[Music]
behind me is a slide of four children
looking out on an athletic field and
basically part of my story is to say
that I don’t know why they call it the
game of life because we’re all at
different playing levels what I’m going
to go through now at my 71 years of age
is to tell you and hopefully I’m going
to leave you with a hopeful message I’m
going to tell you about my life and it’s
really the first time that I have ever
done this so bear with me if I trip
around a bit in it because it is 71
years and I got a lot more years than a
lot of these kids here they are thinking
about 20 years or 25 years I’m thinking
of 70 71 to be exact I was born in 1945
in West Warwick Rhode Island a mill town
how many know it all right very proud of
that
it’s a it was an immigrant melting pot
so therefore we had a lot of interaction
my family was a family of superstars I
didn’t really know it at the time
because nobody really knows about their
family my father was a semi-professional
football player he was a coach then he
was a physics and chemistry person then
a teacher a vice principal and a
principal my brothers were superstars
two of them two older brothers they
topped out in every category
they got valedictorian they got Aleph
raje if you Catholic you know that one
Boy Scout Eagle Scouts everything you
can conceive up I was third born
a girl my father wanted an Irish dynasty
he got it through – I was supposed to be
Colin Kelly I’m Colleen it didn’t look
good
for me especially when dad said girls
can’t do math and science girls are
really inferior basically that was the
message I was getting so man I bristled
at that inequity but then I had those
superstars of my family and over that
time period it was especially important
I was internalizing all of this and
remember I mean we had in my generation
we had Leave It to Beaver Barbara
Billingsley did housework in her pomp
heels and her dress and her beads and
she waited till Ward came home later to
do the important stuff and then of
course we had a jury I Dream of Jeannie
was another one so what we grew up with
and then it was the father knows best
all right that was the corker all right
so we grew up in our generation with men
really disinclined to think that women
were equals after this I went to college
I was one of the lucky ones I went to
college and I got a degree in teaching
and then I went into teaching and I was
very good at that and then basically at
23 I got married and at 25 I left that
volatile terribly abusive relationship
in the middle of the night with a five
month old baby straight strapped to my
hip and got in a car with a hundred
ninety thousand miles on it that broke
down two and three times a week this was
a devastating period of time for me I
then brought that daughter up for six
years in an apartment where I was the
single sole parent and it was before
deadbeat
and I did this I brought at a daycare
every day they were very few in that
period so I had to do all of this alone
two years later
excuse me six years later I’m married
again this was a worse situation I was
even steeped in more difficulty I
thought I was doing the right thing this
was a very politically connected person
and yet I was in the midst of the dire
straits of my life I went on at that
point
for four years we had another child and
now I had two daughters that were ten
years apart and age still teaching and
in the sixth year the man that I was
married to had a heart attack and then
eight weeks later he was diagnosed with
cancer lung into the bones so at that
point I had to put aside my own feelings
and see him through that illness that
period was perhaps one of the lowest in
my life I had endured such tragedy
before that time but it seemed to get
deeper and deeper after he died a year
later because what we tend to do is we
process things it takes us a while and I
process that over the course of the year
and then I took my daughter’s on a
European trip I decided I had to find
myself and in doing this I backpacked
and took them through five countries on
a seven week expedition this was me at
41 years of age if you can see it that
well but in any case we went through
Italy Austria Switzerland France and
Spain I needed to do this for myself I
needed to find like they say on the the
airlines when you have to take
the oxygen and you have to put it in
your own face first before you can help
you children I needed to do that in
order to get us to the next level after
I did that trip I came home I wrote it
up I started sending out to newspapers
they were publishing my material I was
doing very well I would after that
period I would teach for 30 years I
would finish it 23 years in junior high
a period that I called running with the
they were crazy
and I was crazy I went seven years later
I went into the high school and I
basically felt there just bigger
packages so I had done that as well
after that I met the man I would spend
the next 26 years with in a nurturing
excellent relationship and I found that
for the first time and then my daughters
went on to college one went through
Carnegie Mellon another one went to
McGill University after this I went into
real estate and in my fourth year I was
making a hundred and fifty thousand
dollars a year so basically now I had
the girl that couldn’t do figures and
math was now bringing home six feet I
wrote those stories up as well and I
went around and those were published in
after that we n went Paul and I went to
North Carolina and oh I skipped a part
I’m sorry I going back in the beginning
of no hard I told you to remember all of
the the events of life I had breast
cancer oh geez and then I had to go
through three surgeries
and I wrote the cover story on breast
cancer that was in the newspapers and it
went all over Rhode Island and
Massachusetts and that was I got the
news all women dread so I was getting
more and more publication out there I
was doing more things that would make me
believe in myself and then six years ago
we in in North Carolina Paul and I had
bought a retirement home and in that
retirement home in North Carolina and
Asheville we were having a wonderful
life and then he had an accident he was
hit by a twelve-year-old girl driving a
GMC truck he broke his neck the next day
he died on swelling they brought him
back with the paddles we came through
two years following that and in that two
year period we wrote the grandpa and the
truck stories for little kids so this
was again a way of coming out of the
horror of what had occurred
we took the crises of life and we turn
those crises into positives and that has
been my story that I’ve done taken what
I could made something into it and
changed it so basically I want to leave
you with the message that no matter how
many terrible crises you go through you
can always reconstitute you can always
come up from that I know that because
this is what I did in my life today I am
a published author a writer of many
articles I’ll have a book coming out
that is based on our Asheville
experience and I will write the book in
the POW in the shadow of princes so
thank you
[Music]
[Applause] [Music]
behind me is a slide of four children
