when I was in high school, but I still didn't know "what I wanted to be." What should I major in? Well, my best subject was English, so I settled on journalism as my major.

The priest at our church suggested to my parents that we look into St. Bonaventure College in New York, saying it was a good school for journalism. He gave us some literature about it, and from literature at school I was able to compare it to Ohio State University, the nearest school with an excellent journalism reputation. Besides having to worry about out-of-state tuition at St. Bonaventure and its distance from home, it was obvious their journalism program wasn't anywhere near as robust as Ohio State's. I was able to convince my parents that OSU was the best place for me. It was the only school I applied to.

Sentimental girl that I am, I still have my original "fee cards" somewhere around. I think my first quarter tuition was around $300 and room and board about $500. I had a couple small scholarships ($1,000 total) and government grants that covered almost everything. I did take a part-time work-study job in the school cafeteria closest to my dorm, for a little extra spending money. I think my first hourly wage was about $2.15/hour.

Yeah, you could say Ohio State was big, lol! If I remember right, there were about 50,000 students who attended main campus in Columbus. The football stadium is one of the largest in the world and seats about 100,000 fans. A few miles from campus, there are several agricultural properties including an equine center; two world-class golf courses; and an airport large enough to be mistaken occasionally by commercial airline pilots as being the main airport for the city.

I didn't really pay attention at the time to what else OSU was known for, at least academically speaking. I think their engineering programs were quite good, and the graduate programs like dentistry, optometry and law. Even in the late 1970's, they had some rare programs like Polar Studies, with students going to Antarctica!

But of course they were most known for football, and only a little less for basketball.

What was your living situation? Did you live in a dorm or a room off campus? Who was your roommate? Did you get along? How did you decorate your place? Were you comfortable there?

All freshmen were required to live on campus unless they were living at home and commuting. At orientation a couple months before the quarter started, we were able to mark preferences for living on west, north or south campus. South campus dorms had mostly 2-person rooms and a few 4-person rooms with a large shared bathroom for the whole floor. North Campus had 4-person rooms with a tiny private bathroom. West campus had 12-person suites with I think 3 people per bedroom and a common living area and bathroom. We could also request a specific roommate, if we had a friend who made a reciprocal request and you submitted your paperwork together. I didn't.

I thought south campus seemed like the way to go. It could be hard enough to adjust to one roommate, let alone 3 or more. Having to go down the hall to the bathroom wasn't a big deal to me. I was assigned a random roommate in Siebert Hall, room 314. My roommate was Nancy M. from Canton, Ohio. She was very bright and confident, one of the few women majoring in engineering -- and she never let you forget it. She wasn't particularly friendly to me and we never did much together. We didn't even attempt to stay in touch after our freshman year. Barb, a classmate from her high school also lived on our floor, and they hung out together most of the time.

I remember one particular time that Nancy humiliated me. Barb's roommate was chatting in our room when Barb brought some boys to our room to meet us. Nancy introduced herself, then said "and this is Loree, the cute one. And Chris..." barely saying my name, as though I were someone they didn't really want to know. Thanks a lot, Nance. The funny part is, I became good friends with those boys, because their football seats were near mine and we would talk at every home game. At one cold, rainy game, when the people between us left, we huddled together to keep warm. One of them ended up working with me in the school cafeteria. I bet they never spoke to Nancy or Loree again after the introduction.

A LOT of my high school classmates also lived on our floor -- maybe 10 of them? and all paired up as roommates --, and although I'd known a few of them since kindergarten, they rarely gave me the time of day. Most of them were from the popular clique at school, cheerleaders and the like. They'd say hi if they saw me, but not much else, and they never asked me to go anywhere with them nor asked me if I needed a ride home on a weekend. Well, I didn't expect anything from them, anyway.

There wasn't a whole lot of decorating my freshman year. We didn't coordinate on comforters or towels or any visible things like that. We had a strange room that was converted from a janitor's supply room, because enrollment kept going up and there wasn't enough space for everyone. Unlike the regular rooms, there was no built-in dressers or closet space. We each had a free-standing wardrobe that Nancy covered in silver contac paper and cut our names out of blue contac paper for the doors. Wish I had more photos of that time, but I didn't own a camera then, and disposable cameras weren't around yet.

