Exactly 18 years ago today, we launched our first blog, and we’ve been celebrating Cowboys and Books ever since!
We think that deserves a party. Even better, you’ll get the gifts!
Read about our experiences when we turned 18 and took that first step into adulthood.
Then tell us about yours, and you’ll be eligible to win a book-themed prize of your choice!
(Click on the links to learn more on Amazon)
20 Oz. Stainless Steel Travel Mug
Canvas Tote Bag and Cosmetic Bag
and our
Grand Prize!
Glowing Foldable Book Lamp
All of us fillies have stepped back in time and delved into our memories to share with you that important milestone from that important age . . .
When I turned 18 . . .
I got my ears pierced because my dad wouldn’t let me do it any sooner with parental consent. I just went and did it (a rare act of defiance, let me tell you!) and he never said a word because I was legally old enough. Ha! Also, I got engaged when I was 18, to marry when I was 19.
Birthdays were always very lowkey when I was growing up. For my 18th birthday, I had the day off of work and spent it doing just what I wanted to do! And that was spending the entire day drinking iced tea and reading books and relaxing! Since my birthday is in May, the weather was perfect, and I had birds singing and a nice breeze through my bedroom window.
The thing I remember most about turning 18 was that I got a job as a telephone operator at Bell Telephone in our town. I worked the night shift and I absolutely loved it. I felt so grown up talking to customers who wanted to call long distance then connecting them to the right party. It was so much fun, and in a way, it felt more like I was playing instead of working. I grew up with a vivid imagination and years of playing paper dolls with my little sister. The feeling was kind of like that. I finally had my own money and was free to do some things. So my dad helped me buy a car. It was a 1966 Chevrolet Corvair. I felt as though I won the lottery. But that job at Bell Telephone made it all possible.
When I was 18, I left my home in California and headed to the great state of Texas for college. I knew no one there, so I was terrified but also excited to be on my own. What an adventure! Little did I know that I would meet and later marry a cowboy disguised as a computer nerd and make this great state my permanent home. No wonder all of my books are set in Texas. I fell in love with the land and people here while I was busy ropin’ my personal Texas hero.
I was 18 when I graduated high School. At the end of the school year, a group of us went on a school-sponsored senior trip. We took a chartered bus from New Orleans to New York City. Along the way we stopped at Luray Caverns in Virginia, toured George Washington’s home in Mt. Vernon, and visited several monuments in Washington DC. But the highlight was the full week we spent in NYC where we saw Broadway plays and did lots of other touristy stuff. We capped the trip off by flying home – my very first plane trip! I felt so grown up…
My 18th birthday arrived about six weeks after I started my freshman year of college. For me, it meant driving 30+ miles one way to school every day, but I loved it. I loved being able to drive, and the sense of freedom and independence I experienced. My grandmother lived in the same town as the college, so I spent many lunch breaks with her. I’m so grateful I had that time with her, getting to know her as I stepped into adulthood.
The year I turned 18 was a big one for me, I guess for everyone, which is why we thought of these posts, huh? 🙂 It means our blog is an adult, too.
I graduated from high school. I went to college. I was already dating My Cowboy who is now my husband of nearly 49 years. What a launch year. I went home of course, but I’d never live with my parents again. The summer of my 18th year I got a job at a factory about twenty miles from my home called Wilson Trailer Company which made the trailers for Semi-Trucks. It was a hard, hot, greasy job but it was the most money I’d ever had in my life. The memory that jumps out is, I was just there for the summer, so I filled in on the line for people on vacation, so I did everything. And I mowed the lawn and painted, just whatever needed doing. I was tasked with ‘redecorating’ the lunch room. I painted it, cement block walls so not fancy. And I had to take down the styrofoam ceiling tiles, paint them, then put them back up. EXCEPT there was pink insulation in the ceiling and all wound up in that insulation……..dead mice. They must’ve put poison out or something? So I’d lift those tiles out and DEAD MICE WOULD RAIN DOWN ON MY HEAD. I cannot fully convey to you my horror of mice. Also it REALLY impressed upon me the notion that going to college was a fine idea so I didn’t have to do that for the rest of my life.
When I turned eighteen, I wasn’t thinking about parties or prom. I graduated early and took a job on the backside of a racetrack. I slept on a cot in a 7×7 tack room, mucked stalls, groomed racehorses, and saved for college. That summer, we followed the fair circuit from Oregon to California, working races at county fairs. It was dusty, demanding, and filled with colorful characters (some of whom had to be run off by the trainers), but it taught me grit, independence, and how to work hard for what I wanted.
It was six months into college when I turned 18. College was, to me, similar to going to a summer camp, except longer. But, although I’d never worked at a job, shortly after I turned 18, I applied for and got a job as a waitress in a drug store that had a diner. My mother was not happy with me, but I was glad to have the extra cash on hand to buy the things I felt I needed for college.
I turned 18 in 1969, a month before my high school graduation, got my first real paying summer job, saw Neil Armstrong land on the moon, and watched 400,000 people profess love and peace at Woodstock…all respective milestones to be sure. But I had more milestones ahead of me…going to college in Boston and meeting the boy who would become my husband four years later!
I turned 18 when I was away at college in Minnesota, and it was the first time I celebrated my birthday alone. I went to the movies and saw Dances with Wolves by myself. I felt very grown-up–and I had a big bucket of popcorn and a large Coke!
Shortly after I turned 18, my mom, an 18 year-old friend and I drover the Al-Can (Alaska Canada) highway from Idaho to Fairbanks, then flew to the artic to visit my dad who was working in a mining camp there. We camped the entire way. The highway was gravel at the time and loaded with pipeline trucks (yes, it was the 1970s) so we ended up with a cracked windshield and only one headlight. It was such an adventurous way to start my adult years.
My dad got transferred to West Virginia from Oklahoma when I was 17, the summer of 1974 BEFORE MY SENIOR YEAR IN HIGH SCHOOL! Well! I felt so put upon to have to pack up and leave THEN, of all times in my life! I’d gone to school there since 1st grade, after all. But, move, we did, and I graduated in May, 1975, with my 18th birthday just around the corner in July. I made all kinds of dire promises of packing up my car and leaving for Oklahoma as soon as I could do it, and I did just that, but my parents wanted me to caravan back with them for a vacation. Once there, my plans fell apart quickly–there were about 5 of us girlfriends from my Oklahoma days who planned to move in together in Oklahoma City and work and “make it on our own”…I ended up living with my sister and her family and going to college, and working. “Adulting”, yes, but not like I had planned to do!
The summer after I graduated high school, I went on a trip to Europe, much to my mother’s distress (this was not the days of cell phones and internet – I sent her a postcard every week to let her know I was alive and well). I even got to celebrate my 18th birthday in small town in Greece. Now, don’t be thinking I “went abroad to study”. This was a bare bones budget trip with other college students. We stayed in dumpy dorm rooms, ate in subpar cafeterias and dragged our duffle bags from place to place. But I had the time of my life and cherish the memories.
And now it’s your turn! Tell us what adult-like thing you did when you turned 18, and you’ll be eligible for your choice of one of our fun prizes.
Winners announced on Sunday, August 17.
Happy Birthday to us !
US Winners Only
In the small northeast Texas town of Tucker’s Gap, Hattie Brooks has fought to overcome the quiet prejudices that shadow her birth and her chosen work. As her uncle’s medical assistant, she’s found her calling—and is slowly earning a place in a community that doesn’t easily forget. But when Luke Dawson—the boy who once rode away without a word—returns after a near?fatal accident, Hattie’s hard?won peace is put to the test.