Memory Monday #1

I enjoyed reminiscing about the past before Christmas so much that I have decided to continue the trend by blogging every Monday about a memory of mine...this may not be the most exciting topic for many of my readers, but there may be some of you who can relate to some of my memories...and maybe jog a few of your own!

One of my first memories is living in an apartment with my mom and sister while my dad was in the Army during WWII.  He served from Fall-1943 (leaving just before I turned three) until the end of the War in 1945 and came home right before I turned five.  He was stationed in Europe and saw action in France, Italy and Germany.

I remember our apartment....which in reality was very tiny....had one bedroom, a living room, bathroom, and small kitchen.  It was the front area of a house in which the landlady and owner, who was a family friend lived in the back.  Upstairs lived a minister and his wife...an elderly couple.  The town where we lived was a small, midwest farming committee in Illinois.  My mom didn't have a car, but that wasn't a problem.  We lived just two or three blocks off the town square...we could walk everywhere. Everyone knew and took care of each other.  Milk was delivered to the door, groceries could be delivered, doctors made house calls...and, of course, these were all people who were friends and contemporaries of my parents....the parents of my friends.

It really was pretty idyllic....kind of reminiscent of the little town in "It's a Wonderful Life"...at least to my memory!  And my first pet was a Border collie puppy received from a friend of my folks who lived in the country.  We had to keep Fuzzy tied up in the yard when we first got her as our landlady didn't have a fenced yard.  I remember going out to see her and she would get so excited, she would run around me and the pole which she was chained to, winding the chain all around me and the pole together....so we would have to be rescued by my mom!