Was I comfortable there? Yes, I'd say so. Between classes and work and going to the library and around campus with friends I made, I didn't spend that much time in the room anyway. One thing, though, we didn't have control of the temperature, and would actually get too hot in the winter. Sometimes we'd have our window open a little even when it was snowing. There was no AC, either, but I don't recall being too hot. Maybe I've just forgotten.

What was your major? Why did you pick it? Were you ever able to use anything you learned in college in real life? Did you change colleges or majors partway through? Why?

I've already said I picked journalism for my major because I was good at English and it was all I could think of at the time. Sometimes I think teaching would have been a good fit for me. Or computer science was just really getting started, and it would have been nice to be on the ground floor of that field. But I wasn't really an analytical type thinker, so I probably wouldn't have done so well in it.

Once I got over my fear of talking to strangers, I really enjoyed journalism. It exposed you to so many different things, reporting on all kinds of topics and giving you a behind-the-scenes or first-hand look at stuff and meeting people that many others never get to see or do.

Considering the shy mouse that I started as, I can kind of see why my hometown neighbors later told me they never expected me to graduate, but to leave school for my "MRS" degree. That is, quit to get married. Ha, I barely even dated in school. I don't know if it was my shyness or I just wasn't pretty enough, but boys weren't that interested. And those that were ditched me when I wouldn't have sex with them.

Yes, I used my degree plenty after school. Not long after graduating, I got a job in a PR office at a community college. Not exactly what I was looking for, but something I was capable of, and I couldn't afford to be picky. But after I was laid off from there in the 1982 recession, I ended up doing temp office work for a while. I got a lot of assignments because I could type and spell, and was attentive to small details, so my degree helped there too.

And I'm currently a copyeditor/proofreader/writer in the marketing department at Highlights for Children, which has been a great job, although not terribly exciting.

Did you join a sorority or fraternity? Was it important to you?

I was never tempted to join a sorority, as I was under the impression it was for rich kids. But I think, in general, the mindset of the kind of people who were in journalism was that the greek system was a bit snobby and not for us. I feel like journalists were a particularly "salt of the earth" kind of people. I don't have data to back this up, but I would bet that the few J-school students who belonged to sororities or fraternities were mostly in the Public Relations section of the school.

When you first got to college, were you thrilled to be away from home? If you were homesick, what did you do about it? Write letters? Cry? Confide in someone? Or try to hide your feelings? If you were thrilled to be at college, were you quick at making friends? Who was your first friend there? Did you remain close through the years?

When I first got to college, I was pretty much terrified. I didn't really know anyone else who had gone away to school that I could talk to, and didn't know what to expect. The summer orientation hadn't really talked about how things would work when we got there, and I was in the dark about it all.

But in a week or so, I was getting the hang of it. Probably the best thing that happened was getting called to work in Women's Commons. At orientation I had ticked a box that I was interested in a campus job. I thought I would let myself get accustomed to school first by only agreeing work as a sub during fall quarter, but lots of people quit the commons jobs quickly, and they were hurting for workers. They practically begged me to work as a regular, so I said yes. It was a great way to become friends with other student employees, but also people from multiple dorms who ate there daily. I think Women's served 5 dorms, each with maybe 300-400 residents?

Once I got used to it, yes, "thrilled to be away from home" is a good description. It was nice to be free of squabbles among siblings, reminders of constant chores from parents, and always having to take others into account. It was really liberating! Not to mention meeting people from so many different backgrounds and experiences.

I think during fall quarter I went home two weekends plus Thanksgiving, so I wasn't away so long that I got homesick.

I did write letters to my best friend who went to a school out of state (writing was my "thing," after all), and my other dear friend who stayed home and joined the workforce. Maybe the latter felt inferior, although I did consciously try not to sound like I was winning some kind of contest, but she only wrote back once or twice. I really hated losing touch with her, in those days before internet or cell phones making it so easy to reach out. I never knew when she got married or had a child or divorced or was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, which took her life in 2006.

