A New Blog For A New Year Of Life

     Today is my 65th birthday - and it's been a wild ride so far.  I'm old fashioned, and will continue to use two spaces after a period and colon.  I was born in the rear seat of a car on the way to a Navy hospital in Virginia, and my family lived in Virginia, Tennessee and Texas by the time I was five years old.  Dad retired from the Navy after 22 years of service on my fifth birthday.  We were stationed at the Kingsville Naval Air Station in Texas, and we moved to Gainesville, Florida so Dad could get a degree using the GI Bill, and so he would "never have to shovel snow again."  I spent my school years in Gainesville, and spent the majority of the summers running wild on Chincoteague and Assateague Islands in Virginia.  The islands were where my Mom's family had lived since 1697.  

   When I say I ran wild on the islands, I want to clarify that I never did anything wrong there...  I just had few limitations.  I wandered both islands at will, carrying my Dad's 1932 Boy Scout knapsack, with a thermos of water and a sandwich to last from breakfast until supper.  I spent a lot of time following deer and pony trails on Assateague, observing wildlife at its best.  I have to admit I was chased up a tree by a stallion one day - I had intruded on a mare and new foal quite unwittingly, and well off the beaten path.  I was able to climb up and watch for several hours before the mare and foal left the clearing and the stallion slowly followed after them.  I was free to go anywhere on either island, as long as I was home before total darkness - and I had a marvelous time observing birds, turtles, ponies, deer, snakes, squirrels, and fish in the impoundments.  I also watched the men on their boats - oystermen, clammers, crabbers, fishermen.  It was such a wonderful childhood during the summer.

   I hated school.  I was bored to death.  I did well and had no problems - but I was never challenged, and rarely had to study something.  I ended up being the Sports Editor of the high school year book just to have something to do in a class.  I also was the football statistician for the junior varsity and varsity football teams during my junior and senior years.  Then it was off to college and into adult life.

   I continued to be bored in my employment and adult schooling.  I was assistant manager at two restaurants, a fabric store, and a book store.  I taught school - elementary and high school.  I was a librarian.  I worked as a Unit Secretary in a teaching Hospital, having started out in transcription there.  I was a receptionist in a medical complex, doing scheduling, taking payments, and checking insurance.  I worked as a research librarian and e-mail coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D. C.  And for 20+ years I worked at, rode and trained horses, and gave riding lessons, at a horse farm that bred, sold and trained Three Day Event horses.

   I married late, a divorced man with 3 children from 2 previous marriages; and I became a widow early, as he died from multiple issues due to his type 1 diabetes.  He died in my arms while waiting for an ambulance to arrive, suffering from a blood clot that caused him to suffocate to death.  That was hard.

   I have had to combat severe depression and paranoia since my late teens.  I have had counseling and taken medication for most of my life, beginning in high school.  I have had my ups and downs there, too.  Asking for help has never been my strong suit, and being insulted and smacked down by relatives has never been fun.  I have been very grateful for any assistance that was rendered to me by anyone.  The only person that I am still upset with is a family member who has spread outrageous lies about me and who will not (a) see the truth and/or (b) apologize.  I consider it to be that person's loss, not mine.

   I have almost always had an animal companion - or companions.  Currently, I have two cats, both adopted from the Boulder Valley Humane Society.  Since I live in a smallish second-floor apartment, I don't think it's fair to have a dog.  My eldest cat was a Hurricane Katrina victim, losing her Mom at 1 week of age, and being bottle-fed and hand-raised after her rescue.  He name is Lovegiver, and she is that.  She currently gets two tablets a day for hyper-thyroidism.  Her companion is a medium-haired black guy, who came from Kansas in a large batch of over-flow kittens.  He just turned 12, and while called "Nedi" for short, is named Zephraim Cenedi.  (Pronounced with a hard "C" - Ke-nedi.)

   I share my apartment with a fantastic friend named Beatrice, or Bea, who is also single, and a born Coloradoan.  She and her siblings were the first black students in the Denver, CO Catholic school system.  She was the first African-American cheerleader for the Denver Bronco football team.  She has experienced racism in ways that still upset me.  I am experiencing a small taste of racism when we go shopping in Boulder and Denver.  We were followed by an assistant manager in an up-scale food store one time - we had stopped in to say "hello" to a friend working there, and decided to see what they had in the cat food aisle - and the manager stayed less than 3 feet behind Bea the entire time we were inside.  It was a surreal experience.  When we complained, we were told the man was on his lunch break and trying to decide what to eat...  I mean, really!!  Cat food?    The store tried to buy us off with $25 gift cards for use in their store only.  We gave them away.

   Anyway, the pandemic is slowly receding, and we seem to be starting over anew.  Thus, the new blog.  I will write about animals, history, and genealogy, Chincoteague and Assateague, Pony Penning, old times on the island, the Old West, family stories and what genealogy and documentation proves, and, occasionally, Thoroughbred horse racing.

   Here's to a new beginning!