All over the edubloggerverse, folks are writing their 7 things people don’t know about them. One of my twitter buddies said he had 20 and was having a hard time choosing which seven to use. Of course we all have many more than 7, so how does one choose? Why did you choose the seven you chose to share? How did you choose? What did you leave out? Would we want to know those as well? These questions cross my mind as I think of which seven I am going to share. . .

1. In my late 20s I ran Rescue Squad in a small town in VA.  The squad was just starting up, and is still running today, almost 30 years later. It was an amazing experience.

2. My parents both died by the time I was 30, and I remember thinking “I am an orphan.” No matter how old you are, that sense of loss is profound. I simply can’t imagine feeling that as a child.

3. One of my most vivid memories is being a 4 year old and driving away from the cemetery where we had just buried my infant brother, who had been born stillborn. I was looking out of the car window and thought, “I will never see my brother in this life.” What astounds me at this memory as an adult is that even at 4 I believed in a life after death.

4. Another vivid memory is being 6 years old and deciding my younger brother, who was 4 and I should walk to town.  We took our toy tractor and began pushing it to town.  We got  almost a mile from home before a neighbor, who was coming home saw us, stopped and made us get in her car so she could take us back home.My mother always said I was too independent for my own good!  As an adult, I agree with her!

5. I have always loved stories. I used to tell them to my sister each night, and my brother, Rod and I used to climb in a huge clothes closet we had and he would tell me science fiction ones in the dark. My Dad wrote me letters in College that had tall tales in them.  I took my kids to the National Storytelling Festival in Joneborough, Tennessee for years, and I later took my grandson as well. I started a storytelling club at one of my schools, the Yancey Yarnspinners. I also supported the National Gallery of Art’s Teacher Institutes with digital storytelling for 7 summers, first working with Joe Lambert and Emily Paulos from the Center For Digital Storytelling, and then teaching podcasting to the participants. A story of mine, describing our county’s support of technology in the 90’s is in the ComputerWorld archives . I was a 2001 Smithsonian ComputerWorld Laureate.

6. As a teenager, I once opened a pressure cooker too early and it exploded in our kitchen.  Potatoes went all over, mostly on the ceiling. You’d think that would make me never use a pressure cooker again. That was the only time I have ever opened it early, but to this day, I still use a pressure cooker whenever I can.

7. I participated in Tweet-a-Book over winter break 2008. My Rescue Squad experiences were part of that writing. That circles back to number 1.

Now, I tag

Twitterbuddies

@mtechman

@linda704

@jgates513

@janeneg

@unklar

@leann

@mguhlin

I’ll enjoy reading your 7 Things.