40 Years! That’s scary! Delving back into my clouded memory of the '60s (doodle-lee-doo, doodle-lee-doo), I remember leaving Gasport and taking the Amtrak to NYC with all my stuff piled up in front of me on the train. I settled into an apartment in Manhattan and began attending Hunter College. Amid the marching and protesting, and despite the most counterproductive behavior imaginable, I somehow managed to get an education and graduated in 1969 with a BA in theatre and minors in music and English. That September, I began teaching English as a Second Language at a high school in the South Bronx while attending graduate school. During that time, I did some theater downtown and I recorded a cover of “Amazing Grace” at PPX studios (the same studio where Jimi Hendrix had recorded and with the same producer). Disgusted with graduate school, in 1971 I quit and moved to an estate in Putnam County where my friends and I started a leather business. I was still commuting to the Bronx each day, leaving the idyllic surroundings of the Berkshire foothills for the gritty mean streets of Fort Apache. After a while, the daily culture shock was too much to endure and I resigned my teaching position and moved to Berkeley, California, where I found the culture less shocking. There I did some street theatre, sang in a rock and roll band at various dives in the San Francisco area, became friends with Grateful Dead keyboardist Tom Constantin, and even did a fundraiser for George McGovern.

A few years passed and an old friend from back East showed up at my door having just left her job at the Veteran’s Hospital in Buffalo. We took off for Mexico where we camped on the beach for a few months before heading back to New York for a visit.

During my absence from the Empire State, my mother had been transferred to Niagara Falls. I went there to visit her and stayed a month, but NYC beckoned again, so I returned to the West Village for a year. In 1975, I came back to Niagara Falls to be with my mother who had been ill. I had every intention of returning to Berkeley, but my plans were put on hold when I was offered a job with an 8-piece band. I couldn’t refuse. For the next 7 years I worked in one band or another, did some studio work and basically added nothing to my monetary net worth. Fearing that I would die an impoverished bag lady singing the blues, I decided to go back to teaching. There were no jobs; every district was laying off. I did some free-lance writing and hardly made enough to pay for the typewriter ribbons (remember those). Reluctantly, I went to secretarial school, figuring I would get a job with a corporation and work my way up to CEO. I did get a job with a corporation, but found out that “you can’t get there from here,” as secretaries virtually never advance. After 9 years of indignities, I left the corporate world, returned to graduate school and to teaching. I received my Masters in TESOL from UB in 2000. I have now been teaching ESL at an elementary school in Niagara Falls since 1997, continuing to sing here and there and do theatre when I can work it in.

My mom passed away in 1991. That was the hardest thing I had had to face since losing my father a month prior to coming to Roy-Hart in 1964; I look back on that senior year and wonder how I was able to sleepwalk through it.

I have a very significant other – a kind and funny man I have been with for about 20 years. We plan on getting married sometime, once we get to know each other better. I also have a dog, Bosco, and a cat, Jezebelle. Life is good most of the time.

July 2010 Update:   Well, Rocky and I did get married. We will celebrate our 5th anniversary this August – so far so good. I continue to teach English as a Second Language to the little kids who show up in Niagara Falls from all around the world and I continue to enjoy them immensely. I still act and sing despite the fact that the money isn’t any better than it was 20 years ago and every show “is going to be my last.” I feel greatly blessed even though 2009 was fraught with heartache – I experienced a tough year at school, lost my darling dog Bosco (13˝ years old), and dealt with a major illness. I am happy to report that the latter seems to be in the past. Oh yes, and I have a new sweetie-pie dog, George, who is said to be a Shih-Poo, i.e., a Shih Tzu and Poodle mix. Every day he shows me how happy he is to see me and I am indeed happy still to be here!