Favorite SMHS Memory

Finally, after three years of trying out, being chosen to be on the drill team.

My Life Since SMHS Graduation

Graduated from the University of Redlands, my parents’ alma mater.

Went for a totally different scene next: San Francisco State for my teaching credential. Tried to be a hippie, but my frizzy hair just wouldn’t go straight.

Taught in San Jose and Cupertino until I got married and moved to South Carolina. Unbelievable culture shock. ‘They’ thought my momma and daddy must have disowned me; why else would I not be living in their front yard in a trailer?

Moved back to Northern California. No teaching jobs available. After a year at a private school moved to the South again, this time to North Carolina where, in my daily drive to school through the rural country, I might see a farmer on a stool milking his cow, deer or chickens running in the road, or the “colored entrance” sign that had been white-washed out but could still be seen on an abandoned brick building. But I loved the area, the people, the weather. It’s like the South is in my DNA.

Moved back to California after six years and a divorce. Taught second grade at Valentine for 27 years. My students included the two Ames boys.

Retired in 2007, after 39 years of teaching, and moved to a Sun City retirement community in South Carolina, just over the border from Charlotte, NC.

Volunteer at an elementary school and also tutor a 69 year old man, a half-sharecropper from NC, who never went to school. Enjoy gardening and spearheading projects which raised money to landscape our county library. Visit museums and attend plays, exercise, participate in monthly groups for gourmet dinners, games, book club,and cards.

Have experienced in SC, dirt track racing; boiled peanuts; a rodeo in a farmer’s field; eating black-eyed peas and collard greens for New Year’s; blue grass festivals; one store that sells jewelry, purses, and guns; voting to pass the sale of alcohol on Sundays (restaurants only); a trash service named “God Bless the USA;” no town post office; living with neighbors from all over the US; AND natives who look you in the eye, say “hey,” and smile.