early growing up

I was never a kid of the streets (well sort of not, and certainly not in any conventional sense). . . I did grow up, but not in a city; I grew up in the country and a couple of small towns, Windthorst and Archer City, Texas. We had some moments, but we missed the expresses, buses, and trains whispering and whistling by on toward somewhere important and of meanings beyond our comprehension. We barely knew our surroundings, but they were grand enough, and we did not fully grant additional grandeur to other places. They were just mostly over there.