I also wrote to my Aunt Bess, who was a grand-aunt, the widow of my grandfather's brother. She had only one child, Jim, who was close in age to my dad, and they grew up almost like brothers, since my dad lost his mom at a very young age. Jim and his wife never had children, so perhaps Aunt Bess thought of herself as a grandmother to my dad's kids. I don't think I ever complained about money or lacking anything, but Aunt Bess faithfully sent $10 with every letter, which I really appreciated. I would always tell her how I spent her much-appreciated gift, and she started signing her letters "Aunt Bess, SP" or "PP" — Snack Provider or Pizza Provider. She was a really delightful person.

I guess my first close friend would be Becky Sipes who also worked in the commons. Our stations were next to each other, so we spent a lot of time talking together, and on weekends we would go to the bars together, usually to The Sarene, where there was a dance floor. But Becky was a senior and graduated at the end of my freshman year and didn't stay in touch. A while back I found her on Facebook and sent her a message but she never responded. Maybe she didn't remember me or had abandoned her account.

Were you on any sports teams? If not, did you follow them? Were any of your teams champions or near-champs?

I need to give you the background on this one first. :) I was the bookworm of the family, preferring reading to sports. I did play the occasional game of street kickball, or bat a badminton birdie around, even learned how to throw a decent spiral with a football, but I wasn't athletically inclined. I did enjoy riding my bike around the neighborhood. School gym classes, however, were a nightmare for me.

I sure did follow sports, though. My dad was a big fan of the Cleveland Indians and watched every televised game or listened to every radio broadcast one that he could. Mom enjoyed them too and even had favorite players. I knew all the players' names and for a while kept a scrapbook of newspaper stories about the team. I remember names as far back as Rocky Colavito, Vic Davalio, Max Alvis, "Sudden" Sam McDowell, Greg Nettles, Luis Tiant and others.

Our junior high and high school football teams were quite good -- maybe it was the sons of all those tough-guy steel workers letting out their aggressions or something? Or good genes and work ethic. Who knows? But so many of my close friends and classmates were on the team, and I really enjoyed cheering them on. School spirit was huge at our school, and we would get out of class early on game days to attend "pep rallies" in the gym or field house. When our team went to state playoff games, we would have a big send-off for them.

I took all that enthusiasm to Ohio State with me. It helped that some of my high school friends were good enough to make the Ohio State team, so I had a personal connection with it. And then through classes and work and the dorms and friends of friends, I met many of the other players too. It's much more exciting to watch a team play when you know half of them! I had season tickets every year, and I still have my freshman year ticket, which was a punch ticket. Six home games for $17.50! That'll hardly pay for parking, these days!

Then, during fall quarter of my sophomore year, a coworker in the commons asked if I wanted to go to an OSU hockey game with her. One of her friends who had graduated from OSU was working as a trainer for the visiting team and gave her some free tickets. Until then, I hadn't even known Ohio State HAD a hockey team! I remembered watching some hockey on TV when I was a kid and it seemed fast and exciting, and free was good, so I accepted the offer.

It was love at first sight, ha ha! I didn't get the rules at first, but they were easy enough to pick up, and soon I was a super fan. After that, I bought season tickets (they were cheap enough for students), and even a couple times traveled to away games. The most thrilling thing came when (as you might expect for a journalism major, I worked on the student newspaper), I got to be the hockey reporter. A seat in the press box, access to the coaches and players for interviews, it was like a dream come true! Pretty soon, everyone on the team knew who I was, and I was even invited to players' parties. And we always hung out at the Varsity Club bar across from the rink after the games. I was a social butterfly, flitting from table to table, between players, refs, rink staff, and sometimes players' parents, too.

More to come, on being the student newspaper sports editor.

Were you able to get home for the holidays? What do you remember about going home once you began college?

I did go home for holidays, especially Christmas when the dorms were closed for winter break. Didn't really have a choice then. And I think I went home most Thanksgivings and Easters, plus random weekends, when I felt like it. But, honestly, I started having so much fun at school, after a while I didn't want to go home. We didn't have a name for it then, but today I'd call it FOMO.

