Granny Square Afghan: My first "Finished Object"

All my life I have enjoyed crafting.  I taught myself how to crochet when I was about 10.  Later I taught myself to knit.
Although I experimented with crocheting doll clothes and different little items as a kid, I don't recall any finished items before my first afghan.  At that time in my life, my sister had left our home to live with my dad. My mother and I moved to a neighboring community where I began attending a new high school.  I didn't make a lot of friends and felt pretty isolated for a time.   I turned to poetry writing, journaling and crafting to fill lonely hours.
A strip mall opened within walking and bicycling distance from my home. There was a discount department store called Roses in this mall, and that's where I purchased the red and white yarn with which I made my first finished item with the help of my mother.  The yarn was a heathery rosey red with a hint of sparkle or white fibers.  The white was a buff tone with similar qualities to the red.  They were orlon acrylics made by the same manufacturer and sold together.  I purchased quite a few skeins as I did not want to be short of yarn in the midst of the project.  Eventually the store shuttered, so I felt fortunate to have obtained all the yarn I needed to make a good sized afghan.
The  afghan consists of simple granny squares I learned to make from a little booklet you buy in a yarn department. I would make several rounds in one of the colors and then make a few rounds with the contrasting color.  I taught my mom to make the squares too, and together we filled a laundry basket with the squares.  Neither of us had ever made an afghan nor had we ever connected squares.  Those finished pieces languished for a year or two.  Then I went to college and experienced being broke when it was time to purchase Christmas presents.  I decided to put the squares together and make a border to give my mom the finished object for Christmas.  I connected them all together using a crochet hook technique I envisioned a long time before trying it.  I did not use a pattern design to make this afghan:  I learned to make classic granny squares, attached them the best I could, then made a border with what was left of the yarn.  I will make a photo of this FO as it is even to this day on display in Mom's living room.  It has held up surprisingly well!  It was my stepfather's favorite throw.  He a frequently remarked that something full of holes was so warm.  This project was begun in 1975, languished for a few years, and was finished in the fall of 1976.