Growing Up Everywhere-perspective is everything!

Growing up Everywhere!  Perspective is Everything!

Cathy claims that growing up with her Dad as a Navy pilot and moving every two or three years was a wonderful adventure!   In this episode, she recounts hopscotching different places in the country, including three years in Northern Ireland.   Her Mom got into training ponies as a little girl, and the stint in Ireland gave her certification teaching English riding.  After they returned to the States, Cathy still left handed, the kids were connected to the United States Pony Club.  This gave them a sense of belonging whenever they moved to a new place.   Cathy moved in 1978 to Lexington Kentucky and has been planted here ever since!  

Theme song and host introduction. Jess and Cathy welcome listeners to There You Are, introduce themselves, and share what the show is about and who it's for.

Theme song and closing words from Jess and Cathy, including a call to action to share the episode, leave a review, and tune in next week.

Cathy is a professional at training and teaching the sport of Three Day Eventing. Her website is: 

https://www.cwevent.com

Jess is a licenced clinical social worker.  She see's clients in her office in the back of the house here at the farm.   

Her website is:

https://www.jessicabollinger.com

Transcript

Jess and Cathy 1:38

So welcome to There you are, Cathy. There you are, Jesse. It's all good. Sitting at the kitchen table. Yep. Had a good workout this morning. Uhhuh, what? Was it? All over something? I think it was mostly arms. Oh, okay. I don't know. Oh, no, but I didn't go to any of the workouts at Burn Bootcamp last week 'cause of my head cold. Yep. So I felt good to be back and I did my 50 sessions for the year. Yeah, she got to sign her name on the, yeah. Big five. Oh yeah. Yeah. So that's always really cool that you reach that milestone. I've ne there's a 50, there's a hundred. And then two 50, I think they ought to go to 200. 'cause you don't see very many people up there at two 50. No. And I think the people that have done two 50 don't take any vacations either. Yeah. So that's not healthy for them. No. They need to go on a vacation. Yeah. We've asked you all to tell us what you want us to talk about and Ellymae ask some questions and one of 'em I'd like to talk about today. Is growing up as a daughter of a Navy captain. Yeah. What it was like for you. Like I told y'all that I grew up in the same house all my life. So my sense of community with some of my friends, their kids went to the same schools, had the same teachers and so forth. And anyway. Why did your dad join the Navy? Give us a little background. I'm not sure except he. Graduated with a degree in agriculture from Cornell University. And then he took a year and hitchhiked his way across the United States. So he, so from Cornell was New York State and made it all the way out to California hitchhiking and working. He was doing hay along the way. I remember. Yeah. Yeah. And I think he was seeing the planes, like a lot of planes when he was out in California. I don't remember all the details, but I think that's what kind of prompted him when he came back to enlist in the Navy, he wanted to be a pilot, and that's because Navy amphibious. But but he wanted to be a pilot and because he had a college degree, you could enlist as an officer. He went to flight school and flight training and became a pilot yeah. So your mom and dad met at Cornell University? Yep. And got married? Yep. And the first child, Ken your brother was born in Kansas. Hutchinson, Kansas, Uhhuh. They were probably there for a week. No, literally, I don't think they were there for very long. Do you know anything about where your dad did his flight training? Pensacola, the standard it wasn't California though. I know it was on the, more, on the East Coast. But I know that he, I was born in Maine and my sister was born in Maine. And and then our of subsequent deployments was Maine and then Colorado. Okay. And then Florida, and then Ireland, and then back to Maine, then Virginia, then Texas, then California, and then he got transferred to Belgium. And at that time I was old enough and ready to start college that I didn't wanna go with him not traveling with you this time. And the perspective that you talk about growing up in the military is that if it was a bad experience, people will say they didn't grow up anywhere. But if it was a good experience. They say I grew up everywhere. Everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the way you like to look at it. Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got to, I don't remember, I, I don't remember Maine the first time, except I think there's a picture or a video, or not a video now. It was a movie of my dad making snow elephants or something out. 