Peggy Czerkies:  

They're just not gonna let me outta here until they get a story....OK, writing is a big part of what I do, so here goes. A year after high school, and during the summer of what would have been just before our sophomore year in college, I got married. Yes, Peggy Sue got Married. I married that cute blond guy on the golf team with the nice legs. Check him out - he's the only one wearing short shorts in the team picture in our yearbook. His name is Kevin. He was pretty popular at that time as I understand he had quite a lucrative side business going. Can anyone say "McLovin"?? (the kid with the fake ID in "Superbad") He went on to become a golf course superintendent, and I worked in a customer service call center. For the last 31 years we've had to hear about what a mistake it is to get married so young. Everyone we knew laid it on pretty thick at the time. Give it up already! Still happily together after 31 years and counting, I'd say we were pretty darn successful, even if it was a teenage marriage. I guess the coolest thing about marrying your prom date is that you remain timeless. I'll always feel 18 when I'm with him, and he'll always be my crush. It's an eternally hopeless situation~ Moving on.... So, 2 years and 2 months after the wedding (for all of you who did the math at the time) we had our firstborn, Nick. After earning his degree in turf management, our son also became a golf course superintendent. He now directs his crew in maintaining the "Palm" located at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. 20 months later, another bouncing baby boy Czerkies arrived. Brad's talent turned out to be music. He's earned a recording arts degree from one of the top 5 schools in the country, and is currently pursuing a career as a recording / sound engineer. Just when we thought we'd maxed out our blessings, along came our little princess. Elisabeth is tall, thin, blond, and gorgeous, (looks NOTHING like me) and has her degree in hospitality and event planning. She'd like to plan your Disney wedding some day, but for now, she'd just be happy giving celebrity VIP tours around the Disney grounds. OK that's enough bragging on the kids - Lets start with the grand babies: Just one at this time, but he is the love of our lives. William Nicholas Czerkies is the most beautiful, intelligent, talented, and wonderful little 3 month old baby boy that was ever born. I have a right to say that. It's in the "Grandma Handbook" I did have a purpose to all this bragging though, I believe it's every parents right, and priviledge to feel great about their kids. Regardless of any aspect of my career, I will always consider my kids to be the best thing I ever did. I'm proud to say that in the last 18 months, we've added 3 to our family - our daughter in law Michele married Nick in January, 2009, our new Grandson,Will, was just born in March, 2010, and our brand new son in law, Adam joined us when he married our Betsy 2 weeks ago. It was my life's purpose to make sure our kids had it better than I did. Not that I had it too bad, but I regret not being steered toward college as I grew up. My father didn't have the finances with 5 kids, and all I had were B average grades. Lets face it, both of those things could have easily been overcome, if only I'd had the guidance. Sadly, my high school counselor, Mr. Warthen didn't think so, and he staunchly advised that I had NO chance at college, and that I should learn to type. Which was what I did - thanks to Mrs. Pease. Remember her? That lady was a trip!! : ) I had no idea about how to pursue higher education. Ask Janet Magolan about the day we went to East campus to take the SAT, or ACT or something. Well, she was going, and I went along for the ride. I didn't even know what the test was. Even if I only wanted to take the test for fun, I didn't have the fee in my pocket. So I left her there, and went down to Bozo's for a coke and a hot dog and waited for her to finish. I was truly clueless, so - I made sure my kids couldn't wait to get to college, and to complete their degrees. OK, back to me. I still have 16808 characters left. I live by two mottos: First - life is for laughing, loving, learning, and living. Second, anything worth doing is worth doing right. So, after the babies were born, it was natural that I would stay home and raise them. I didn't have a degree. 3 kids? I would have had to work 2 jobs just to pay someone else to raise them so I could work. It was nonsense. Kevin made a comfortable living for us all, and I didn't want to miss one second of time with our babies. We moved up to Lake county, IL for the next 16 years. During this time, I did the room mom thing, I coached softball and cheer leading, and was a team mom from little league through High School baseball. I earned some pocket money working here and there...Expand for more