The Pioneering Spirit - or Something Like It

Years ago in college, one of my professors gave a writing assignment that was to be our reading autobiography of our lives. I LOVED this project, and it's one of the few papers I wish I had kept from my college years. Now that my nephew is beginning to discover literature and reading, I find myself reveling in all of the childhood memories of me in our living room with a favorite novel. Summers were spent discovering new worlds in books!

In elementary school, I remember being entranced by Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Little House on the Prairie books. Stories of our forefathers intrigued me completely, and I got to further imagine what pioneer life was like when we'd visit my family's cabin in the Davis Mountains of West Texas.

The fact that we actually have running water and a gas stove in the cabin (not to mention a suburban we used to get up the mountain, a toilet and a shower) was irrelevant - it was closer to pioneering than life in the city was for me! ;)  Hey, I had a great imagination. lol