'cause there was so much snow and I don't remember if that was Maine or or Colorado. First time had to have been Colorado. 'cause I don't think I was old enough to remember anything the years that when I was maybe two years old leaving Maine and going to Colorado. So you were born in Bath, Maine? Yep. Okay. Then, then you all moved to Colorado Springs? Colorado Springs, yeah. Yeah. And I don't remember much of that 'cause I was too young to remember that. The, my main memories start when I was like from four years old when we moved to Jacksonville, Florida. And we, my mom, that's the first time my mom got horses. We had some, a little ranch, I don't know, probably was two or three acres and in Florida? Yeah. Uhhuh. Yeah. Jacksonville. Yeah. Orange Park, I think. 'cause a little sub sublet subdivision outside there. And that's where I first started going to school. To kindergarten. I remember I dropped my sandwich. My mom, we'd make, she'd make our lunches, I'd drop my sandwich in the dirt and I just went to the faucet and turned on the faucet thinking I was gonna wash the dirt off my sandwich. And it got all soggy and I had to throw it away. And I was hungry. But it's so funny. I do little things like that and they, you're like that didn't work. Won't do that again. My mom did the, we, she rode Western. She was raised, she had horses when she grew up. And so we, so she did little ponies. Yeah. Growing up she grew up in the Finger Lakes of New York in Canandaigua. Yeah. That's the name of the lake. And she would get little ponies and train them and sell 'em. And that's how she paid for college Uhhuh. Yeah. And she also would go to. Rodeos and ride Broncs and stuff. And that was before women were allowed to, and I don't think, she said she stuffed her hair up under her hat and got in and rode and, would make money doing that too. Except one time her hat came off and her hair fell down and her dad saw her and she got in a whole lot of trouble. 'cause she wasn't supposed to be doing that. Yeah. And but, and then she went to. To go be in the movies with Gene Autry. She loved Gene Autry. She ran away from home with her pony, and she got on her pony. But she went east instead of west. Exactly, yeah. She got turned around. Yeah. They, she got discovered three days later and they brought her back home. Yeah. But it, so Kitty got. Into horses. Kitty. They saved her life. Her dad was an alcoholic and her childhood was rough. Yeah. Yeah. And horses were just such a they saved her. Yeah. Yeah. And gave her a sense of accomplishment and so on. And so when you all were moving, and then you started doing the horses down in Florida, then. Go ahead and we, she was, didn't know anything about an English saddle, so she did Western and we would go to these little gym kanas or little rodeos and do, she did barrel racing. And she had this barrel racer, petite, I think was her name. And then we had another horse Casper milk toast, and I think it was a pony. Then there was one more. It was a gray, but I don't rem really remember my sister could probably shed more light on that. Anyway, my brother rode, I rode Christie rode, but one time at this, at, we were at one of these gym kana things and I was hacking around on petite, her barrel racer, and I was way far away from the trailer and a gun went off to start a race and that horse just took off like running. Like a runaway, like balls to the walls, no stopping. And it was headed back to the trailer, I think. And when I passed my dad, I just bailed out. I just leaped off arms outstretched. Save me, dad and I think it was in a parking lot too, probably. Yeah. Anyway, I hit my head, I go, you hit your head. Got a concussion. Good. Concussion. Yep. And said I'll never get on a horse again. I said when I finally spoke on the way home. They said that, I said, when I ride again, could I ride something smaller? Okay. But this, that the fear of a runaway outta control is still, I don't like if I'm in your brain. In my brain, yeah. Yep. So anyway, so then when we went to Ireland, we had to obviously had to sell all the horses and I think we, my dad had built a horse trailer. He was pretty handy. And I think we put that in storage somehow so that we had it when we got back, when they came back to the states. So you were about six or seven when you moved to Ireland? Yeah, age six, yeah. Six. Yeah. Okay. And that was idyllic, we had a little house that was on the North Coast, the North Sea. It was an old bathhouse that had been remodeled into a dwelling. I rode the, but my mom borrowed the butchers pony for me to. Ride. And and your mom started getting into Eastern Well, English. English. English. English. Ride English, yeah. Because there was no Western in Ireland. I said Eastern. Eastern English. Yeah. And yeah, she worked for she got a job just, doing, helping a