After graduating from Analy, I attended the SRJC but quit after one year, since I felt I needed money and had no definite post college plans. (I didn't know what I wanted to be.) I went to work at State Farm Insurance, and worked there until classmate Dave Bigelow and I were married, in April of 1970.
Dave was in flight training in San Antonio, so that is where we lived for about 10 months - the most stable aspect of the entire military experience, from my point of view. After that was a year in Thailand for Dave, where I could not go. The return was not much better, with perpetual TDY's and a lot of stress. Dave “separated from the Air Force” (I love that expression) in 1973, and we moved back to Sebastopol.
By this time our son Daniel had been born and was about 3 months old, when we settled in Sebastopol. We eventually bought a house in Santa Rosa, where we lived for about 5 years and where our son Jeremy was born, in 1977. Then we moved back to Sebastopol, and into a house that Dave and his father built, on 2 acres of land, which would be worth a fortune now!
As our differing opinions and unresolved issues festered, we eventually found ourselves at a point of no return. Dave and I divorced in 1990, which was very hard on our sons. I found it quite difficult, starting over in my 40's. I returned to school for a year and got my “halfway there” degree, or AA.
After school, I worked at a series of forgettable jobs, except for one. The best job I ever had was the job that introduced me to my future husband. That was in 1996. He moved on to what was then still Hewlett-Packard (now Agilent), and I moved on to another forgettable job. But we kept in touch, became “an item” in 1997, and were married in September of 2000.
Mike and I had our honeymoon first, I guess you might say, when HP sent him to Scotland for a month. Of course I went with him. Even though he had to work every weekday, we had a great time and did as much sight seeing as we could. After that assignment ended, we spent another week in England, viewing various sites in London, Bath, York, and visiting Stone Henge. It was a great trip. That was from March to April, of 2000.
After living in Santa Rosa for 13 years, the area in general, and our neighborhood in particular, finally drove us out in 2005. We wearied of the traffic, gangs, and big city noise and problems. In our neighborhood, we were fed up with the anchor baby house, the “working girls” on Santa Rosa Avenue, the “questionable characters” that hung out around our neighborhood, the halfway house next door, and the house that appeared to be inhabited by drug dealers. It was horrible.
So now we live in Lake County and the slower pace is wonderful. It really is like going back in time, although there are still lots of druggies and others around, who appear to be dependent upon the government. But regular people are moving up here, too. We have very nice neighbors, who are nearest to us. And we now live on an acre and a half, instead of a city lot. So no one is really close.
My hobbies have been knitting and crocheting, sewing, various pets, reading (Ann Rule and political books), trap shooting with my husband, archery and reminding politicians via e-mail that a lot of us are watching them. Or at least trying to get this message across to them.
I became more politically aware during the election fiasco of 2000. I couldn't believe what I heard some of these political buffoons saying - like they really think we are all stupid out here! And thereafter, my husband and I felt compelled to watch the political shows, the main one being “Hardball” with Chris Matthews, since we did not yet receive FOX News. Finally, FOX News was ours, sometime in early 2001, and it was just so wonderful to hear our beliefs verbalized for a change. And now Glenn Beck is on the air! It's getting better all the time.
Once we became politically aware, there was no going back. Seeing how much surveillance these “representatives” of ours need, how can we let go now? I still don't like politics but I see the need to pay attention. And I now spend a great deal of my time sending e-mails to such folks as Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, President Bush, and a few local officials, as well. I am encouraged when I hear that they have been bombarded by us, the “little people”. I hope it makes it harder for them to pretend that they are really doing what WE want. I HOPE so but I'm not convinced that this is so, quite yet.
Children, wives, and grandchildren are as follows:
Son Daniel (32), wife Angel, son Joshua (3 1/2) and son Jonathan (10 mos.)
Son Jeremy (28), wife Jessica, son Zaebriel (5 1/2, Jeremy's son from a previous relationship), and daughter Zoë (2 1/2)
I love living up here in the sticks and I am currently enjoying the happiest time of my life.
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