Where did you live while growing up?  I was born in 1947 in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in a town called Stambaugh. I was born in a hospital (I'm not that old) and the Doctor who delivered me was named Dr. Cooper. I moved to Chicago when I started high school (age 13) and lived there until we moved to Boise (age 28).

What was your house like?  Our house in Michigan was a small three bedroom, two story, white house. I slept in the same room as my sister Kathy and my brother Paul. We also had a living room, dining room, small kitchen, one bathroom and a long hallway. We rented the upstairs to another family that had four kids. We always had someone to play with because my first cousins (Susie, Bonnie, Fritz, and Peggy Jo Erickson and Chris, Joan, Dick, and Don Solander lived in the homes adjacent to ours. We had a blast.  In Chicago we lived in a little bigger house that was on a busy street. The city buses ran up and down our street all day and all night long. I remember it being very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. I loved Chicago because I could ride the CTA all over town exploring all the neat museums, parks and ethnic communities.

What was your school like?  I went to a public school in Michigan where all of my friends went. I liked most of my teachers and especially liked recess. I walked about a mile to school with my cousins in all but the coldest days.

What is your favorite memory?  Getting to drive our car before I had a driver's license. My Mom got me to clean out the whole basement of our house in Michigan before we moved to Chicago with the promise that if I loaded all the junk in the car, I could drive it to the dump. Needless, to say, I cleaned it out in a hurry and made a number of trips to the dump.