guy that did show jumpers the whites in Ireland and she would go there and she borrowed a pony for me to start Pony club. Which was is a great, United States Pony Club is a great. Organization that teaches not only riding but horse management and teaches you to be self-sufficient with your horse or your pony and pony club is all over the world. And I think when we got involved with the Pony Club in Ireland was, that was our community of horses. Wherever we moved, we'd always, join the Pony Club in Maine and in Virginia and in Texas and California. And that was a great community for us to be in, to connect with people with the horses when we moved. Okay. So let's go back to Ireland and why it felt so idyllic to you. Just it was, you're six years old or 7, 6, 7, 8. I think we moved back when I was just nine. So we were there for three years. Walking to the bus and give, having your tuppence, to, you had tuppence to ride the bus to school and it was a double decker bus and we'd always wanna go upstairs and sometimes the guy would let us and sometimes he wouldn't. And and then have your tuppence to ride back to the train station was where they essentially dropped us off or picked us up. And then we will walk back through the town to our house. And then I got an allowance, I think of 10 shillings a week. And I don't know what that was back then. Probably 10 cents, maybe. I don't know. It was probably a dollar. But you'd go to the shop and you would I'd love these mi called mint imperials. They're, and you can buy 'em now, they're Bassett mint imperials. But that was when they were in a big jar and the guy would take 'em out of the jar and weigh four pence worth and put 'em in a little bag. I love to do that. But you were making money also giving people a ride on the butcher's pony, right? No. I didn't give people rides on the butcher's pony. I got run away with on the golf course on the butcher's pony. But did you have to pay a fine? I think we got out of that, but he spooked in the sand dunes 'cause we were right on the beach. My dad could fish outta his bedroom window at high tide. So where we made our money and we could go buy fish and chips was one. My friend Jane brought her Don. It was in a little minivan and she would spend the night and bring the donkey. It would stay in the yard and we would give rides to the kids on the beach, on the donkey. Yeah. And we, I remember one time we were 21 shillings and one evening it was so fun. You thought you were rich. We were rich. And then we, would went to the chip shop to buy fish and chips. Yeah. And they would wrap the fish up in newspaper. Yep. They still, they don't wrap it in newspaper now, but they just use regular paper. Yeah. And that's where my love of fish and chips came from. From, and that oil and vinegar. Oh man. Yeah. Just malt vinegar, salt and malt. Malt mal. Yeah. Malt vinegar. Malt vinegar. Yeah. Yeah. So if I order fish I won't order a fish and chips meal anywhere unless I can have it with malt vinegar. Turner sauce is out the window and you said, don't bring me a cup. Don't bring me the whole bottle. Don't bring me the bottle. Exactly right. I drown it. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And you were really young then, and I think something that was cool that happened is that. Being at that young age developmentally, you took on the accent of the little Irish girl. Oh yeah. And it's interesting because sometimes people will think I mocked them, but I don't. It's just where you, we lived, I would start you would hear it for three years. I, Sarah got her bottom wet Mummy, yeah. And and I sounded like a little Irish child, and I remember. When we moved back to Maine, my mom said now the people are gonna, I guess we were riding in the car somewhere, maybe going, I don't know. But we were riding in the car, and I remember my mom specifically explaining to us that when we got to Maine, that their accents or their voices, not their voices would sound different and they would say they packed their car in the barn, did you want me to park to the car in the barn? Okay. So I did notice that and but now if I go to England, or if I am talking with the farmer down the road, I will start. Just not mimicking, just picking up and talking like that person, Uhhuh, because I can do so many dialects B based on how many different places I've lived. Yeah, so the dialects, but I think that also gave you a good ear for music and singing. Could be. Yeah. Being able to pick up, yeah, pick up melodies and stuff. You have that ear too. Yeah. I think that. That childhood there. 