I
grew up in Brownwood and May with five brothers and sisters; my oldest
sister Hedy and I are the only ones living now. I went through the
first three years of school at J. R. Looney School (I don't put that on
resumes), transferred to May Grade School for several years, then returned
to Brownwood -- Central Ward, East Ward, and on to Brownwood Junior High and
High School. I remember having a lot of fun in Ms. Gresham's English
class and Senorita Cole's Spanish class, but I certainly never distinguished
myself as a student. In Drivers' Ed, Coach Gus Snodgrass only let me
drive one time, even though I had passed the written test with a perfect
score. (I was always better at theory than application).
After graduation I enrolled at the University of Texas in Austin and spent
the next couple of years there and at Howard Payne before moving with my
family to Germany and Italy where my father was stationed with the Army
Audit Agency. In Munich I studied German at a branch of the University
of Maryland and resumed my drivers' training with a nervous German driving
instructor who spoke fairly fluent English but somehow always reverted to
his native tongue when I was behind the wheel, like, "Okay, slow down
now, slow down -- stop! schtop! halt! halt!"
After I returned from Germany I moved to Dallas and took a job as a research
analyst with Geotech, later Teledyne. During the twelve years I worked there
I met and married Jack and we had our daughter Heather and our son Randell.
I returned to school at NTSU to finish my work and be certified to teach.
My father died about this time. I taught math at Garland High and later also
German after the German teacher married and took french leave. It took about
seven years to get public school teaching out of my system -- bringing
home a hundred or so math and German papers to grade every night did put a
dent in my commitment.
For the next twelve years I worked as a programmer for Sprint and it was
during this time that our grandchildren were born, six in all. On a
sad note, my mother had a series of strokes and was confined in a Brownwood
nursing home. Jack and I quarreled about my frequent trips to visit
her and eventually we were divorced.
I gave my notice at Sprint and moved to Brownwood for several years. I
was briefly married to an old school friend from May. To add to my
sadness, my youngest brother Bill and my sister Judy died a year or so
apart, then finally my mother.
While I lived in Brownwood, Dr. Dan Chapman was my pastor and later also my
employer when he gave me a job teaching in the private Christian school that
he and his wife Delores run. It was wonderfully different from public
school -- there were no papers to take home to grade because all work was
completed in the classroom and there were no discipline problems because Dan
dealt with them summarily before they had a chance to start! It was like the
old one- or two-room schoolhouse where my father had taught so many years
ago.
I eventually returned to Garland and Jack and I were remarried. I did
consider going back to Sprint, but I had been so spoiled by working in a
Christian environment at the Chapmans' school that I applied instead to Zola
Levitt Ministries and have been working there for the past eight years with
no plans to retire, God willing.
As for my driving, the only problem is that I have yet to find a policeman
who will accept my explanation that I am just trying to get in sync with the
traffic lights, though that is absolutely true. I must say I have
learned that if you are going along fairly fast (to get in sync with the
lights) and you decide at the last minute to stop for a light that is
changing ahead, your brakes are inclined to lock up and your car can be
thrown around so that it sails through the intersection backwards and that
is very disconcerting, I can tell you. The over-reaction of other
drivers around you doesn't help matters at all, what with the way they raise
their voices and hurl rude insults. But that's life, you know -- there
will always be some people shouting at you and others just shaking their
heads.
We are looking very much forward to seeing old classmates in 2007, if not
before.
