This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we return to our American stories.

Up next, we'll hear from Donna Martin.

She'll be telling us about her first time leaving Mississippi at age 19 for a summer

job in Yosemite, California, where she thought she was headed to become a famous movie star.

But life had other and better plans for her.

Let's take a listen.

Music But life had other and better plans for her. Let's take a listen. I grew up in Forest, Mississippi, and I lived on the same street as a major chicken plant.

So depending on what time of day it was,

there may be a really horrible smell.

So that was kind of interesting.

I also lived at the bottom of that street.

So if I was ever outside in the front yard or whatever,

there was a stop sign right there.

So people would just like always be looking

at you. I just remember always being like, I'm never going to live at the end of a street when I

grow up and have my own house because it felt like not very much privacy. The whole time I was

living at home, it was great, but I just knew when I got in high school that I was going to leave Mississippi at some point,

probably never go back. I knew pretty young that I wanted to be a movie star. I would like always

think about like how I was going to get to Hollywood, how I was going to be famous. It was kind of a thing,

like everybody did that about me.

And so my really good friend was at a university, and she called me one, like, I don't know, spring, I think.

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