My grandparents- My paternal and maternal were so different, but great in their own unique ways. My paternal grandparents lived a simpler life. Visits with them often involved cooking and playing outside. We also usually were with them for Christmas, Easter, and often Thanksgiving. My maternal grandparents were the ones who would take us out to eat, we'd go to the movies, we'd walk through downtown visiting all of their friends in the local businesses (they were since retired, but used to have a business in that same area), we'd play cards and BINGO, we'd watch all kinds of tv at night or if we were with them during special times like the Olympics, and we'd go to the movies (and grandma would stuff her purse full of snacks

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My voice teacher- I was around 12 and she was 72 when we started working together. Her background, both in education and teaching, was with Juilliard as well as one of the area's highly regarded school music programs, before her retirement to private lessons. In private instruction, she rarely took on kids, and everyone needed to audition and make it through a trial period before officially becoming a pupil. Many didn't make it. Talent would often get you past the audition, but you had to click with her to be in it for the long term. After a year of working together, I'd learned how to fix and work with all of the challenges of a changing voice. I went from being one of top good singers that had to fight it out to the one everyone was trying to beat...and that just grew the longer we worked together. My mom was always running late to pick me up, so during that time, she'd also educate me on the in's and out's of higher society. It wasn't to be elitist...it was to know about elitist things if I ever found myself singing for a major music organization. The socialite crowd is usually part of who funds and frequents these things and they love to mingle with the talent. We had a falling out during my senior year in high school, but many of her lessons stuck with me over the years and that society training after lessons ended up coming in handy during my years with the symphony.
My "down the shore" neighbors- I think I was in 2nd grade when my parents bought the house down the shore. My dad loves to fish and wanted a small place to keep his boat so we wouldn't have to pay for marina storage and wouldn't have to add driving time to the equation when getting an early start to go fishing. He also saw it as an investment in case we wanted to take a summer off and rent it out. We had the most incredible neighbors to our right. They were like another set of grandparents. They were originally from Jersey City (which was the foundation for many of their stories they'd share), they made the most amazing Italian food, and they had grandkids around my age that lived nearby and were like built in playmates. They didn't go out much in their boat, so we all often shared our seafood with them and would have dinner together along the water. Memories!!!