Last Modified: July 24, 2006
My Autobiography
More Pictures: Go to bottom of page The
Early Years I don't remember a whole lot about my childhood. I was born in Washington DC but we moved to Chicago shortly afterwards where Dad taught at the University of Chicago. Ultimately we bought a house in the suburbs outside Chicago, but we traveled quite a bit. We spent 6 months in a huge house near Seattle, which I loved and remember mainly because it was there I learned to love dogs and swim. We also spent 6 months near Stockholm. That I remember very fondly. We had a big house with an orchard of 8-10 plum trees in the back, and I ate huge numbers of them. I don't remember ever getting sick, but I vividly recall being told I would. I was also the only brunette child for miles around, and other children used to stare and point at me. I didn't go to school, and I remember I didn't know how to read. I was 7 then and had gone to the University of Chicago Laboratory School for junior and senior nursery school and junior and senior kindergarten (!!), and the philosophy then was that you exercise the body and the mind will take care of itself. So we did cartwheels and danced the polka all morning, came home and flung ourselves to sleep across the bed, and our parents were supposed to read with us and it would just sink in. Which of course it didn't. And there was no Sesame Street (or TV at all for that matter... or at least we didn't have one.) So there I was, playing in the plum trees, an illiterate heathen at 7. My father brought home children's books from the Embassy library. One day a great flash of blinding light went off and I could read. And have never stopped reading since! Childhood as I knew it pretty much stopped when we came back to the States. My father had been experiencing horrible headaches for some time, as well as some memory loss and personality changes. Back in Chicago he went through all kinds of tests, which were enormously frustrating for him, as he was convinced he had a brain tumor. The doctors didn't believe him until one of them saw it in his eyes and they operated almost immediately. Brain surgery was relatively new at that time, and the family saga is that my mother was told he had two years to live. Then every two years they gave him a two-year extension, which of course was awful. She didn't handle it well. I think she had expected a life of comfort and respect as the wife of an academician. Instead, at 28, she was the head of the family and more or less single parent to an eight-year-old and a four-year-old, my brother Rick. She spent a good part of that year living with friends near the University hospital while we lived with family friends in the suburbs. I don't think Rick and I quite knew what was happening, because people didn't talk about such important things with children in those days. The blessing in that time is that Earl and Gladys, the friends with whom we stayed, became wonderful friends to us and in many ways sustained us through a rocky childhood. School At the end of my sophomore year I transferred to the University of Chicago. There I found that I wasn't the smartest kid alive, or even close; that school took work. I had developed mononucleosis at Illinois, and at Chicago, I lost a good part of a semester to a series of infections, till I had my tonsils out at 20. Relations with my mother had always been pretty rocky, but by then one of my most pressing goals was to not have to go home, which meant for me that I stay in school at all costs. Which I did, but I had to work full-time and my grades suffered. I graduated, however, and then earned a master's degree in Education. Money was always an issue while I was in school, and during my senior year I started working in the university hospital as a lab assistant. This gave me access to all the single medical students, interns and residents, and I went out with all of them and got engaged to more than one. But the one I married was Eddie, who was a very controlling young medical student who captured my fancy. I think I saw him as "strong", and in retrospect I see he was very much like my mother. Both of them sought to control me by withholding affection, which in turn drove me towards depression and anxiety. So of course I married him! The Requisite Marriage and Divorce Eddie did his residency in Portland, Oregon, and I went with him. I got my first job in a Catholic school. This was a good experience for me, as I had never met a nun before; in fact as a child I had thought they were witches, so it broadened my understanding considerably. I liked my job. It was a small school with one class per grade, and I taught second grade. The fourth grade teacher, Maggie Williams, was also a "lay teacher", and we became good friends. We ate lunches in the convent, and I developed a real affection for the Sisters, who were very devoted to teaching and to their pupils. I also witnessed the changes when the Pope decreed they could wear street clothes. They managed to modify their clothing overnight, literally. I brought my sewing machine to the convent and I think they had about three machines whirring around the clock. I have lost track of them now, but wrote to several of them for years and am really grateful for the experience. My home life, however, was not so hot. Eddie was gone all the time. I remember the interns figured out with their unbelievable schedules they were making 27 cents an hour. He spent more time in the hospital, by far, than with me, and I was miserably lonely. At the end of the year he got a residency in Ear, Nose and Throat at Stanford, and we moved to California, where I got a new job as a fourth grade teacher, and a divorce. (Neither was that simple, or course, but this is not a novel!) The Wild and Crazy Years The next phase of my life shall henceforward be referred to as the Wild and Crazy Years, the 70's, otherwise known as that brief, halcyon period between death by pregnancy and death by AIDS. I joined a ski club and really had a lot of fun. Skiing was not the issue, of course; partying and dating were. We all had a lot of fun, but in addition to wasting time, I tried a couple of other career choices and finally ended up at Lockheed. The Lockheed Years
