I decided that today is a good day to share some of the little things about me with you. So here they are in no particular order.

1. I learned to play the piano (and never very well) at the age of 12 from U.S. School of Music, a mail-order course that my Mom ordered through a magazine.

2. My very first memory is getting mad at my Mother and going out into the cotton fields on my grandparent’s farm in Perdido, Alabama to have my temper tantrum — telling her that I was going to stomp all the cotton plants down.

3. I hated Black Beauty and The Ugly Duckling and still try to avoid reading any animal books or watching any animal/nature programs where animals are hurt and killed.

4. I’m so glad my husband isn’t a sports fan because I dislike watching sports events.

5. I am afraid of heights. When I had the opportunity to walk to the bottom of Meteor Crater, I refused because it was so scary. Today, no one is allowed to walk inside of it.  So I missed a big opportunity because of my fear.

6. I experienced two very close calls in my life. One was when a driver, swatting at a spider in his car (or so he said)as he drove at high speed, ran into my car which I had just parked on the curb and was walking up the sidewalk to the front door. The second was looking up at the tall pine tree swaying in the wind as I put the garbage can on the curb, walking back into the house, and looking out the window to see the pine crash down on top of the garbage can.

7. I hate large crowds and try to avoid them.

8. My first job was as a clerk in Kress 5 & 10 cent store in Pensacola, Florida when I was 15. I lied about my age because you had to be 16 to get a work permit.  And I was paid the minimum wage at the time — 60 cents per hour.

9. I’ve done my own income taxes for the past 62 years.

10. I’ve been married to the same man (the one that is the wind beneath my wings) for 63 years in September.

11. I attended Judson College – a Baptist girl’s college my freshman year and UC Berkeley my sophomore year.  What a contrast!

12. I worked for the Census Bureau in Washington DC when I was 19 and was at the inauguration of JFK. It was a very cold day with snow on the ground.

13. I stood in line for a barbeque dinner behind Jonathan Winters and he joked with me as we waited.

14. I only got to attend one football game while in high school because I worked Friday nights.

15. My freshman English teacher sold stories to The Saturday Evening Post — which was prestigious then but has ceased publishing. He was the person who first ignited my interest in writing.

16. I owned and published a monthly statewide newspaper for Singles.

17. I’ve never taken a class but have taught myself everything I know about computers, websites, and everything else related.

18. My roommate and best friend at a convention in Los Angeles was my nurse practitioner who saved my life by getting me to the hospital for emergency surgery. I would have been found by the maids in the hotel room the next morning if she had not been there.

19. I am very shy and a loner and yet I ran for and was elected to the City Council.

20. I live in the middle of the world’s largest Ponderosa Pine Forest.

22. I have two daughters and eight grand-children — five of which are adopted.  There are also now two adorable great-grandchildren.

23. I am a lousy housekeeper (I hate having to do the same thing tomorrow that I did today!)

24. I love mysteries — both reading and watching on PBS.

25. I procrastinate too much by reading.

26. I wrote Romance novels earlier in my life and am working on a Romantic suspense now.

27. I grew up in the segregated South; sat in my church pew before the days of air conditioning and heard my pastor preach that the Bible says segregation is right; worked in the kitchen at my Alabama college with a black young man who was killed in the Selma riots(he worked in the kitchen while I was one of the servers of the family style meals) ; the black maids who cleaned my dorm room were the first blacks I ever had a conversation with; and became good friends with my black co-workers in Washington D.C. Today, I am a very liberal Democrat.

28. I once had a part-interest ownership in a glider and learned to fly it.

29. I had dinner with Eleanor Roosevelt a year or two before she died. She was a speaker at my husband’s college and we were invited to have dinner with her before she spoke.

30. The first time I saw more than a few flakes of snow was when I was nineteen and living in Washington D.C.

I’m sure there’s plenty more considering how old I am, but these are the first of many revelations I will share with you.

What don’t I know about you that you’re willing to share? Leave a comment below and let me know!

Thanks for reading,
Joyce