I know there was at least one Thanksgiving, though, that I was very busy with working on the student newspaper and stayed on campus.

There was hardly a time when I went home and didn't take some kind of souvenir for my siblings, and they remind me from time to time that they still remember that. Usually it was stuff with some kind of OSU logo: spiral notebooks, folders, t-shirts, stickers, note pads, calendars, mugs, pencils, that sort of thing.

Did you change much at college? Did your parents notice? Did you friends back home notice? Did they mention it to you?

I changed so much, I'm not sure how anyone could NOT have noticed, but I don't recall hearing about it. I think that, probably, when I went home, I behaved much as I always had there.

I really came out of my shell at college. Before, I had a hard time speaking up, talking in front of a group, introducing myself to new people, things like that. When I had to interview someone for my first newspaper story, I was shaking in my shoes! I was suddenly asking myself how could I have chosen a career that made me talk to strangers. What was I thinking??? My sister was at OSU by then too, and I made her go with me to the interview for moral support. Luckily, the circumstances were such that there were lots of people around, and it didn't matter that she was there. So I got through it, and each successive interview was easier. I even came to enjoy it, because it meant getting to know and do things that others weren't privy to, and that felt pretty good.

I proved I was a good writer, I did well in my classes, I had tons of friends, and it sent my confidence through the roof. I seriously remember realizing at some point that I hardly even thought about my life before college. It really was like being reborn, and I kept thinking of that old song that went "if my friends could see me now, they'd never believe it."

Friends back home didn't get much of a chance to notice any difference, because I was there so infrequently.

What define college life during the years you were there? Did you go to coffee houses? Did you attend poetry jams?

What defined college for me was classes, work, football, hockey, bars, friends, the student newspaper, and just being on campus.

Let me look at the rest of the questions before I continue this. Some may overlap

Did you remain friendly with anyone you met at college? Did you visit each other over the years? Did you keep in touch by letter before affordable long distance and e-mail?

I didn't stay in close touch with anyone except my senior-year roommate who became my best friend of all time. And even then, when there was only snail mail to rely on, we weren't in frequent touch. Although we lived far apart in distance, we stayed close in thought. Finally we both ended up in the same city, within a few miles of each other. I wasn't working at the time, and she had retired early because of Multiple Sclerosis, and we hung out frequently then. After 4 years of great times, she and her husband moved to Florida to take care of both their elderly moms. Her health isn't too bad, but it's hard for her to travel, and when I have time and money to travel, I spend it on visiting my grandson. I miss my friend terribly!

As for others, I found lots of them on Facebook and we communicate somewhat often. Some more than others. We have a Facebook group for our student newspaper alumni where we share news too. Facebook really has been a great thing for that.

What did you notice about students from other parts of the country? Accents? Different taste in clothing? Religious differences? More conservative or liberal ideas? Did you learn to be more tolerant? Do you have an example of how you learned to be more tolerant?

The funny thing is, what I noticed most was different accents from within my own state! I could tell if someone was from Cleveland, central Ohio or southern Ohio by their accent! Clevelanders have sort of a New England accent with a broad o, like if they say they're going shopping, the o sounds more like ah. They drive to the shahpping center in their cahr. And southern Ohioans have a distinct lean toward a southern US accent. One woman I worked with told me she was from "Arntn." It took a while to figure out she meant Ironton. Central Ohioans talk pretty much like the reporters on 60 Minutes.

Did you graduate from college? What degree did you get? Did you attend graduation? Did you win any accolades at college? Phi Beta Kappa? Valedictorian? Magna cum laude?

I did graduate, with what was then its own degree, called BA/Jour -- a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. Sadly, the journalism department doesn't even exist as its own entity any more, it was absorbed into the Communications department, and lost a lot of its prestige after that.

I graduated at the end of winter quarter, in March, and didn't "walk." A ceremony with a couple thousand others, in which you got a generic paper, with the real thing to be mailed later, didn't seem worth the effort and the expense of the cap and gown. Plus, it was outdoors (I believe). In March. In Ohio. No.