'cause it's so formative. Very formative. Now you were left-handed. Give the tell everybody that story. So yeah. So I'm left-handed and at that age we're in class and we have the little wooden desks with the ink, literally on the top right corner. And the teacher would come around and fill our ink up and and I was left-handed, so I'd have to reach across. And try to dip my pen in the ink and then write in my copy book, and and she wanted to try to really change me to write with my right, to do it with my right hand. And I just couldn't do it. But then that phrase, you're gonna blot your copy book. Because you get these, given these books to write in or practice your handwriting. And I was blotting my copy book all the time 'cause I wasn't fast enough to reach across to the right side and get it to the left side to actually make the letters. Because you drop a blot of in un drop blot of ink on the way from the right if you came. It wasn't this far when you came from the right side. I don't think any of us have ever heard the phrase blot your co copy book. Yeah, that's, yeah. Yeah. I use it all the time. Did you get, don't blot your copy book. Did you get your hand slaps? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. That you would, one time I was talking, I don't know why, I got in trouble and they would, they would cane, the boys got their legs caned if you misbehaved and the girls, you'd have to hold your hand out and get slapped with a ruler. Mr. Mitchell, I remember I was like, eh, I'm holding my hand out and I jerk it away when that ruler comes down and he whacks himself on the leg of boy then. Then he was holding my hand. Then he held your hand and slapped it. Then he held my hand. Yep. Yeah, that's, wild. So then y'all came back to Maine. Yeah, and when we came back to Maine, one of the cool things about I think my parents was that we never lived on a military base. We always lived in the culture of where we were. So that was really neat because we experienced the culture of, a lot of military families would, whether it could have been their financial situation or something, but there is military housing usually when you're on all these military bases. But there was only one time that we stayed in military housing that I remember, and that was actually when we were in California and we got a really nice house on. On an Air Force base to live in you. So you had a little acreage and you had this big white house there in Maine. That, that I've seen. That's pretty cool. And wait, let me go back. Okay. You're skipping ahead to Maine. Okay. The, where I was going with the culture thing was that when we came, when we moved, yes. From Ireland to Maine. Dad wasn't with us. Mom came with the three kids. Everything got packed up and they booked, he booked our travel on the SS United States. Yeah. To sail from South Hampton into New York City. And that's how we got back. We didn't ride on an airplane it that was on an ocean liner. It was one of the roughest crossings they'd ever had. And everybody was sick all the time. But since dad was an officer, we got to eat in the officer's mess. That was all fancy and, anyway, that was just a really cool thing I wanted to share fun. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Five days on the Northline. So you're back in Maine and your little kids, and there's Ken's a year older, right? Than you. Yeah. And then Christie's a year younger, so she called you all like Irish triplets, right? Uhhuh, yeah. And would dress you all alike. Oh God. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, A as, as what you're saying. Then when you move subsequently to these different places. You would load horses up into your hor, into your horse trailer. Yeah. And then you would travel along and you had little electric fence. You'd stop along the way. And just pull over to the side of the road that, that was more on our trips across the country when we lived in California. Yeah. Which we did, but in Maine, mom and dad bought a 11 acre farm in the middle of the town of Bodenham. Yeah. And she did a riding lesson program that, so my dad said when we moved back, that was when he said, you can do the horses, but you have to pay for them. My salary cannot fund the horses. Yeah. And so mom said, okay. And and she had gotten some certification teaching when she lived, when we lived in Ireland. And so she had her British Horse Society assistant instructor certification and so that was cool 'cause she had a bunch of, she got a bunch of little ponies and they were all named after things in Ireland, which it was little red, not red drawing a blank. The little ponies, the band Uhhuh anyway remember it? Yeah. Like Robin Hood's band. Yeah. Robin Hood. They, we had Robinhood, we had made Mary and we had Friar Tuck. We had, so those were the names of all the ponies that we had that she gave lessons on. And then y'all had to work and help and Oh, yeah. And get out there real early in the morning to get the hose from the basement and fill the water minus 40 degrees. Yeah. Uhhuh. Yeah. We my brother