looking out on an athletic field and
basically part of my story is to say
that I don’t know why they call it the
game of life because we’re all at
different playing levels what I’m going
to go through now at my 71 years of age
is to tell you and hopefully I’m going
to leave you with a hopeful message I’m
going to tell you about my life and it’s
really the first time that I have ever
done this so bear with me if I trip
around a bit in it because it is 71
years and I got a lot more years than a
lot of these kids here they are thinking
about 20 years or 25 years I’m thinking
of 70 71 to be exact I was born in 1945
in West Warwick Rhode Island a mill town
how many know it all right very proud of
that
it’s a it was an immigrant melting pot
so therefore we had a lot of interaction
my family was a family of superstars I
didn’t really know it at the time
because nobody really knows about their
family my father was a semi-professional
football player he was a coach then he
was a physics and chemistry person then
a teacher a vice principal and a
principal my brothers were superstars
two of them two older brothers they
topped out in every category
they got valedictorian they got Aleph
raje if you Catholic you know that one
Boy Scout Eagle Scouts everything you
can conceive up I was third born
a girl my father wanted an Irish dynasty
he got it through – I was supposed to be
Colin Kelly I’m Colleen it didn’t look
good
for me especially when dad said girls
can’t do math and science girls are
really inferior basically that was the
message I was getting so man I bristled
at that inequity but then I had those
superstars of my family and over that
time period it was especially important
I was internalizing all of this and
remember I mean we had in my generation
we had Leave It to Beaver Barbara
Billingsley did housework in her pomp
heels and her dress and her beads and
she waited till Ward came home later to
do the important stuff and then of
course we had a jury I Dream of Jeannie
was another one so what we grew up with
and then it was the father knows best
all right that was the corker all right
so we grew up in our generation with men
really disinclined to think that women
were equals after this I went to college
I was one of the lucky ones I went to
college and I got a degree in teaching
and then I went into teaching and I was
very good at that and then basically at
23 I got married and at 25 I left that
volatile terribly abusive relationship
in the middle of the night with a five
month old baby straight strapped to my
hip and got in a car with a hundred
ninety thousand miles on it that broke
down two and three times a week this was
a devastating period of time for me I
then brought that daughter up for six
years in an apartment where I was the
single sole parent and it was before
deadbeat
and I did this I brought at a daycare
every day they were very few in that
period so I had to do all of this alone
two years later
excuse me six years later I’m married
again this was a worse situation I was
even steeped in more difficulty I
thought I was doing the right thing this
was a very politically connected person
and yet I was in the midst of the dire
straits of my life I went on at that
point
for four years we had another child and
now I had two daughters that were ten
years apart and age still teaching and
in the sixth year the man that I was
married to had a heart attack and then
eight weeks later he was diagnosed with
cancer lung into the bones so at that
point I had to put aside my own feelings
and see him through that illness that
period was perhaps one of the lowest in
my life I had endured such tragedy
before that time but it seemed to get
deeper and deeper after he died a year
later because what we tend to do is we
process things it takes us a while and I
process that over the course of the year
and then I took my daughter’s on a
European trip I decided I had to find
myself and in doing this I backpacked
and took them through five countries on
a seven week expedition this was me at
41 years of age if you can see it that
well but in any case we went through
Italy Austria Switzerland France and
Spain I needed to do this for myself I
needed to find like they say on the the
airlines when you have to take
the oxygen and you have to put it in
your own face first before you can help
you children I needed to do that in
order to get us to the next level after
I did that trip I came home I wrote it
up I started sending out to newspapers
they were publishing my material I was
doing very well I would after that
period I would teach for 30 years I
would finish it 23 years in junior high
a period that I called running with the
they were crazy
and I was crazy I went seven years later
I went into the high school and I
basically felt there just bigger
packages so I had done that as well
after that I met the man I would spend
the next 26 years with in a nurturing
excellent relationship and I found that
for the first time and then my daughters
went on to college one went through
Carnegie Mellon another one went to
McGill University after this I went into
real estate and in my fourth year I was
making a hundred and fifty thousand
dollars a year so basically now I had
the girl that couldn’t do figures and
math was now bringing home six feet I
wrote those stories up as well and I
went around and those were published in
after that we n went Paul and I went to
North Carolina and oh I skipped a part
I’m sorry I going back in the beginning
of no hard I told you to remember all of
the the events of life I had breast
cancer oh geez and then I had to go
through three surgeries
and I wrote the cover story on breast
cancer that was in the newspapers and it
went all over Rhode Island and
Massachusetts and that was I got the
news all women dread so I was getting
more and more publication out there I
was doing more things that would make me
believe in myself and then six years ago
we in in North Carolina Paul and I had
bought a retirement home and in that
retirement home in North Carolina and
Asheville we were having a wonderful
life and then he had an accident he was
hit by a twelve-year-old girl driving a
GMC truck he broke his neck the next day
he died on swelling they brought him
back with the paddles we came through
two years following that and in that two
year period we wrote the grandpa and the
truck stories for little kids so this
was again a way of coming out of the
horror of what had occurred
we took the crises of life and we turn
those crises into positives and that has
been my story that I’ve done taken what
I could made something into it and
changed it so basically I want to leave
you with the message that no matter how
many terrible crises you go through you
can always reconstitute you can always
come up from that I know that because
this is what I did in my life today I am
a published author a writer of many
articles I’ll have a book coming out
that is based on our Asheville
experience and I will write the book in
the POW in the shadow of princes so
thank you
[Music]
[Applause] [Music]
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