Here, There and Everywhere

About the Book

Passage from one of my stories. The train had just entered the last and longest tunnel. We were allready late for our arrival in the town of El Fuerte. Suddenly all hell erupted---the train stopped---the engines stopped! Gunshots resounded from the car in front! Terrified passengers came running through our car, trying to escape. from what? What was happening? My companion and I dropped to the floor. I started praying, ‘The light of God surrounds us, the love of God enfolds us, the power of God protects us, and the presence of God watches over us. Wherever we are God is’

About the Author

Started in 1981 ‘ Is it enough at my age?’ My life is diversified and busy, but am I accomplishing what I want? In the last fifty years, I’ve given birth and had the privilege of helping three girls to maturity. I was a church soloist for twenty years and practiced singing every day at home and with an accompanist once a week. When my middle daughter Susan was six years old I formed a Campfire-Girls group of ten neighborhood children and was their leader for five years. I taught the singing at Campfire Day camp for four summers. I was known as ‘Sing-a-ling the ‘Singing lady.’ My mother took me to Europe in 1962 for six weeks. When I returned I began Italian lessons from a wonderful elderly Italian gentleman. The lessons lasted for four months. I have also taken Italian from Diablo Valley College in the Acalanes Adult Education Department. I studied jazz piano and real estate in Berkeley and was very happy to find I passed the test in San Francisco and received my license. My Dad had been in the business for forty years and my husband Ed went to work for him. The real estate business was not for me. A friend of mine in the Unity church asked me to be a partner in a needle craft business which I knew nothing about. She thought I could design for the company because I had taken lessons in oil painting but each is different from the other. This adventure was to cost me nothing but after two year the business folded, she walked out and I was left with all the bills. I considered this a lesson from God. I went again to Europe in 1977. This time I took my three daughters. After we returned from our six weeks journey; I started teaching singing and took a part-time job selling women’s clothing at a specialty shop in the mall. Travel interested me so I took a series of travel courses from the adult education department and sang with the Contra Costa Chorus for several months and also sang with them at the Orinda theater. After I fell and broke my pelvic bone I couldn’t do anything for several months. In 1980 I traveled to England to visit my daughter Sarah who was a flight attendant with Pan American Airways, stationed at Heathrow near the airport of the same name. I have always enjoyed singing and have tried out for many musicals. I have performed in three or four and have had some good parts. I auditioned for the San Francisco Opera Chorus and didn’t make it but it was something I wouldn’t have missed. I attended Diablo Valley College for three semesters, taking Music Theory, French, English, drama, piano, singing and Creative writing. I have lived in Berkeley, Kensington, Orinda, Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill and in Concord. Just before we moved from Walnut Creek I visited my daughter Sarah in New York and we took a trip to Hong Kong. Next I planned a trip with my church to India to see the Taj Mahal. I attended school Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9:00am to 12:00 at Diablo Valley college in Concord, Ca. Tuesday I took Creative writing from 9:30 until noon. Monday night I took a travel course in Oakland from Vista College. I picked up and delivered my daughter Susan in high school, and took her to dancing and piano lessons. I study, write, practice the piano, clean house, fix meals and work part time arranging rips, but I don’t spend enough time at it. My youngest daughter Sydney and I took Tahitian dancing lessons. I performed in Diablo Valley’s production of ‘Damn Yankees.’ I would say I’m busy. I’ve thought about cutting out some of my programs but can’t seem to find any I want to eliminate. There are many more courses I would like to take, it’s just like when I look at a dinner menu. I want to try everything. If I lived to be two hundred I could never be bored. Maybe I answered my own question. Am I accomplishing what I want? As I’ve written another book entitled I didn’t Miss Much, I’m still “at it.” After my husband retired we moved to Arizona and I was in the Mrs. Senior Arizona Pageant. I took Surprise Unity members to Peru, Oaxaca and Italy. I arranged and took my husband Ed to Europe two times. I began rewriting my memoirs and rewriting and having them edited by my good friend and writer Mary Peirano. Now that I am ninety, I have published one memoir and working on the one you are reading now. while still practicing piano and working to sell my book.