and I. My mom had us trained, my brother and I would get up and do the morning barn chores and we would. Feed and hang hay nets. I can hang a hay net so fast and minus 40 degrees, you wouldn't take my glove off. Whip whip. And and that was mostly we didn't have very many stalls, horses and stalls. We just had two or three stalls in this old barn, but everybody else lived outside. But we would feed the, go out and feed the horses and my sister would get up and fix us breakfast and like our cereal or eggs or something. And then. On our way to walk to school, we would take mom a cup of coffee upstairs in bed. Okay. Chores are done. We've had breakfast. We'll see you later. But you just really loved Bodenheim. And you would in the summertime, you, he wanted to be a garbage man. I did. In the back of the garbage truck, I would, Delbert would take me with him, Uhhuh and I would ride on the back and we'd go pick up and I'd sling it on my back and throw it in the back of the truck. And then the best part was when we. Ended up at Frizzle's Market and he'd buy me a hot dog. Yeah, but how fun is that? Yeah, just, yeah, just like I said, idyllic living in the community in Maine, having the horses, and that's again, we did pony club. We, that was when we collected Coke bottles, and got 5 cents, but I know states do it now, but back in that day, that's how a kid got money was. Collecting, bottles off the side of the road or something and taking your four bottles into the market and they give you, and that's when a candy bar was a nickel. Exactly. I remember one time though. We had this built a snowbank. There's little fort and we went to the store and we got all of our candy and we hid it in our fort overnight. In the snow it was, the bottle was frozen or broke. The candy was on edible. I was like, it is just kinda learning don't wash your sandwich off in the faucet. Yeah. Don't store your food in a snowbank. It's not gonna work. That's how you learn. Make a mistake. Exactly. Sweet sweet. Just moving around and taking the ponies with you and going to a pony club and your mom would get involved in that. You all would get involved in that. Yeah, exactly. And but that was before internet or real phones. And you'd have to say goodbye to some friends. Yeah. And I think when I left Texas, so I was 14, so I was maybe 12 or so when I left Virginia. I didn't have any. There was one girl, gly Guthrie that I really liked, and that was before I knew I was gay. But but that was one, maybe only one person, but it seemed like when we moved from Texas and there was, long distance phone calls or, we're the only way to communicate or writing letters. And, and I really missed a lot of people when we moved from Texas, to California. And California just was so far away from everything because when we were in. Virginia, we went back to Maine for the summers. Yeah. When we were at and could see your friends there, see our friends there. Yep. Uhhuh. And went to the, to pony club. We stayed at a and and then in Texas, I think we were just there for a year and a half, so there was only one summer. And Corpus Christi. Yeah. Corpus Christi Uhhuh. Yep. Yeah. But we lived out in Robs town and had a little farm with, a few acres with our horses on it. With two horses. Now we only ever had two horses. One for me and one for my sister. 'cause we only had a two horse trailer. And we had a truck with one of those campers that sits on the back of it. You talk about back of the boat, yeah. Back loading boats and didn't know you could do it without yelling. And back in that camper, underneath that, back in the truck, underneath that camper. Yeah. Was always, oh. Yeah. That was hard. Yeah. When you would take it off and on. I wouldn't, we'd have to guide my mother. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, but yeah, it was, and moving to California, like I said, seemed like a world away from anything that I was familiar with. But that itself was a great experience. We lived on a, on Hamilton Air Force Base. Went to Novato High School, got to go into San Francisco all the time, to the Presidio, which is where the medical, whenever I fell off or no, something, to get, for our doctor's appointments and things like that. And fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square and that smell of sourdough bread and. Riding the, the trams or trains that are, in downtown San Francisco. Yes. Was really just, so I just got to do all that stuff, which was really fun. As well as ride. A fun vaca, a fun vacation while you all lived in Ireland, was your mom rented a covered wagon with a horse, right? And you went for a gypsy caravan. A gypsy caravan for I think it might have been only a week. It seemed like it was forever. Two weeks. We didn't get to ride. We had to walk. Sometimes and we had to go get water for Bunny or horse and Uhhuh. Yeah. But that was a really cool, but you traveled carrying this covered wagon. Yeah, we were on a cover like Gypsy. You look up Gypsy Caravan, you'll see it's a, it's like maybe the old Conessto covered wagons. