Barbara J. Hamby

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Childhood Roots

Coincidentally, two of my male friends have recently returned to their childhood roots in their later years. One intends to live in Missouri the rest of his life, the other has been in Texas now for several months and may or may not intend to remain there.

On the other hand, I don’t have childhood roots because we moved so many times when I was a child. I won honorable mention in a letter-writing contest on that subject several years ago. In my early teens, we moved to Seattle and I went through high school there and a year at the University of Washington. I stayed in that area until my early thirties when my first marriage ended. So any roots I might have would be there, I guess. I still have friends and relatives around the Puget Sound area, but their numbers are dwindling.

My youngest sister, who is working on genealogy, is actually the only one who lives in California, where we were all born. However, she doesn’t live very close to any of our childhood homes. All four sisters plan a visit to Chico this spring. My mother and I were both born there. She grew up and married there, but left a couple of years later, with my father and me. There is a lot of family history and a few relatives still in that area.

Having lived in the Pacific Northwest for all of my adult life and a few of my earlier years, I’d find it hard to leave permanently. For the last few years I’ve had the opportunity to travel to the sun for at least a week or two during the winter and that gets me through the worst of the bad weather. This February we will fly to Ft. Lauderdale and board a cruise ship for a ten-day trip to Caribbean ports.

The fact that I get a headache every time I start thinking about writing another memoir story has exacerbated my tendency toward procrastination. Sooner or later, I have to get with it, however. Probably sooner.

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