(Whew, just typing this movement tires me out.) Sure, I did a few freelance jobs much later when I moved with my husband to Wisconsin in the county court there, which was around the corner from our home. They saw my credentials, my address, and called for last-minute fill-ins, but after a few court trials, I put my foot – I mean machine down, and that was the end of it.

Backtracking, my earlier federal work transfers were caused by my continued under-graduate studies, majoring in philosophy, anthropology, and archaeology (Egyptology, Central American Art and archaeology) at the University of Pennsylvania, and a couple graduate courses at UCLA. There, it was while pursuing my studies at the L.A. Zoo when I got lost amongst the wild animals one night leaving early from a zoology course driving my little 1977 280-Z.

That story would be great for a blog. So, please tune in. But the next morning, in the wee hours I was on the first of a few airplanes on my way to Borneo to study orangutans with Birute Galdikas. And that story will make up another blog, indeed. It’s all about Mark, the young orangutan who adopted me way back then, and the Dyak who wrote to me just last year.

Over the years, I traveled extensively around the world in pursuit of my vast anthropological and archaeological interests. I almost went to see Dian Fossey in Africa at that time instead of going to Borneo. This was after I attended a long weekend-seminar in NYC. Fossey said she wasn’t going back to her mountain gorillas since Digit was slaughtered. But she did, and so was she. That’s when I decided to visit Galdikas instead in Borneo. The risk was too high. It was my studies at UPenn that took me all over the world.

During the years, traveling throughout the world, I visited many places. It was my studies at UPenn that pushed me on to travel. While in Philadelphia, I went to Central America and visited a friend’s friend in a remote area of Guatemala. There I saw communities devastated by a recent earthquake and I helped to restore some homes with a group of nuns from Philadelphia stationed there for that purpose. Along with Sister Bernice, I helped build a stove with a chimney in the middle of indigenous huts to direct smoke upward and out for better breathing and cooking for their extended families. The community met me climbing up the mountain from the far side of the lake.

Years later, and across our country, out of a number who applied, and down to three people, I was chosen to work at the Federated States of Micronesia, Pohnpei, because of my background in anthropology and because I would be traveling around the islands with the doctor to communities during recesses while working as a court reporter for the U.S.’s congressional hearings. Because I would be there picking up information for graduate work, it was their thinking I wouldn’t be bored on the islands. They would move me totally from L.A.; it would be a tax-free income, but a three-year stay, I believe it was. At the last minute I freaked out. I regret it so much now, just as I regret the decision not to take the position offered to me at Fort Monmouth, N.J, years before. In Pohnpei, I decided with my chronic migraines, eating lots of canned food in Micronesia, I would be ill with migraines most of the time eating preserved foods. Fresh food was not often offered at Pohnpei. I wasn’t too concerned about the many insects, etc., due to my work in archaeology, though I did want to do some graduate work with the indigenous people there. Now, looking back, I see what I lost, the studies at Nan Madol. And, also, because I did not want to be so far away from my aging parents, that I could not get back East fast if needed, I declined that position.

After that, I was requested to return to NYC, working this time at federal court. My mother wasn’t well. Working a few years in Manhattan hit me hard. I was faced with some rough times, including the work on the WTC bombing hearings and other political hearings, personally introducing realtime to the reporters and judges there. I decided to move to Tucson, having already built a retirement home there when I was in L.A.

While working in the lower court in Tucson, I became an editor for two major archaeology journals: beginning with Old Pueblo Archaeology, for which I wrote my first article; and then while serving on the Board of the Arizona Archaeology and Historical Society for 12 years, I became its editor. For AAHS I didn’t just edit these journals, I was responsible for their entire publication of 8-12 pages and once 20! During the summer months, I wrote a couple of short pieces, but always had archaeology game pages ready for convention participants. During those years, I was able to drop in on some archaeological sites and pick up a small trowel and pitch in here and there.

Digressing a minute, permit me to explain, as a court reporter, and even after retirement for many years (as a transcriber, a scopist, and an editor) I had to and was asked to prepare testimony and papers of and for judges, lawyers, doctors, engineers, chemists, scientists, etc., and in one case, prosecutors in a well-publicized case, in transcripts day-in and day-out. In the early years of my court reporting life, I dictated from my steno notes for typists. At times I met with them in parking lots, at rest stations on the Jersey Parkway (I was always afraid of getting arrested because it looked like we were exchanging money for drugs); in the middle years, I trained a cousin to read my steno notes, and she typed directly from them to prepare the transcript, later becoming a court reporter herself.

In the later years I worked with Stenotype’s IT personnel helping them to develop realtime technology. I was the first court reporter ever to present the technology in the United States to federal judges who witnessed my writing testimony on my steno machine, being immediately shown on a computer screen of their own computers. I was tested by other court reporters in front of them for accuracy. Thereafter, this software began to be installed across the country.

