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My first road started in the Queens
of Angels Hospital in the City of Angels, otherwise
known as Los Angeles. Until the age of six, I was a non-tax paying resident of
Culver City, California.
I remember wonderful things about where I first
grew up, including my first dog, Ruffles, and my first
kitten, Snowball. Snowball
saw an early demise due to the shocking actions of a
young boy; and Ruffles became nick-named Bobo…and it
was she who saw me into my later adolescence.
In my entire lifetime, I may have been without an
animal in my life for perhaps a total sum of
some three years. So, there’s one round peg in one round hole.
I am an animal lover.
Even as early as 1957 or so, health
reasons determined that my mother and father should see
cleaner air, so we moved north to the little town of
Nipomo. I
believe I remember Dad saying it was about 300 in
population. Coming
from a place the size [even then] of Los Angeles, what I
remember most was the smell of rich dirt…and the sound
of quiet air.
I could put a lot of my childhood
in here, but one generally lives their childhood
selfishly, and haven’t quite taken the proper time to
look outside of themselves to know in advance what they
want to do with their later years.
I did know one thing, however, at the age of
seven. I
wanted to write. I
also knew I needed to grow up before I pursued that
love. So I
put the serious thought of doing so behind me, yet was
called upon, in my teenage years, to show examples of
writing in all sorts of ways.
I remember one particular science paper.
It had to do with explaining how something had
come about, through “invention”.
I wrote how papyrus came into being
a type of paper.
How berries and bark had become
inks.
How wood became pulp to become
another media for taking up berry or bark ink.
I should have realized what I had
failed to see, way back then.
However, hindsight is a wonderful thing.
It gives us the stuff upon which we draw forth
some inner knowledge, so we can once again find our own
dream down some lonesome road.
Other pathways came into my life. I married [some say, far too early] and gave up one dream for
what I thought was every woman’s dream.
I have learned a lot since then.
But I was blessed with two wonderful daughters,
and a mistake of my own.
I married for the wrong reasons, or at least,
that is how I will lay fault.
The Internet is in too many hands to not take
responsibility for one’s actions. So I won’t lay
blame at anyone’s feet but my own. Life does that to
us – it teaches us how to be more accepting of the
fact that WE are to blame for our own actions.
And inactions.
And reactions.
In another bio, I may sometime
delve a bit harder, a bit longer, into all that made me.
For now, we will skip ahead.
In 1980 I met and married my second
husband. I
truly had not planned on remarrying, ever.
But there is always something about a challenge
that takes some people up, and indeed, my husband has
been a challenge – and at times, a wonderful God-send. He might even say the same thing about me.
But that was it, in a nutshell. He pushed me beyond myself, and at times, I felt very much
like Eliza Doolittle.
Professor Higgins was forever pushing Eliza to
better herself. And
when she did, he stepped back, confounded that he had
helped identify such a creature as one who might talk
back, and take things into her own hands.
My husband helped me do this. Oh, it has not been
easy for either of us. You see, we are both determinedly stubborn in our own ways.
But I could not tell this bit of myself, without
including him.
To back track a bit, a lot of the
hopes I had for myself, to share in ultimate ways
through speech, through writing, through heart…always
seemed in some way, shape or form, to become targets at
which others delighted at throwing stones.
In my earliest days, I imagined that it was
because we were not from the right side of the tracks,
perhaps. Or
because my parents’ income was not enough to measure
up for where we lived. Or maybe it was just my own
insecurity at being a skinny, shy child.
Never mind, I would tell
myself. Someday
I will realize my dreams. However,
even that hope was almost dashed, at times, when told by
a loving grandparent that she feared I would never see
the age of 21 – because, according to her, I was
“too good” and “only the good die young.”
That was the seed that was planted
in me by about the time I was, what, nine? maybe.
It seemed to me I had to find a way to become bad.
Except, that didn’t happen too much.
My mother, who was very much a, “do as I say,
and not as I do” person, proved herself to be terribly
confusing to me.
“Don’t smoke,” as she lit up.
“Don’t cuss,” as she swore
[sometimes under her breath, other times not so quietly]
about something that went wrong.
The ultimate?
“Just remember, I will always
know everything you do.
There are many birds out there….”
Oh gads.
I became a bird watcher.
A very good friend once likened me
to Peggy Sue, from the movie “Peggy Sue Got Married”
starring Kathleen Turner.
She also likened me to a wanna-be Francis Farmer.
I had to admit to her, I thought she might be
right. Dual
personalities. One
wanting to overcome, well, maybe a bit, the other.
And vice versa.
Finding that fine line that some women can walk.
I digress.
Most autobiographies do, I imagine.
Back to the hopes.
In the sixth grade, in what was
then called Speech Class, [now called Forensics], I
tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to get over my stuttering.
My mother thought I would benefit from this
class. What
I benefited from was the teacher who chided me in front
of all of the others that I would never fit into his
class, that I would never talk in front of strangers,
because I did not have the personal qualifications it
took to stand up before others and speak without
stuttering.
Fast forward to 1980.
My second husband and I had met in January,
married in June [I gained a daughter, he gained two
daughters] and moved to Battle Creek, Michigan from
Illinois by mid-August, due to his promotion.
Promotions are wonderful if only one is working.
When two are in the work force, promotions for
one can be wrenching to the mate in one’s life. They don’t have to reinforce their resumé.
Considering the time of the decade,
coming into jobs was not easy.
But there was a job with a local business
college. They
were looking for a person to recruit students.
I did not believe I had the qualifications,
seeing as how I only had one year of college. “Go for
it,” husband said.
I went for it, half-heartedly. I
figured I could sit behind a table and push forward
brochures and talk about a college.
It was after I was hired by the
president of the business college that I learned that
the schools in Michigan had adopted a new procedure.
They did not want college recruiters to sit
behind a desk and push pamphlets. No. They wanted
the recruiters to give presentations.
Thoughts of sixth grade Speech Class flooded my
brain. The face of the teacher who told me I would never
be able to talk to more than two people at a time
flooded my emotions. I had a challenge in front of me,
just in order to keep the job.
I learned how to talk to a
classroom full of students. As I didn’t have a full
college background, I taught by example:
“You don’t want to be a college
recruiter…” was the gist of my presentation. It was
when one school decided to put ALL of their junior
students into the auditorium and I had one presentation
at one fell swoop that really brought my adrenalin to an
all time high.
Yet, I was capable, and found
myself to even be able to handle the hecklers. Was I
nervous? Yes. Did I follow through to the best of my
ability? Yes. I even told myself that if I could get through all of that,
in countermanding the edict of a former educational
instructor who had told me I would NEVER be able to talk
to more than two people at a time, than I could,
perhaps, handle any challenge.
Challenges are peculiar things. The ones that we give ourselves seem to always be the highest
hurdle we will ever encounter. It is not always what one
gives us as a dare, no.
The biggest challenges are the walls we put up
ourselves, that we must overcome.
Such as it is, then, in the short
time I have inhabited this earth, I have learned that
there are always going to be people who put up their own
challenges, and find some pleasure in being able to
conquer them in their own time.
Some never do.
Some who do, and find nothing else to challenge
their lives…well, I personally feel sorry for them.
I intend to learn something new every day, and
find something to fight for, or at least, believe that
it will be a personal gain, insomuch as to know that
each new day in my life will be worth getting up for.
In that, this autobiography is
complete.
Because I still have pages and
pages to write.
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