Susan and Don

I mentioned in a previous post I had attended Art & Soul in Hampton, VA in 2006, 2007 and am scheduled again this year. Last year I had two classes with Susan from the same teacher, Albie Smith. I was having trouble coloring outside the lines so to speak, and Susan was my muse. I'd like to borrow the way Don (Susan's husband) did his intro to further introduce myself. Don has a great intro of how one thing in his life "naturally" led to another.

My lack of taking SAT's in high school led me to the local community college where I took a placement test for math and english. English no problem - math on the other hand not so good. Probably because I was in the "business" program in high school and hadn't taken algebra since 8th grade. I was placed in Math 101 a credit class but struggled. Late in the semester the instructor asked if I guessed at any of the questions on the placement test. I said yes. His reply "you are a good guesser, you don't belong in this class. He said what's your major. My dumbfounded look prompted him to ask "math/science or english/history". I replied english/history which resulted in his reply of I'll give you a "C" but get the rest of your math/science required classes in science. I did. I transfered to the 4 year state school without a goal (again) so I majored in History and Social Sciences. This soft science major "naturally" led to me joining the USAF and becoming a navigator. I stayed in for 22+ years which "naturally" led me to takes classes upon retirement in computer arts.

I guess the moral of the story is that sometimes you don't know where you will end up but keep putting one foot in front of the other. The other moral is that you don't need to know the value of X to become a navigator (and if I do say so myself a pretty good one).


This photo was taken a while back when I was at Desert Storm in Saudi Arabia. All the phones are hotlines to the units we had in the area. Sort of reminded me of the stories I heard about the old Russian phone system where they didn't have phones with extensions but MANY phones -- all direct lines. The more phones you had the more important you were. I guess we were important -- we had LOTS of phones. We controlled the air refueling (KC-135 and KC-10) in the area. Thus the acronym NKAWTG...N! (Translated -- nobody kicks a** without tanker gas...nobody!)

Until my next post,
Diane