After retiring, I found myself at home as a scopist receiving this transcript from a court reporter’s steno machine live from the courtroom, and I would read and correct the text in my own home as it was being heard and written in the courtroom. And while I scoped it, it would immediately be read by the judge on his or her bench in that courtroom (corrected or edited by me) and their clerks in chambers, the attorneys at their tables in the courtroom, their partners back at their offices, and in some cases, the witnesses’ companies in other counties clear across the world – once when I performed this task, one reader was in Japan and one in Europe! This was as their expert witnesses were testifying in a patent infringement trial. This was realtime court reporting. The average person now would see realtime as closed captioning either on their television or on their telephone. I helped to develop the technology enabling the steno machine to do this with the court reporter technology.

While still at work in Tucson, I was asked to teach this change of writing form to the court reporters lest they be fired not learning it. The judges wanted it. Everywhere. For example, it would be a new way of writing two/too/to three ways on the steno machine, or so/sew two ways. It was tough having the reporter change their style of writing system years later from that which was taught at an earlier schooling but now is the only way to go. They were not happy. Some courts said, Learn it or leave.

Outside of court, I kept apprised of all the new advances and findings of the day to understand what I was hearing in the courtroom to make an accurate transcript. Plus, I was interested in science overall, especially that having to do with archaeology. I advised all young reporters to do the same. I retired in my late 50s but never stopped reading and learning.

With a temporary change of address to Wisconsin, due to my husband’s career, I began the art of quilting. I found myself in a lovely home but in the middle of farms. To my right was a lovely family of young children and babies. Across the street was a farmer of corn, and to my left was a retired farmer attempting to sell his farm of cucumbers, melons, and tomatoes. Other than my Jersey accent, no one knew what I was talking about. So, I learned to quilt. I dove right in and made all my great nephews and nieces quilts for the following holiday season. Then I combined that art with sewing.

Early in life my dear mother taught me how to sew (she was an expert – read my WWII book), and I won State awards in high school. I decided it was time to learn how to quilt, and I did. More recently, I won an award with the Women’s Club of Arizona sewing and quilting a wedding dress – I called it The Arizona Tote-All Wedding Dress (playing on the word total there) — out of plastic shopping bags for a conservation contest. I made the dress bottom edged with lace from an old bed skirt, as well as the bouquet and bridal veil that I got at an antique store. (There’s a photo of it in my LTA Designs link here.) My grandmother taught me the beautiful art of crocheting, and I can still picture her crocheting at the kitchen window during the day and in her chair at night while watching TV.

I turned the ability of crocheting and sewing and other hand crafts into a business of quilted bags, hats, wall murals, and other items, where I set up a shop, and you would find me out for long weekends at high-end art sales under my LTADesigns tent. I also sold my creations online from a website. Sometimes my pieces combined quilting with crocheting, beading, embroidering (I taught myself as a child), and painting (learned in high school) onto quilted creations. Now I design quilted art murals and I create wonders with cut pieces of fabric. In the past, I sold at gatherings and art fairs, and in the future, I hope to be doing the same.

Currently, while writing, I’ve put those crafts aside, and back home here near Phoenix, I take care of my beautiful parrots, a role which takes first place in my heart. Well, my husband comes first, of course, although at times he disputes that. However, you should see him help me take care of them. They have such grand conversations – usually about me.

Since my back surgery about seven years ago now, much time has been spent on finishing my WWII Chain Letter Gang book. Research and writing have taken up lots of my organizational time. Originally, neither a historian nor an authority on World War II, I made sure the facts in this book were verified thoroughly by me and then by a WWII expert. I wonder how many courses I would have had to take to cover what I have learned over these past few years. However, I now have endorsements for my book by WWII book authors and historians and will be seeking others via personal contacts or through my manuscript.

While a professional developmental editor was fine-tuning my book, I wrote four fiction books in four months. That astonished me compared to the time it took to write the non-fiction WWII book. It had all to do with research, for sure. This fiction trilogy, etc., began with a magazine challenge to write the first sentence of a book that would intrigue a reader. I did. It interested me so much, I had to write the book to see what happened. And I couldn’t stop! This new author’s website I hope will be a huge influence in obtaining a following and will help greatly to market my WWII book. And others.

There are many things I don’t know in life. What I do know very well is the love my dad showed for our family and friends firsthand and through the letters in The WWII Chain Letter Gang. Finding these letters gave me the impetus to devote twelve years of my life to putting together the story of the 11 men — family and friends — and how they were devoted to each other and stayed that way throughout their military service to the USA. There is absolutely no one closer to these letters than I am who could have written this book! I found them. I researched these letters. I read them repeatedly. I know each and every one of these men. I studied these letters. They made me cry. They made me laugh.

Since I am the only one to have the letters that my father kept safely stored in a couple of boxes, as the men requested that he do, I believe I am the person most able to write this book. But perhaps the best reason for me to write it is that in one of the last letters it was written by one of his friends that I was about to be born. Yes, I was born to write this book.