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. I've kissed the Barney Stone and things like that, so giants causeway, seeing all those things. This is really cool. Good deal. Yeah, good deal. So then that brings you to California and you're 17 or 18, and then your parents, let's, so take yourself to back here to Kentucky where you've been since 1978. Yeah. My dad got transferred to Belgium in. In 77 and that's when I graduated from high school. So I stayed in California for six months by myself and kept doing the teaching and training of the business that my mom had developed at this boarding stable. And then she came, she flew back and we moved. Everything. We had the truck, the camper, the dog, my horse, and the horse trailer. We came to Kentucky and stayed at Edith Conyers Farm to help her with the running of the World Championships, the 1978 World, 1978 World Championship Championships. Yeah. And we did a little traveling and competing over the summer. Then after the World Championships, I was supposed to go to Caroline, Treveronis' on farm I'd written letters, and she said I could come be a working student, and I was able to go to school. 'Cause my mom said to me, Cathy, whatever you do, be an educated horse bum, not an uneducated horse bum. And I believe that to this day that I did graduate from college and it has served me well. But Caroline got hurt at the world championships. Yeah. So she fell off. And the show jumping was in the grass and you didn't have a strap on your helmet. Holding your helmet on wasn't required. Yeah. Yeah. And she hit her head really hard. Was helicoptered out. I think she fell. Yeah. The rail came and hit her on the head with nail the hell the rail then. Yeah. So that blew, you weren't gonna go there? No. And Edith Conyers is like managing the 78 the show. And your mom was helping her out? Yeah. And she said, Hey, do you have something my daughter could do? Yeah. Mom just asked Edith, can she stay here? And Edith had just moved into her. House that she'd built. So there was a house trailer on the farm. She did fox hunter's, developing fox hunters and selling them. For as a business. And loved eventing. And that's another whole story. But that's how I ended up staying in Kentucky. So she went, she said, yes. You went to the, you went to the little. MO Mobile. Mobile home. Mobile home. Yeah. Mobile home. That was next to the barn. Yeah. Uhhuh. Yeah. And that's in Clark County? Yep. Outside Winchester. And then you would go then to the Eastern Kentucky University, then I'd drive to Eastern Kentucky University. Yeah, because it was 50 50 UK Eastern was. Much easier to park and and get to my classes. Yeah. When when you came to UK to interview the dean fell asleep while you were talking to him. Yeah. So I, and you just got up and slammed my down on the table, said, I think I'll go somewhere else. Yeah. So then you chose, I caught him right after lunch. I felt his pain, but that I, I was like trying to plead my case to be an in-state pay in-state tuition instead of out-of-state tuition. Yeah. Yeah. So then you went, because when you're military. You're wherever you start, like dad's in-state tuition was New York State. So my brother went to New York to Oswego. Oswego State. Yeah. But but I was outta state and then Christie ended up being in-state because of her living in Fresno with that family. But I had to apply for. In-state tuition. So you're living at Edith's, you're getting field hunters ready certain days of the week and studying in the truck while people are out riding. You're teaching some lessons. Yeah. Started teaching with Quin and riding your little motorcycle to and from Eastern Kentucky University. Yeah. Or you're little What? I got a chavet, my first car. Was a little Chevrolet Tte. What color was it? Green. Green. That was a big deal. Uhhuh, my dad ordering that and helping me buy it and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. That was cool. Sweet. So that brought you to Kentucky. Yeah. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad I'm here too. Kentucky's been great for me. Thanks for and good to me. Thanks for talking to us about your childhood. There's just so many rich, good stories that I could hear a million times. Exactly. Yeah. All right. So here you are. And there you are. Here I am. Yeah. Everybody have a great day. Enjoy. Yeah. And if anybody has anything that you want hear about we'd be happy to talk to you about it. Yeah, just give us a comment. Uhhuh, let us know. Yeah. Peace and love. Make the most of today, you matter. And we love you. Take care. Bye bye.