I grew up in rural Belleville in St. Clair County Illinois in an area known as Dutch Hollow.  The kids were relatively safe and could go anywhere in the area and they knew if they misbehaved it would be dealt with then and there.  We had a neighborhood tavern where the owner would allow us to come in and get a soda and a bag of chips and not have any issues.  We had to behave because if we didn’t she would let our parents know and we wouldn’t be allowed to come back for a while.  It was a place my mom would send me to get her a pack of cigarettes which today that certainly would not be allowed. 

I have is that I was very sickly as a child.  I had bronchitis and I would have attacks quite regularly.  The memories I have of that is being so sick I couldn’t breathe and my mom would build a little blanket tent over my bed so I could have the moist warm mist of a vaporizer.  It wore on my mom I know.  There were times that my mom would ask my dad to take me to the hospital because she was scared I was going to die and growing up a son of a farmer he didn’t think it was necessary so mom would pray and cry and I would make it through the night.  I suffered with bronchitis for many years and always made it though even though I would have to take those awful tasting sulfa drugs because of an allergy to penicillin.  YUK!  My mom was always there for me and I was so very lucky.  I had a stay at home mom and it was great.