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How to sum up 75 years of active living? Who am I? Who have I been? I guess overall I have been a traveler, teacher, and writer.Women couldn’t get writing positions in the 1950’s, but I did work at an advertising agency and an institute magazine in NYC until I decided to go abroad “as an editor” (how naďve!) and applied to The Presbyterian Church who said “You’ve got a B.A. in English Literature, you ought to be able to teach it.”
So, in 1960, off I went to Cairo, Egypt, without even one education course, to teach 11th and 12th grade Egyptian girls for 2 ˝ years. I taught English, Creative Writing and Remedial Reading off and on for the next 45 years, ending my career at ShastaCollege.I published the first of many student literary magazines in Cairo, The Scareb, and put my lastpublication, ShastaCollege’s Excalibur on the college website. (www.shastacollege.edu A-Z Index, the letter L, Literary Magazine)
My first husband took me around the world for 14 months, cementing my love of travel. We separated in 1966. (There was no divorce in NY in those days; eventually I went to Mexico for a divorce.)
I went back into publishing as a copy editor for Holt, Rinehart and Winston, but after completing a credential and Masters in Teaching at NYU, I was hired full time for one semester as an NYU adjunct instructor in education! That was probably the most challenging semester of teaching I ever faced. Then the South Bronx junior high school where I had done my student teaching offered me the position of teacher-in-charge of a brand new remedial reading program. NYU continued to hire me part time for 6 semesters, until I headed west to California in 1971 (with my two Siberian Huskies in the back seat of my Karmann Ghia convertible,) saying I was not going to return, though I still had a NYC apartment and two jobs!
There were no positions available in the Bay Area in July so I accepted one at Anderson High School, thinking I would try again for San Francisco, near my parents and brother, the next year; but the longer I lived in Redding with mountains on three sides, the more I loved Northern California where I had bought a house, had 2 cats, 2 dogs and a foster son.
My second husband, Stuart Keith, was both a world class birder (Number 1 in the world in the late 70’s, in The Guinness Book of Records) and a self-educated ornithologist (having been awarded an M.A. in Classics at Oxford). He was a research associate at The American Museum of Natural History in NYC from the middle 50’s to the end of his life. He and his friends started The American Birding Assn. in 1969 and he was its first president and received its highest honor at the 30th year celebration in 1999. And he spent the last 20 years of his life working as a writer and editor of a 7 volume encyclopedia of The Birds of Africa. Volume VII was published after his death (though he had completed his writing for it) and dedicated to him.
We traveled together to more places than I can name: Norway, New Zealand, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Namibia, Ghana, Morocco, China, Costa Rica, Columbia, Brazil – all in search of elusive birds that he had not seen before. He wanted to die somewhere in a rain forest after seeing a “life bird,” and he got his wish, on the island of Chuuk, Micronesia, in February 2003 after seeing the Caroline Islands Ground Dove.
He had brought me back to NYC when we married and I worked in two more schools in the South Bronx plus a school for drop-outs in Manhattan, and four high schools in New Jersey. It took me 14 years to get us back to Redding in 1991 where we lived on a hillside with ten acres and our dogs.I’m so glad he brought me back here where the mountains are inspiring and the people friendlier than anywhere else.
In Redding I tried working in Real Estate, didn’t like it, and went back into teaching part time at ShastaCollege for nine years, teaching Freshman English, Creative Writing, and Literary Magazine Production. I’ve been active in the Pilgrim Congregational Church as Moderator, chairperson of Deacons and Pastoral Relations and currently Co-Coordinator of Congregational Care. I’ve joined the Symphony League because I am very proud of our wonderful North State Symphony. I was president of the Writers Forum and have published a few stories and poems, but nothing substantial.Teaching writing doesn’t always foster doing the writing.
I enjoy having four Bichon Frise dogs: Buffy, MacDuff, Honeybun and Rascal. They are my family now that I live alone on our hillside, seven miles north of Redding. In my lifetime I have had to reinvent myself several times, as I’m sure we have all had to do. |
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