When we moved to Florida my husband’s company that moved us
decided that he did not have a job with them any longer. Neither of us understood that because they
paid for the moving van and all that.
Anyway, after my husband made several trips from Virginia to Florida and
back again for some stuff that the movers didn’t get we had a house full of
boxes. While he was away for the 16 hour
trip one way, I would unpack boxes so that when he brought more into the house
he would have room for it. The girls
stayed with me and we all helped each other.
We were in for a shock and I mean an environmental shock
along with a traditional shock as well. We made a visit to Florida a couple of
years before for my husband’s grandfather’s funeral. Both of us looked around and went out into
the environment and soon we decided that it was a nice place to visit but we
didn’t want to live there. So here we
were, moved in and all unpacked and *living* there.
It was our first year this far away from our parents. It was the first year that we would spend
Christmas in Florida with no one else but us because we didn’t know anybody
there.
Our first shock was Christmas morning and it was already in
the upper 80’s. It was the first time
that we had to put and live in total air conditioning. There was no snow on the ground and that was
another thing we had to get used too. We
finally got over that and the girls would be picked up by gamily and got to
spend some summertime with them.
It was my time to have fun and that I did. I did not have my mom tell me what I should
and could do and what I couldn’t or shouldn’t do. I was FREE and I loved it. The girls and I had loads of fun. I would take them places and we would go to
the beach. I had a friend who got a job
at Disney World and he got them some free passes. My husband worked at Universal Studios and we
got free passes to that too. After about
5 visits to those parks we got tired of it and didn’t really go all that
much. That happened with the beach
too. They had a blast doing something
else during the summertime.
In Florida, and I sure wish they had that everywhere, they
have a summer program for kids. Every
day they would pick the kids up on a bus and do things in different
places. They didn’t have to go like most
summer programs that I have seen. If you
didn’t want to go that day, you didn’t.
Some days the girls just wanted to stay home and sleep or watch TV and
so they did. They only paid for when
they rode the bus. The bus stop was
about 3 blocks down the road, which wasn’t that far and you could see the girls
get on the bus as the land it totally flat where we lived. They also did something else that was loads
of fun for the girls and I both and their friends. They had a girls softball league. I put my girls in that league. Their friends were in it and lots of others
too. Oh it was so fun to watch the girls
get better and better and I cheered every single one of them on. It was so fun! My oldest daughter is 36 now and I just
remembered to give her the first aluminum bat that she used when playing in
that league. She was surprised and her
eyes lit up when she saw it. She was
expecting the other bat that they used, but I didn’t have that one. She was thrilled with it. I am sure that she will be passing that bat
along to her sons when they get old enough to play baseball.
I started a BBS there too and learned much about
computers. A BBS is a Bulletin Board
System. We did not have Windows
then. We had DOS operating systems. I learned how to draw pictures of a castle
with Ascii and that was fun. I wish that
I had kept it. The name of my BBS was King Arthur’s Castle and I was Lady
Guinevere the System Operator. I still
go by the name Lady Guinevere. We only
had two phone lines and one was for the house and one was for the computer. I would spend a lot of time on that chatting
with people. There were games on the BBS
too. Each game was accessed through what
was called a door. Each door was like an
application that we have today. You
could put in your BBS many doors and they would all take certain codes and
programs that were already made for your type of BBS. There were many types of BBS software back
then. I ran my BBS on the WWIV
software. There were other ones such as
Searchlight, Wild Cat, RBBS, PCBoard and many others. In a few years they had what was called as
Nodes with another program that many could become partners in. That was the precursor to MSN and Facebook
Groups like there is today. There was
one kid that used to call me up and we would hog the line for hours. I had a few that knew my phone number and
would call me up and tell me to get off the phone and computer so that they
could call in and play a game. Oh the
games! They were fun. They were
interactive and many had multiple players.
TradeWars. That was a game about
space ships and trade centers and gaining all kinds of goods to build an empire
in space and the universe. Then there
was Global War, which you battled against other countries for goods and others
could blow you away. It was more for a
low number of players than the TradeWars.
The more players that you had playing in TradeWars the better the game.
Oh and we cannot forget the many Role Playing Games and Dungeons and Dragons
that were available to play too. You think the kids play on the computer too
much now. Are you kidding!!!? Ahh too bad that time didn’t last too
long. Within ten years it all changed
drastically. I do miss those times. I used to have a party in the middle of the
summer for those who visited my BBS and were members. It was a lot of fun.
© Debra K. Allen
a.k.a Lady Guinevere
I researched
and wrote this article. Please do not copy and paste any part of this article,
picture included for your own use. I will find you and report you for stealing.
It is my right to change any information
therein at any time and/or change the location of my article.
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