The Secret

Every superhero needs a good secret weapon. I'm no superhero, but the closest thing I have to a hero or a weapon is my mother. Here's why:

After earning a degree in biology from Minot State University my mother joined the Peace Corps. She was sent to Ethiopia where she spent two years teaching science in a school in the village of Hosanna, near Addis Ababba. (accent on both first syllables please.) She returned home, experienced culture shock and chose to return to Ethiopia. Unfortunately the Peace Corps program in Ethiopia had disbanded due to unrest in the country. She went to the headmaster of her school in Hosanna and asked for a job. He accepted her back and she spent the next two years there teaching as an independent person living in the Ethiopian culture. When she returned she'd been changed physically and emotionally. This was in the early seventies.
She married my father in June of 1977. I was born in 1982. We lived on a small farm in Central North Dakota. If you look at a map of the US you will see that this is the middle, of the middle, of the middle of nowhere. There is nowhere else on the North American continent that is farther from a major city. Dallas, Seattle, LA and New York City are all on the coasts of our continent. This is the center.
After my mother's experiences in Ethiopia she was somewhat committed to raising her child in such a way that if that child ever became a missionary to a third world country, she would not deal with culture shock. We had an automatic washer and dryer for awhile. Then mom donated them to HavIt, an organization in a nearby small town that provided housing and work for the developmentally challenged.
I know how to wash clothes using an old-fashioned wringer washer. Should you ever wonder how, I will tell you. I will also describe the experience of a 5-year-old who accidentally sticks her little fingers through the wringer with the clothes.
Part of the reason she donated the automatic washer and dryer was that we have iron rich well water on our farm. Our clothes received rust stains. We didn't install a shower until I was in junior high. I developed a rusty sheen on my hair after this installment. It was about this time that she purchased a microwave from the nearby thrift store. She also purchased a new color tv and a vcr. I'd grown up with used black and white televisions that only really got CBS and PBS.
This was also when I first got heat in my upstairs room. Dad got an electric baseboard heater from the local electric company and strung wires up through the wall to put electric heat in my room. Up to this point I'd gotten by with an electric blanket. The temperature drops to negative 30 degrees outdoors in the winter. The average temperature in my room in January without heat was around 50 degrees.

This is how I grew up. This is my life. Please understand and please do not think I was abused in any way. I always knew that my parents loved me. This was the life that they CHOSE.

Books have always had the utmost importance in our family and the walls of my parents home are covered with books still. We did not talk much as we spent winters together in our farm house. We simply curled up with a book and a cat, each in our own seperate room of the house. The wind howled outside and the blizzards raged. And I lost myself somewhere in a book.