I had a typical childhood. I was born in ’48, so we didn’t watch much TV. All my friends were within a two mile radius; there were tons of kids. My house was the house where kids always came over after school to eat because my mom was always home and my parents were very big on making sure we always had enough food. If it was raining, I remember getting friends together and we’d go out in jeans and T-shirts and walk and just get soaked- and we just thought it was grand. My childhood was all about physical exercise and playing. That's just what you did then. You played until you couldn't see straight. We played Three Flies Up, touch football, races, hopscotch, tetherball, dodge ball, and climbed on the monkey bars, to name a few. We would play music and dance. I also remember walking and riding our bikes as far as we could. There was richness in the childhood of relationships and outdoor experiences.

I always liked studying. Nobody ever, ever, from day one, ever had to tell me to do my homework. I did it because I loved it. Loved to learn. A girl a year older than me had a workbook- piles of workbooks- from her previous year and she would give them to me. So I erased all of the answers until I bled. Big calluses formed. I still have the bump today. I erased every book over about a four-day period so that I could re-do them myself. I didn't want the answers. I wanted to do it myself. Later, I borrowed the books the older kids had already used to learn how to cursive write. So I always wanted to learn, always.

We used to have a corner bookmobile that was about six blocks from home. Every two weeks, I think it was, the librarian would come and she always would pick a stack of books out for me. I wish I could thank her now. I was too young to even know who she was. I just know that she'd say, "Oh, Margaret, I think you're going to like these books," and I would take the next pile home and pour through it. It was so much fun and she was so kind.

She knew that I liked pioneer stories, stories about Indians, stories about animals and of course there were all the Nancy Drew mysteries. And she always went through books and had a pile ready for me. And she didn't just do it for it for me, that was just how she was. Any kid who wanted to read, she was only more than happy to help and I couldn’t get enough reading.

As a child I was a pack-rat. I always liked collecting things, and I guess some things don’t change. I saved a lot of things from when I was a kid. I have all my jewelry from when I was in elementary school and junior high, even though they are really ugly. I saved my all my Girl Scout pins and my Girl Scout badges. I remember this ugly necklace that my grandmother won in Bingo that I thought looked so good at the time. It's so ugly, but it was that costume jewelry. It didn't look ugly then because I thought it was great. I once got six books that of course I still have. Two of them were called, "The Gift from the Machado," and "Be My Guide," about a boy who became blind and how he coped. I still remember it and I haven't read it for 50 years.

I also saved toys. I still have mint condition toys that I played with like my Barbie doll and Madame Alexander ballerina doll, both still in the original box. With my friends, wherever you were, whose ever house you were at, you brought your dolls over. I just remember my friends always sitting around and creating little scenarios for the dolls. We thought Barbie was great. She had big boobs and we thought that was grand!