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I was born in California, but both my parents were born in different areas of rural Oklahoma. My father grew up on a small cattle ranch and my mother grew up in the hills of eastern Oklahoma near the Ozark Mts. Both were born in the 1920's when Oklahoma was still more a part of the 1800's than the twentieth century so I like to say I was born of parents who were the last generation born during the old west. Their old west roots had a huge impact on my childhood. I spent the first three years of my life on my Granny's chicken farm. She was my father's grandmother and she owned 60 acres of alfalfa which she rented out and lived on three acres of barnyard where she raised chickens. There was some electricity, but no indoor plumbing outside of a faucet in the kitchen. The toilet was down the boardwalk in a small shed...in other words...an outhouse. The shower was a room under the water tank in the pumphouse. Granny's little three room house was the only painted building on the property. Everything else was raw, unpainted wood including the two room house my parents lived in. And I loved living on that little farm where I pretty much had free run of the barnyard and sometimes even wandered into the fields surrounding it. The town where I was born is along the Colorado River in the middle of the California desert and across the river from the Arizona desert and while we did live there for the first 12 years of my life, we moved a lot due to my father's employment. He was a big equipment operator and we moved to where the work took him, but usually only six months of the year then we moved back to our hometown. We moved to Northern California in 1958 and I have lived here ever since. I am a mother, a grandmother, have one great-grandchild and recently retired. I am divorced and now live with my youngest sister. My sisters and I like to cruise and take road trips. I am enjoying my life. View all posts by michellethurman2344