Assingment 1

Directions for this assignment exactly how I wrote them in my planner.

Step 1: Locate person you have lost touch with (check!)

Step 2: Convince them your not crazy. (half check)

Step 3: Interview! (check!)

Step 4: Blog:

Ever wonder what happened to your dress up buddy? The girls and boys who used to run the neighborhood, playing jailbreak until it got to dark to see? The person who you used to re-enact the theme song of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with you?

That person for me was Sam Wilson. Her family lived directly next door to me in Blackwood, New Jersey until roughly 1994. The summer before 3^rd grade, her family decided to move from Blackwood to Moorestown, NJ. When I got older, I realized her family only moved about 30 minutes away, but to a third grader that drive seems to take hours.

Born just about two months after me, Sam and I were obviously destined to be friends. Or maybe it was just because everyone is friends with their next door neighbor when they are younger. The normal neighbor hood “gang” was fairly innocent growing up. Sam and I, and other neighbors spend our nights and weekends just being kids and having fun. Typical activities of kids growing up in New Jersey, terrorizing the neighbor hood on our bikes, pool hopping, beach visits, hiding in the woods and wishing to never grow up.

It has been a few years since I have actually seen Sam and her family, probably somewhere around the time of our high school graduations (summer 2004) Since they moved away, her father (a Drexel graduate in Mechanical Engineering) has since started his own company in South Jersey. My mother still keeps in touch with Mrs. Wilson via email from time to time, especially during the holidays. Her sister Emily is now a freshman at Millersville University and is studying to be a teacher. Her youngest sister Colleen is currently a freshman in high school. When Sam lived next door her family had a dog named Rocky, aptly named because she ate rocks. Now the family has two dogs, Digger and Goalie, who are just as much part of the family as they are pets.

Sam now attends Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She is part of the Cook College and majoring in Exercise Science and Sports Studies. She lives in an on campus apartment with three other girls. Sam ran all through high school and now in college, she is a part of the Roadrunners, a running club on campus. With an expected graduation date of June 2008, when she has completed her degree, she hopes to work with children in the field of physical and occupational therapy.

The most interesting thing I found out during this interview was that her family had recently purchased a home in Ocean City, New Jersey. When we were younger, the Wilson family used to rent a beach house for an entire month during the summer. During the month, my family would make weekend trips of sleepovers, the beach and the boardwalk. The Jersey shore in the summer is something that now that we are older we can enjoy even more then when we were younger. After interviewing /catching up with Sam for quite a while today, I am going to try to visit her families shore house over the summer with some other close family friends from our old neighborhood.

Photo: Sams dog, Goalie, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean (looking much older then i remember her being)