We're Not In Kansas Anymore!

So I have to tell you at the outset that I was encouraged in this particular memory by the BrickFriends. This one is on them.

I was born in western Massachusetts. When I was 6 months old my parents moved our little family to Kansas so my father could continue his education at Kansas State University. Then he became a fellow at the Menninger Foundation. He did research in psychiatry. I guess he was good at what he did. But to me he was daddy. In any case, we New Englanders lived in Kansas, which must have been very hard for my mother because she hates the wind. For the last 2 years we lived at the top of the only hill in Kansas in an old house. That was the most fun place. There were lots and lots of chicken coops. My mother raised chickens to help supplement the family income. My dad almost got bit by a copperhead snake outside one of the coops one day just before we moved.

When I was 6 years old we moved back east. At first we lived with my dad's parents and I began elementary school in the same school my father went to. But then after a month he got a job working for the Department of Mental Health for the State of Vermont. We moved again and I grew up in Vermont. At least I managed to be born in a New England state. My poor brothers had to bear the shame of being born in Kansas. They are real "flatlanders."

One of the things I remember best about Kansas was the roly-poly bugs. Most of you probably call them pillbugs, or potato bugs. But "us kids" (that is, my brothers and I) called them roly-poly bugs. We were fascinated by them. Kansas had TONS of them. They congregated underneath all the rocks. Then, when he was about 18 months old, my youngest brother discovered that roly-poly bugs tasted GOOD! And he would eat them by the hand full. Now I want to assure my readers that he discovered this ... all ... by ... him ... self. He was not encouraged in any way, shape, or form by his elder siblings. At least not that I remember. However, once we discovered this new appetite of his, we certainly helped him with it. Why wouldn't we?? After all, as his older brother and sister it was our job to help him grow big and strong with more snacks! And somehow we managed to do this for quite sometime without attracting the eye of Mordor (I mean, Mother).

Then ... we moved to Vermont. There are no roly-poly bugs in Vermont. Not one. None. There are however, lots and lots of rocks. So middle brother and I turned all of them over in a vain attempt to find more snacks for little brother. And one day in the middle of our first summer we managed to find a solitary roly-poly bug. The shouting and glee with which we summoned baby brother also attracted the eye of Mordor (I mean, Mother) and so she came too, to see what all the fun was about. And arrived just in time to see her baby boy pop a tasty morsel into ...

his ...

mouth!

While her older two children jumped for joy and cheered him on.

And that pretty much took all the fun out of roly-poly bugs from then on.

the end.