Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Moving On Out

It's Saturday, so that must mean it's time for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.  Let's see what tonight's theme is:

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

1.  Where did you go the first time you moved out of your parents' home?  Did you have roommates? Did you live by yourself?  Did you get married right away?  Tell the story — your children and grandchildren will want to know!

2.  Share your story in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or on Facebook.  Please leave a comment with a link to your post here.

The first time I moved out of my parents' home was when I was getting ready to go to college in 1979.  But instead of going straight to college, I lived with my grandparnents in Las Vegas during the summer.

I don't remember now why that decision was made.  It could have been my desire to get the hell out of Florida during the summer.  My grandparents might have offered to have me visit.  I'm pretty sure, however, that it wasn't my mother's idea, because she didn't want me going to the other side of the country at all.

We made a big trip out of it.  I packed all the clothes I thought I would need for the school year.  My mother and I flew to the San Francisco Bay area first and visited my aunt and uncle (my mother's brother and his wife).  I think we stayed about a week or so and did a bunch of touristy things.  One place we visited was Pier 39, where we ran into one of those age and weight guessers.  I decided to take her on.  She went on about how "the eyes are the windows to the soul" and would let her know how old I was.  She finally wrapped up her shpiel by saying I was 27.  I told her that I was only 17, and it really seemed to throw her off.  She was very disconcerted.  I offered to show her my driver license, but she said it was okay, she believed me.  I don't remember what I won for stumping her.

After that visit, Mommy and I flew down to Los Angeles for my USC freshman orientation, which was a few days or so.  Walk around the campus, kind of figure out where things are, see the dorm.  Get blown off by the advisor in my academic department (yeah, I still remember that).  Nothing exciting.

Then we flew to Vegas, where I stayed and my mother then went back to Florida.  I don't remember if I had my own room or if I slept on a couch, but I had a lovely time staying with my grandparents, except for when my grandfather would kvetch that I wasn't getting enough exercise.  He kept telling me I should go out for a walk, so one day I did.  I walked around in 107° and came back after an hour, long enough for him to be worried.  He didn't complain about me not exercising after that.

I was still living with them when the annual Jerry Lewis–Muscular Dystrophy Association Labor Day Telethon was being broadcast.  Zadie (my grandfather) asked if I wanted to see the telethon in person, which I thought sounded fun, so we went to the Sahara Casino, where it was held, and watched for a couple of hours.  Then they shifted another audience group in.  The main thing I remember from that year's telethon is that Charo was a guest and was dancing with a just-barely-large-enough-to-completely-cover-everything tube top that then started sliding down bit by bit.  The cameras cut back and forth between Charo dancing and Jerry sitting off to the side sweating while he worried if the dancing would end before the top fell.  (It did.)

Before the fall semester started, my grandparents loaded me, my clothes, and a bicycle Zadie had found for me into the car and drove to Los Angeles.  They helped me get set up in my dorm room and headed back to Vegas.  And I've always found my own place to live since then.