Received June 7, 2010
Semi – retired from counseling/yoga/meditation classes and clients
Son – David - 40 years old and does video production with Cisco. He loves being a family man
and dad to his two children and his passions are ultra runs and a few years back, he did the Iron Man Triathlon in Madison.
Grandchildren – Lauryn -9 and Jake -5
Parents- Deceased
Sisters- Pauline, Barbara, Susan, and Deborah all well and living/working in various states.
In 1965 I graduated from college and married a man from Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. We moved to Palo Alto, CA. for his graduate work and my first teaching experience. In Palo Alto we lived down the street from Ann and Gene Armstrong and we spent some good time together while experiencing the freshness of career and marriage.
After John’s graduation, he accepted a job in New York City, and I found another teaching position on Long Island where we lived for a few more years. During this time we had a son, David, who is now 40 and married with two children.
While living in New York, we longed to be in California, so we headed back. I decided to go back to school to receive my Masters Degree in Counseling and a few years later, John and I divorced and continued to raise our son together. I began counseling in the Community College System in California and teaching yoga at various colleges and universities in the bay area. I incorporated the yoga philosophy of living/meditation with my counseling and started doing private work. I have been doing this kind of work for the past 35 years.
As I reflect back on memories of WHS, I think of fun, fun, and more fun! Unfortunately, I didn’t capitalize on the intellectual wonders that were available to us at WHS but the experience did mold my life values and whet my appetite for later on in life when intellectual curiosity took more of a front seat. Some of the moments I do remember about high school classes and academics are like snap shots in time such as; watching a calf being born in one of the glassed in labs while walking across campus to field hockey for P.E, sitting next to Pete Wolf in Geometry in hopes of getting help from him, for some reason I remember Mr. Mock in Algebra standing at the blackboard trying to help me understand something algebraic, and Mr. Gale who worked hard for me as my academic advisor. Bless them for their efforts!
Having said all that, I don’t want to discount the great fun I had in the halls laughing and chatting with friends, all the dances in the 2nd floor gym, Rennebohm’s for cokes and grilled Danish, Marty’s where the wild ones went for their morning ciggy and ‘bonding’, and later on to the Badger Tavern where age fraud was at an all time high. And, I hold dear the memories of all the times outside of the halls of daily life at WHS such as; sunny summer days water skiing and playing on Lake Mendota, sledding down Blackhawk Hill in the winter, hot chocolate after learning how to ski (maybe that was 8th grade at Highlands), riding in convertibles, sneaking back out after coming home within curfew time, Al Felt throwing rocks at my bedroom window late at night with my Dad at my window before I could get there, spending hours on the phone with the same high school friends I just spent the day with…… on and on it goes. It was all great fun and I wouldn’t have missed a minute of it!
Presently, I live in Alameda, California a few miles from my son and his family and am able to spend good time with the family. I do some counseling/yoga/meditation work, sing in the church choir, have done volunteer work teaching meditation to inmates at the prison, go to dance and various music performances, love cooking again, work in my potted garden (veggies and flowers), laugh as much as possible, still love to travel, take some fun classes, enjoy good friends, and live a fairly quiet and peaceful life.