When my mother was raising me, she moved us upstate to the Woodstock area. Our closest neighbor was a mile away. She planted all her own vegetables.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
After school, my sister and I helped our mom in the garden. We grew potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes - not for fun, but to eat.
My parents had a gardener when I was growing up, and he and I would dig in the dirt together - my mom and dad were definitely not digging with me! When I was 5, he helped me plant some corn in our backyard, and I remember how fascinating it was to watch it grow. Little did I know that 50 years later I'd be growing corn in a different way.
I grew up in Chillum Heights in the Washington, D.C. area., and it was never a garden spot. When guys go, 'Hey, when I grew up, my neighborhood was tough, and it was this and that'... the reality is that it was just a terribly sad place. And thank God, I was able to escape it.
I had a free-range childhood. We lived in town but with a cow, chooks, bees, and multiple veggie gardens so we could live self-sufficiently.
In search of my mother's garden, I found my own.
We lived on isolated farms and ranches, far from anybody, and when I was young I knew very few other kids, so I lived to a great extent in my imagination.
I grew up in a very modest home. We grew a lot of our food in our backyard. We fished; my brothers hunted.
I was born in the poor countryside. I was raised in the countryside, planting corn and selling sweets made by my grandmother.
I was raised on a farm in Kansas where we lived next door to my Grandma Dew, and I was her shadow. We went everywhere together - to the bank, the doctor, the Early Bird Garden Club, and to an endless procession of Church meetings.
We always had our own vegetables growing up and now I'm doing it with my kids at our house in the country.