College bound because of YOU!
and I'm so grateful
My greatest influence
If it's weren't for the constant feedback that I was clever and talented, I wouldn't have gone to college. I was very young when I first started hearing stories. Stories about my father, family tales, fairy tales, stories of all kinds. For several years my mother was alone with just a toddler. We were in Japan and some days I was the only one who spoke English to her. That story telling gave me a love of language and an understanding of people.
I remember sitting on the couch in the living room of Grandma's house reading stories she had written. She was a small Welsh woman, no more than 5' tall, with generous portions of lap for a little girl to snuggle up in. She wasn't fat but soft and well-padded the way one wants one's grandmother to be. She always reminded me a little of the Bass-Rankin images of Mrs. Claus that I grew up with. Her baking and storytelling only compounded that image.