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Dear Classmates...
I was at YoHi for grades 8-10. I was not a joiner, so you might have trouble placing me. I looked at my shoes a lot. My closest friends were Lee McMakin and Frank Meininger (both ‘63)..both came back into my life in 1995. Kathy Lair ('63) and I were riding buddies, and somehow managed to stay in touch. I spent Christmas with her and her husband in England two years ago...after not seeing her since we hugged goodbye on the Fuchinobe bus. I overlapped with Skip Conover, who is a valued friend today. So...we don't have many memories of each other...but, hoping to change that.
50 years is a lot of life to cover. Mom sent me a card when I left home that has always been over my desk...strange as it seems, my life is based on a true story. It has been a great ride.
Speaking of riding, horses have been a big part of my life. I rode at Fuchinobe twice a week, and at a stable in Yokohama twice a week. I continued to ride when we returned to CA, and eventually had a horse and a trainer...and more success than I had in algebra. I have been privileged to ride great horses. Over time, I went from a jumper to dressage...and a stalwart trail horse in between. I live on a ranch in northern CA today. When I say it has been a great ride, I really mean it.
I went to college, but was not sure at the time why I did that. While you are not remembering me, you also don't remember me as an academic super star. Mother once clashed with Mr. Spaulding over me being placed in non college prep classes. He asked Mrs. Fortney...when did you decide this girl was going to college? She replied...the morning she was born. So, thanks to Mom, I picked a school based on pictures of what I thought the old west looked like, and went there. My parents took me to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque with a horse, a truck, a trailer, and a car. This was more cumbersome than leaving for Japan with a trunk full of my petticoats. Doted on girl child? Yes.
No one was more surprised than me to discover I had a brain...and I graduated with a double major that looked like an economic mistake, until later in my life. I wanted to go to graduate school with my new found brain, but had no idea what to do when I got there. My parents suggested I come home and get a job, until I had a direction. So, Mom and Dad helped me move the horse, truck, trailer, and car back to CA...and home.
The job hunt might have had divine intervention. A little box in the want ads read...college grads $100 hiring bonus...World Airways. I went there that day, got hired, collected my $100, and was off on my flight attendant adventure. After a few passenger flights, I asked to work the military flights, and found myself walking back and forth from Travis AFB to bases in Japan and Okinawa. I got back to YoHi. I volunteered for the R&R flights between Hawaii and Vietnam. I flew some soldiers I knew...got kissed a lot...and still carry the weight of those young men in that senseless conflict. If anyone reading this was on one of those World flights, maybe I danced in the aisle with you.
And so began my life of protest. When asked...with your background, how could you ? I respond...with my background, how could I not? This is where I strap on my guitar and sing Where Have All the Flowers Gone.
I learned life matters, and matured into a functional adult during the flying years. Being a flight attendant is a lot like being in the military...you wear a uniform, be at your post on time, follow orders, function as a team, break a rule and you are out. By the time I took the GRE, I could face the verbal part of the exam without staring at my shoes. I got my MS at the University of San Francisco in Communications.
Then life took off. I got to live and work in New York...something best done when you are young and strong. Fell in and out of love. Continued to ride. Traveled extensively.
Some health glitches cropped up...ovarian cancer at 34, followed by a malignant melanoma, and thyroid cancer a few years ago. Shot at and missed each time. It's hard to make lemonade from all those lemons, but you do it. I was in the hospital with the ovary mishap, when the man who would eventually be my husband came to visit. A veterinarian, he brought me an Elizabethan collar...used on dogs to keep them from licking sutures. He also announced he wanted to marry me. I thought he was nuts. Who could love a woman on drugs, in pain, with serious bed head?
But...the relationship bloomed. Mom and Dad were wary...the many loves of Melinda came and went...usually because they were useless in the barn. Barn...I said BARN. When I took him home, Dad pulled him aside and asked if he was ok with the horses...why, yes, he even had one. Dad beamed...we have a winner! He went up a few more points when he could make a good martini, and had been an Army officer. A proud father walked me down the aisle.
From that point until his recent death, life has been as grand and rewarding as the man himself. Bruce was complicated, brilliant, funny, and loved by the thousands of lives he touched. We galloped through life, loved what we did, and let everything revolve around the practice. Finally, that double major in Biology and Chemistry was useful...I knew what most of the big words meant. And my decision to get an MS in Communications instead of an MBA finally made sense. Management is as much an art as it is business...so I kept life humming without bullet points. We grew a small practice into a very large practice. It was the best of both of us.
There are a zillion stories. This is one you will appreciate. Bruce had this odd little sub specialty...the medicine and surgery of koi fish. He was invited to speak at wonderful places, and had a great lecture and wet lab. I was thrilled when he was invited by one of the vet schools in Japan to speak. You have to picture this...Bruce was Jewish, tall, gregarious, and talked with his hands. The students were very serious and reserved. He lectured with an interpreter...a little learning curve...he would speak...then pause for the interpretation. Yeah, right. This poor guy was frantically trying to keep up with Bruce, wave his arms, and make sense of the jokes. Japan meets a New York Jew. The wet lab was even better. I helped him set up, in the absence of someone who knew what she was doing. He was trying to explain my role in the practice. Blond computer was actually a concept they understood. I was helping him demonstrate anesthesia induction, when Bruce said... and for my next trick, I will saw her in half. Interpreter went berserk...it is not allowed! After explaining the reference in the context of David Copperfield, the class finally erupted in laughter. In later years, some of those students came to visit. This story would be repeated...blah, blah, blah...David Copperfield...hahahahahaha.
Family did not happen the usual way. That ovarian problem meant my reproductive life was on hold for the next five years. I threw myself into being a step mother...to two bad seeds. Wow...steps get genes from both parents, but sometimes there is a struggle for dominance. Time marched on...a ten year old child who needed help dropped into our lives. I was not the most maternal person in the world at that point...kittens and foals were more my calling. I made a check list...feed the child, hug the child, feed the child again , etc. He grew into a magnificent person...went to Cornell, like Bruce, and became a veterinarian. I have had many humbling and proud moments along the way, but, on graduation day, I got my stripes as a mom. This is what the fuss is all about.
David married his vet school classmate, an Army Captain. I'm not sure what I was preparing to say, but he met me with...YOU married an Army Captain, and it worked out fine. Yes, it did. Their life in the Army was mostly wonderful. We waited out two deployments, not breathing until she came home. She and my husband did the same job in the Army as veterinarians...he in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam...her in Iraq and Afghanistan. The kids are now in private practice, and I am Nana, infused with Auntie Mame, to two little ones. Where ever those maternal instincts were hiding, they sprang to life with the first baby. All this, and not a single labor pain.
I am a widow now. Don't light a cigarette around me, or I will unload about lung cancer. I do not understand how a dumb thing you did as a young person comes back to haunt you in such a profound way, just as you retire. Youthful stupidity should not be a death sentence. I had no idea that a life so blessed had an expiration date. It has been difficult to get from that day to here, but I finally realize that it is still blessed. The last few years have been about learning to embrace my new life. I still love what I have...my family, great friends, meaningful work, the arts, the natural world, and a slew of animals. No regrets.
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