Flashback Friday: Early Edition Week 5

For earlier editions, you can look in my Archives.

Well, we only lived in Los Fresnos for that one year. My mom got tired of being overworked at her fabulous job as a resort manager on South Padre Island. So, she quit and found a new job in Brownsville as an apartment manager. {Maybe that's where I got my mad management skills from!} :0)

So, we moved into the apartments there. She still drove us to the same elementary though. Not sure why, but we still went to Los Fresnos Elementary for my 4th grade year. It was the only elementary I went to two consecutive years in a row. Well, I can't say that. I went to kindergarten and 1st grade at the same elementary in Utah. 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th grades were all done at different schools.

What I remember about Brownsville?

I shared a room with my brother and little sister. We had bunkbeds...two sets in that room. {It was a big room} We had a balcony in that bedroom. Since there were four of us kids to squeeze into a three bedroom apartment, my parents took the bedroom downstairs and us kids got the entire upstairs to ourselves. My older sister got the master bedroom {she had to share her closet with her sisters though}. Our two bedrooms were connected by the master bathroom. It had the most AWESOME shower in there. It was huge. So huge that I remember all of us kids climbing in together to shower {IN OUR BATHING SUITS!!!! Don't be thinking dirty!} We had room to spare in there too. We only did that once, but I specifically remember it. We had Love Potion No. 9 blasting from a tape in our boombox :0) I used to love that song. :0)

Anyway... our friends lived about 5 apartments down from us. They had a son my brothers age, and he had the same name as my brother too! It was crazy. The little girl my sister and I played with was Amber. She was more my sisters age, but that was ok. We're only 18 months apart anyway. :0)

While we lived in Brownsville, Hurricane Gilbert decided to try to come and play. He was a big one. At his worst, he was a Category 5 Hurricane. That's when he hit Central America on his way to us. He slowed down to a Category 3 just before he was going to hit. Category 3 still means winds at 130 miles per hour. So, what else do you do? You tape up the windows. You put all your belongings on high shelves in case it floods. And you get out of town. We went to visit family in San Antonio. Unfortunately, when we got there, we realized that a tornado watch was going on. So, we left the hurricane only to run into a tornado. Luckily, the tornado didn't touch down where we were at, and so we were ok. AND, lucky for us, the hurricane changed it's course at the last minute and hit Mexico instead of Texas, though the winds did still affect our area. Our house was fine, though you have to feel bad for those it affected. I can only imagine the losses that occured to those in Mexico. :0(

On a brighter note....I had a killer piano teacher, we lived next door to a lady that taught me how to make homemade corn tortillas {meaning, actually grinding corn and everything!}, and life was generally pretty good! This was when we had our fabulous Atari 2600. It wasn't the new fancy 5200 version, but it rocked! :0) We played Donkey Kong and Joust, and I think we even had a Space game on it, too. The graphics were amazing! :0) I mean...look at that Joystick! I wonder why it's call a JOY-stick? Probably because it brought so much joy to those who played their video games with it. SIgh..... :0) Now, you don't even need a JoyStick...you use a Wii-mote instead and just wave it around in the air. Sigh....those were the good old days.