Nostalgia Rock: How We Got Here from There

Today you can read the thrilling account of Barb’s Bio and my fascination with nostalgia rock! Yay! Pssh, not really, it may be fairly skippable, but think about this — on the highway of life, every little side road and detour you take will bring you exactly to where you are now. Deep, huh?

Growing up in southwestern Iowa, I thought I had my life all figured out. Didn’t you, too? Back then, what I really wanted to be was a cowgirl. I wore out two bouncy rocking horses and my favorite Christmas gift at age 5 was my double holster set of 6-shooters. Thought I was Dale Evans. Pictured here is Sunny, my best friend who taught me everything he knew. <3

The Magic Bus

After school in junior high, my Dad (a GP) paid me to do filing in his office. In high school, I was typist for a pathologist (laughing at his jokes while transcribing autopsy reports). At college my job was pizza maker and wait staff. There my life’s love and I met, and we married in my senior year.

Three months later he enlisted in the Army (rather than be drafted) and went off to basic at Ft Polk, LA. In the fall of that year, he was at AIT in Ft Leonard Wood, MO. On the weekends, I’d drive down from the southwest corner of Iowa to see him. A couple of times he got off post in the trunk of our car. Then on Sunday night I’d drive back to be a substitute teacher during the week. Thank you, Jesus, for a good radio in that car to keep me awake on those trips!

My young warrior got pneumonia just before his reporting date to go off to The Nam, so his departure was delayed a few months. But he went. While I substituted in area high schools, he was away in the jungle. When he came back a year later, the road of life was suddenly a construction zone. I think a lot of you know what I mean. That’s all I’ll say about that, except to note that it took him 40 years to get over it. If you ever do actually get over it.

Life Is A Highway

Fast forwarding the TEAC double reel tape deck, I’ve been a clerk/typist for an ordnance battalion, learned on my own how to run a phototypesetter and opened my own graphic design/PR business. My freelance writing career was just beginning to grow when 9/11/2001 happened and everything came to a sudden halt. Our younger son, already a landscaper himself, encouraged me and his older brother to launch our own scaping business. Grass and weeds will grow, regardless, right?

For almost 17 years I enjoyed taking care of people’s yards. Then one night, lying in bed and minding my own business, I was ambushed by The Great Sciatic Nerve Massacree (in 4 part harmony). You must know, that ended my scaping gig.

So, what to do? Going back to my roots (yeah, pun intended), it seemed good to do freelance writing again. For a few years I also worked for family in their successful and very cool website design business (AutumnLanePaperie.com). I’ve been Premade Logo Queen, and Info Babe, and SEO Geek. Now I have my own gig, Barbara Williams SEO — doing SEO and writing killer content for small businesses. And I love it!

It’s always a good idea to have a backup plan, so we created this site mainly for y’all. Take some time to check out the store, buy a shirt, leave a comment, or suggest an idea for a new design, and get to know us. We’ve had to reinvent ourselves many times, and we’re sure you have, too. But we’re all still the same kids, right? If you’ve gone to a recent high school class reunion, you know that’s true!

Still Rockin’!