Me at 20!

There aren't that many pictures of me that I like but I really do love this one and was quite amused when I came upon it.  What you can't see is a bottle of Chianti tucked in on my left side, and the cigarette. oh my, glad I gave that up in my 30's!  This is me on the train in Europe bumming around.

When I was twenty…

Life was a box of chocolates for sure!! I did find the occasional nutshell in my chocolate because like any 20-year-old single gal, life had its ups and downs with boyfriends and all those things that are so important at that time in your life.

At twenty, I was just drifting through life absorbing all that I could and having a good time. I was in and out of college; I just couldn’ t figure out why I was there so I quit, numerous times! I started out as an art major at East Carolina University and it took about six weeks for me to discover that I was not going to make it in the world as an artist so I dropped out before I flunked out and moved in with some girlfriends in Raleigh. I worked at Hudson Belks through the Christmas holidays in the hosiery department. Then I took a temporary job at the Department of Motor Vehicles checking annual vehicle registrations. Talk about BORING! It was a proofreading job and I hated it but it was a paycheck! After that job ended, I became a telephone operator and that was kind of fun especially in a college town where the drunken college students would call in to call the White House or something equally silly.

However, my heart was in the mountains and after only a short time as a telephone operator I moved to Cherokee, NC. I went back to college at Western Carolina, this time as an English major I think. That didn’t last long either. Then I think it was history. In 1974, I finally decided to be a business major, but that’s another story.

I met a great gal, Susan, in music class and we became fast friends. She and I decided to save our money and go to Europe to see the sights. Europe was crawling with American young people as the Vietnam War was raging and there were lots of draft dodgers there. In retrospect I’d have to say we were probably an embarrassment to our country but, oh well, we were having fun, making love not war and all that.

So, I spent $600 for a six-week stay in Europe. That’s hard to believe isn’t it? I bought a Eur-Rail pass for $125 that gave me unlimited travel in most countries in Europe for 2 months. Susan took this picture of me on the train. As you can see, I am diligently studying my Europe on $5 a Day book. That really was an invaluable aid as it told us where we could get cheap eats, safe lodging, and student discounts. Of course, there were youth hostels but you had a 10 pm curfew. Hello?? At 20, I want a 10 pm curfew?? I don’t think so!

One thing that helped us out was that my Dad was stationed in Augsburg at the time so we had somewhere to go to get our laundry done, a nice long bath, a good hot meal, and a refill for the peanut butter jar.

Being twenty was not easy, but it was fun!

 I made the little travel journal in the right corner using some bazzill cardstock, lots of distress ink, Karen Foster stickers, and crackle paint.  I added journaling pages inside.  The rest is just different things from my stash, K & Co, Little Yellow Bicycle, TPC Studios, Jenni Bowlin letters, MME letters, Tim Holtz film strips, Stickeroos,