I remember when my preferred stress relief was listening to Appetite For Destruction at high volume on my walkman.

I remember Nancy Bierlein was my gym teacher at St. John's College.

I remember taking the Dale Carnegie course at the behest of the insurance company I worked for, but I seriously doubt anyone at the time would have claimed it had any noticeable results.

I remember as a pre-teen singing with a few other girls at a baby's funeral. So sad.

I remember when we moved into 5288, Willy and I had bedspreads that looked like cars.

I remember when drugstores had soda fountains, and you could order all kinds of delicious ice-cream concoctions and sodas.

I remember countless evenings when I'd roll back into Madison at maybe 6 pm, the Capital Coffee warehouse empty except for John at his desk surfing the web.

I remember my cousin Barbara painting my fingernails one time when we visited Uncle Paul and Aunt Bobbie.

I remember visiting Bessie with Grandma in 2011.

I remember playing "patty-cake, patty-cake" with Mark when he was just a toddler.

I remember eating lunch with Mom in 2017 at a restaurant in Bayfield with photos of old movie stars on the walls.

I remember Anna (from Germany) pointing out a Conoco station -- calling it Co-NO-Co.

I remember visiting the old farmhouse south of JC with Dad one last time in 2008.

I remember being so happy when I passed my driving test the first time I tried.

I remember how beautiful Diana was in her white wedding dress walking down the aisle at Immanuel Lutheran Church with her dad and my heart almost stopped!

I remember taking Daniel to Frontier City in OKC when we were dating.

I remember riding a horse at Frontier City in OKC.

I remember pulling my cart through the labyrinthine hallways underneath St. Luke's Hospital in Milwaukee, winding my way towards the boiler room with the lights growing dimmer, the walls closing in tighter, and the ceiling becoming a mess of exposed ducts and pipes that sometimes required ducking.

I remember feeling so frustrated and tired when newborn babies woke me up several times a night.

I remember many times walking across our gravel driveway in Jeff City with bare feet.

I remember picking bagworms off our evergreen trees and putting them in jars of gasoline.

I remember walking through the Wartburg chapel in the middle of the night with Jen when it was under construction.

I remember making a small Christmas tree out of toothpicks, styrofoam balls, and artificial snow and giving it to Daniel for Christmas when we were in college.

I remember going to a sleepover at Marca and Debbie Downing's house in grade school, and they had no toothpaste so we used salt to brush our teeth.

I remember standing in the Cedar River on an overcast mid spring day trying to help a scared and obese fellow student back into our canoe so we could catch up to the rest of the class, which was by now out of sight downriver.

I remember my 8th grade science teacher, Mr. Carr, relaying rumors he'd heard about the degenerate members of the rock band Queen and telling us about paratrooper accidents he'd witnessed with leg bones protruding up through shoulders. 

I remember making puppets out of brown paper sacks in Miss Crowley's fourth-grade class.

I remember my 7th grade art teacher inveighing against abstract art and telling us about her college roommate who had a third nipple.

I remember getting my first and only flu shot when I was a freshman in college, and I was sooooooo sick for two weeks after that. (My roommate had to bring me soup from the cafeteria every day.)

I remember my high school poli sci teacher, Mr. Locke, predicting that Brazil would be the world's next superpower.

I remember reading "Heidi" by Spyri, when I was 8 years old.

I remember the Hwy 63 towns that marked progress on the many 7-hour trips I took between Jeff City and Waverly -- Moberly, Macon, Kirksville, Ottumwa, Oskaloosa.

I remember hearing the word "kudos" for the very first time when I was in my 40s. (Ed Schedler said it, and I had no idea what it meant.)

I remember when I was young I thought war was like a sporting event in which the two sides met at a prearranged time and stood opposite each other shooting until everyone on one side was dead.

I remember the smell of limburger cheese that my Grandpa Larwig ate when we were at his house.

I remember random titles from Mom and Dad's book collection when we were kids - Roots, Mary Queen Of Scots, Gone With The Wind, Black Like Me, I'm OK You're OK, and Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.

I remember some of our neighbors on NE 25th Street in OKC in the 1950s: LeBoef's lived across the street on the corner and ran the Sinclair gas station on 23rd Street - Oren and Vivien Rose lived next to them and had a daughter Judy that wsa about my age - Steve and Mary Geatches lived across from us with two children, Robin and Kurt - Aunt Liz's in-laws (the Seals) lived next door to us on the west - Aunt Liz and her family lived next door to us on the east.

I remember when "oldies" on the radio mainly referred to songs from roughly 1955-1965.

I remember all three of our kids getting the croup one after another. Scary and stressful times for me.

I remember when the southeast corner of Mineral Point Rd. and Science Dr. was an undeveloped lot and on nice days I'd lie in the grass and study the sky.

I remember Sophie and Henry playing on a jungle gym at some park, and Henry leaned over and kissed Sophie on the cheek.

I remember shadowing a guy who drove around the Twin Cities serving subpoenas when I was trying to decide what position to take at Civil Action Group.

I remember cheating only one time on schoolwork in high school, and I felt terrible as soon as I did it.

I remember the surreal little pep rally one of my part-time employers staged right before announcing we were all getting laid off.

I remember momentarily passing out one day in 5th grade when I had the wind knocked out of me. 

I remember how much I enjoyed sleeping in until noon on Saturdays in my windowless basement bedroom in high school.

I remember sleeping in a double bed with Louise until our parents bought us each a single bed.

I remember and still miss the taste of black coffee first thing in the morning.

I remember the far-off sound of music coming from the ice-cream truck that made its weekly drive down on our street in the summer -- running to get some change from my mother -- buying cherry popsicles from the old man in the truck -- eating them on the front porch steps -- and then having to go inside to wash off all the stickiness.

I remember chickening out of front row comedy club seats on State St. and instead renting Nightmare Before Christmas at Four Star Video Heaven with Steph and walking back to her house on Willy St. to watch it.

I remember Willie -- and always wonder if he found happiness with his adopted family.

I remember one of the early times we came to Madison and I went to Sun Prairie one Saturday for the first time with Mark to help him clean an office.

I remember the evening before I graduated college having dinner at the Red Fox Inn with Mom, Dad, Danielle, DP, Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Lou, Alice, Steve, and Lester.

I remember my Grandma Intemann always made a variety of pies at Thanksgiving and Christmas -- apple, lemon meringue, cherry, pecan, and pumpkin.

I remember watching Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb with DP on Dayton St.

I remember as a very young girl wishing that my family was Catholic so that I could become a nun.

I remember watching Lost In Translation and Gerry with Danielle on Hilltop Dr.

I remember getting so excited when we got just a dusting of snow in Oklahoma City.

I remember walking Veil Of Tears counter-clockwise with Dad many times -- past the Grothoffs and Smiths, down to the "lagoon", then uphill to more Smiths and the Hinshaws' nice two-story home, past the A-frame house, downhill again, then up past the Stocktons and Blanks, around one more corner, and back home.

I remember winning a set of pots and pans in a (rigged) drawing in Seward, NE, my senior year of college.

I remember a morning during the summer I had mono, sitting with Mom in the Riverside pool parking lot while DP had a swimming lesson.

I remember embroidering "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" by Keats for an English class project in high school.