Where did you grow up?

I grew up in a town of 40,000 people on the Mississippi River.  Seven people lived in our little 3 bedroom house with brown linoleum tile floors and a single bathroom.  In spring you could smell the lilac bush through the cracked single-pane window in the living room.  In winter, you could lick the ice that formed on the inside of the same window.

In the backyard were 2 sycamore trees and a cottonwood that my sister and I and one of my brothers uprooted as seedlings from a rock quarry outside of town.  Still today, I love big messy trees that drop things.  And I love the scent of lilac.