Have you ever read the article “All I ever needed to know, I learned in Kindergarten?” Well, it’s true. Kindergarten is where I spent all but three of my twenty five years of teaching, and I learned a lot from five-year-olds. I also had a lot of fun.

After leaving RoyHart, I went to college at SUNY Albany with Dan and Nancy. We soon discovered that Albany gets even more snow than Western New York. That is where I met my husband John, and he and I moved to his part of New York, Long Island, which he told me was sunny and tropical. It is, sometimes. He went to work as a math teacher and later a junior high principal, and we had two children, Mark and Melissa. When they went to school, I went back and finished, graduating from Dowling College and then SUNY Stony Brook for my masters. I taught for twenty five years and just retired last June. I’m still getting used to it, but it isn’t too hard to do.

Mark, who always wanted more pets, is a veterinarian in Connecticut, married to Kerry, with a son Zachary, who is three and a half and a new baby Zoey who was born in July. Melissa, who got her degree in business, is a bank manager, (she always liked money!) and is married to Bryan. They have a son Alexander, who is three. They live north of Albany, even though I told them about the snow! Spending time with all of them is something we love to do.

John has retired too and we are looking forward to doing whatever we want! We live in Bellport, about 50 miles east of New York City, on the south shore of Long Island. It has a great beach, a golf course, and good neighbors. We’ve been here 35 of our 37 married years. The garden is finally getting to look good!

Sometimes it has felt like I never left Gasport – I visited my parents and my brothers often. Jan and I visit back and forth too. Having the chance to get together with the “reunion committee” the last 2 years has been great. We really graduated with the nicest people. Hope to see many of you in July.

2015 Update:   I've been retired from teaching for 11 years now and still can't believe it. So fortunate. I miss the kids, the people I worked with, but feel bad for young teachers subject to Common Core and ego-driven politicians.

We've had some changes in our family. All our grandchildren are older of course, ranging from seven to fourteen. Some are taller than me and the voices are changing daily. We have one more grandson, Cameron, who is Melissa's son, and he is seven now. He is my last cuddler. He promised to always be.

Our son Mark became divorced, and then he found HIS Melissa. Sadly, we lost her to cancer two years ago. Life brings you joy and sadness. John and I both had a couple of things, his: heart surgery, mine: back surgery. Thank goodness we are still fixable!

By the time of the reunion we will have been married 48 years! And we still like each other! We still live in Bellport on Long Island. The beach is down the road. We spend lots of time on the Thruway going north to visit with Melissa and her family, and a lot of time on the ferry to Connecticut to visit Mark and his. We are portable. We like to travel -- England, Scotland, Italy, Patagonia -- and we hope to do more. We did the snowbird thing for a month this year and really liked it.

Life is life, but mostly, life is good. See you all in September.