The following are my answers to a series of 52 questions prompted by StoryWorth, Inc. The questions and answers were organized into a digital format in the order that they were received and are presented here. StoryWorth, Inc. provides a platform that enables family members to share stories and preserves them for family members and future generations. Storyworth sends each participant in its program a weekly email with a question about his or her life; allows the user to reply to each question or develop one of their choice; and then saves each answer in a collection of replies. This platform provides an easy way to record family stories, thus preserving family histories. © William J. Krause. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Table of Contents: 1. What were your favorite toys as a child? 1-2 2. What were your favorite books as a child? 3-4 3. Where did you go on vacations as a child? 5-7 4. What was your @irst big trip? 8-26 5. What was your @irst boss/mentor like? 27-29 6. What were your grandparents like? 30-38 7. Are your still friends with any of your classmates from grade school? 38-42 8. Did you participate in extracurricular activities at school? 43-47 9. Did you participate in scouting? 48-52 10. What was your mother like? 52-59 11. What was your father like? 60-65 12. What differences have you witnessed with regard to immigration? 66 13. What was one of your most memorable adventures? 66-71 14. What jobs did you have during high school? 71-74 15. What was your @irst year of college like? 75-82 16. Did you pull any all-nighters in college? 82-83 17. What jobs did you have in college? 83-85 18. What was your least favorite subject in college? 86 19. When did you purchase your @irst new car? 87-88 20. Do you have a favorite poem? What is it? 88 21. What chore did you dislike growing up? 89-90 22. What was one of your greatest disappointments growing up? 90-91 23. What event would you change that in@luenced your career? 92-93 24. Have you experienced severe storms? 94-95 25. Did you have a pet growing up? 96-98 26. Did you ever have a fair or carnival come to town when you were a child? 99 27. How did you get to school as a child? 99 28. What was your most important accomplishment? 100-103 29. What was you wedding like? 104 -107 30. How did you meet your wife? 107-110 31. What is one of your favorite summertime meals? 111 32. What would you consider your motto? 111 33. Movies you never get tired of watching. 111 34. How far back can you trace your family ancestry? 112-119 35. What is your favorite animal, and why? 120 36. What is one of the worst trips you have taken? What went wrong? 120-121 37. What is the farthest you have ever traveled? 122-127 38. How is life different today compared to when you were a child? 127-128 39. What awards have you received? 128-131 40. When did you retire? Why? 132-135 41. Did you ever have a surprise birthday party? 136 42. What was your favorite April Fool’s joke? 137 43. Do you have any keepsakes or heirlooms from your father? 137-138 44. Have you ever won anything? 138 45. What are your most treasured photographs? 139-140 46. What was a book that really made a difference for you as an adult? 141 47. What is your best advise when it comes to work? 141 48. What are some of your go-to family stories, ones you like telling over and over? 141-146 49. Did your children have pets? 147-148 50. What is one of the best shows you have ever been to? 149 51. What hobbies did you enjoy as an adult? 149-153 52. What was the longest project you worked on? 154-155 What were your favorite toys as a child? 1 The first “toy” I ever had that springs to mind, was a pedal car my dad [Johnny Krause] made for me in celebration of my fourth birthday. At that time, 1946, our family lived in Napa, California. Dad was a master machinist and welder. He crafted the pedal vehicle from scrap metal in his spare time when he worked at Mare Island, California, during World War II. I enjoyed toys that demanded some type of physical activity - such as scooters initially, and as I grew older, bicycles of various types. Soon after moving to Fort Peck, Montana, my parents bought me my first bicycle, a Schwinn. It had one gear. This bike gave me an extraordinary amount of freedom and I could and did travel for miles along the Missouri River road and across the Fort Peck Dam next to Fort Peck Lake. I ran errands and rode with my friends as we traveled the Fort Peck community just having fun riding around and talking. We liked to bike along “Big Shot Row,” around the Fort Peck Hotel and Administration Building, and downtown near the Fort Peck Theater. If I had any money, I would usually stop in at the drug store and get a candy bar. My favorite was the Pay Day candy bar because of its large size and it was covered with peanuts. It cost five cents. On longer rides, we biked to Wheeler, a small shantytown to the northwest on highway 24, and looked at the old Buckhorn Club that had such a bad reputation. To jazz up our bikes my friends and I attached playing cards to the bike frame held in place by close pins. The cards were oriented in such a way that the spokes of the bicycle wheel hit them as the wheel turned creating noise. We thought our bicycles sounded like motorcycles when we got up to speed. Everyone had their bikes equipped with playing cards. Our parents discouraged us from biking to Wheeler but we just had to go a few times and see what all the fuss was about. On other long excursions we would take another road to Nashua, Montana, but rarely got that far. On occasion we would have races to the Fort Peck Park located down by the Missouri River beneath the dam by taking a very steep long river road, particularly if a new kid arrived in town. We had to test him out. I had one major accident on my Schwinn. My friends and I were riding behind Big Shot Row when this happened. This particular road was paved and laid out in the shape of an oval with another road joining it at the opposite end. As we were riding down the adjoining road to race around the oval, I started showing off for my friends. “Look! No hands,” I yelled, as we sped along the road. Then I went one better, “I will ride with no hands with my eyes closed and looking backwards so all can see.” What I didn’t see [why, I cannot explain as I have 20/20 vision] was a large grader or road maintainer, a piece of heavy equipment used to level or smooth roads, parked at the beginning of the oval. At full speed I ran right into the two back wheels, knocking myself unconscious, and bending the front wheel of my bike. My friends had a good laugh after I came too, examined my bike, and then helped me home to face disciplinary action from my parents for ruining my bicycle. When I lived in Fort Peck, during the summer, my friends and I also spent a few afternoons at the swimming pool. It was a complete pool with two springboards of different heights and a stationary high diving platform. At this point in my life I don’t know if I really knew how to swim or not, but could navigate the pool with ease. My friends and I would bike to the pool after lunch, spend part of the afternoon to cool off and then bike home or be off on some other adventure. For whatever reason, we never swam in the river or the lake even though these were very clean, clear waters. Perhaps it was to cold or our parents discouraged it in fear that we would drown. I truly enjoyed the freedom of being able to get from one location to another quickly, riding with friends, and just having the exhilarating feeling of wind in my face as we sped down hills and around winding curves. At this time, when I was about ten years of age, playing marbles was the rage. Other than playing baseball during the summer, playing marbles was a major pastime, one that required gamesmanship. We played three marble games. PITS. In this version of marbles, a small deep pit was dug into the ground and everyone who agreed to play put a marble into the pit. A distance from the pit was decided and a line drawn. Each player would stand behind this line and throw another marble and try to get it into the pit. If successful one could claim all the marbles in the pit. 2 If two players were successful, a playoff was held to determine who got all the marbles.