Lockheed decided to start a branch in Austin, Texas, which at first I thought was a ridiculous idea. But as I thought about it, I decided it would provide a unique opportunity to figure out how businesses work and to buy a house, and by this time I was evolving into somewhat of a user's advocate/trainer for computer applications and I thought they could use my skills. Human Resources was not encouraging, of course, but I went straight to the top of the newly formed organization and requested a transfer. Six months later I was on my way to Texas. Texas was amazing. There were had bugs you could ride, and lots of men who called me "Little Lady." I bought a house and a car, and had my first major brushes with sexism. My favorite experience was when a candidate for city council came to my door and asked for the Man of the House. I didn't vote for him and I told him so! Work, however, was wonderful. All of us transplanted Californians knew each other, and we had an intense loyalty towards the company I never had felt before. All of us, "Damn Yankees" and Texans alike, lived and breathed work. We pretty much socialized with each other, maybe not so healthy, but we developed friendships which still endure. In the end it was futile, though. After three years of incredible growth, contracts went away and layoffs begun. In 1989 I got a job back in Sunnyvale and moved back here. Ultimately Sunnyvale had the same experience and I was laid off here as well. An Adult at Last! The last decade, while in many ways the most difficult, was also the most personally rewarding. I truly re-evaluated my priorities and set off in earnest on a new career exploration, providing training, support and public relations for a mid-sized company. This is exactly where I belong. I am learning all about distance learning, Web pages, and a variety of computer applications. I have gone full circle from a Techno-Phobe to a Techno-Phile, and in fact am pretty much addicted to all things computer-ish, and particularly to everything related to the Web. In 2000, I fell into teaching a series of HTML and FrontPage classes at a local adult education site, and I absolutely loved it. I decided to take my training experiences into a full-time day job. 2002..Moving to Marysville In August of 2001, I was laid off my high tech, high paying job in Silicon Valley. For two months, thanks to a generous severance package, I really enjoyed my time off.... I watched movies, went to lots of water aerobics, and in general pretended I was retired. However, as time wore on I got a little more practical and started taking the job-search classes I got as a benefit. I've been laid off before, several times in fact, and always found another job pretty quickly.
Not this time, though! This recession was the worst I've ever seen. By November, all my friends were either out of work or about to be. Our dinners and lunches out together turned into Denny's breakfasts.... the money began to get tight and of course unemployment only helps a little (it certainly doesn't pay $1100 per month rent!) I started doing substitute teaching, also had a few Web page contracts, and taught nights as usual, but I was getting more and more frightened. I realized one day that in five months I had not gotten one single interview.... and my friends weren't having any better luck than I was. I sent out resumes for teaching jobs pretty much everywhere in California in January, and finally got some responses. (I had done this earlier and not gotten anywhere... seems like Jan. is a good time to start. Also, the first time I sent resumes to school district HR departments, while this time I sent them to district superintendents.) I drove up in late January for an interview in Marysville High School, Marysville, CA, and was offered the job and accepted in the next two days. I agreed to start Feb. 4, and the rest of the month was a blur of packing, moving, saying good-bye and all that stuff. Deb and Cathy (see above picture) helped me pack, Deb and her son and his friends helped me move, and by Sunday I was in a motel and my stuff was in storage. I stayed with Dona and Jim in Paradise and finally moved into my apartment in April, where I could start the search for Morgan the Wonder Dog! Morgan was waiting patiently for me in the pound in Sacramento and I finally found him after trips to 3 other local dog repositories!
Morgan (short for Morgan Freedog: he's black and he's beautiful) is probably Corgi and/or dachshund, with maybe some border collie in the ears. Anyway, he has a long, curly tail, silky fur, and very amiable disposition. He is about a year old and still chewing, so I've lost a few shoes and other items from time to time. But he is wonderful company, doesn't bark, and likes to cuddle with me. I am certainly pretty broke compared to last year at this time, but in most ways I'm content. Marysville is a small town an hour north of Sacramento (and three hours away from Silicon Valley costs and congestion.) Morgan and I did our share of exploring, and our little 2-bedroom townhouse was very comfortable. I also taught adult ed again in Oroville. Yet Another Branch in my Tree of Life! After a year and a half of teaching high school, Morgan and I hit another snag. At the end of the 2003 school year, budget issues in the school district hit us like a bomb. Leave No Child Behind legislation mandates that all teachers must be fully credentialed, and mine was a primary credential with years of practical work experience in the field, but no single subject credential. Basically the district laid off all the teachers who were not fully credentialed or didn't have tenure, so we packed and moved again. I spent several months in Paradise, CA, near Chico, where we lived with my friends Dona and Jim in their downstairs and helped them out till I could find a job. In January I started a new job in Sacramento, working as a webmaster, computer trainer, and technical support person. I worked for a non-profit called California Rural Indian Health Board, Inc., (CRIHB, www.crihb.org) which manages IHS health care funding for member Tribes and provides various other support to the Tribes. I found a cute 2-bedroom duplex in the heart of Sacramento, convenient to everything, which I love. My friends Debbie and Ralph bought me a doggie door, which of course both Morgan and I love. I no longer have to jump up every time he wants to go out, which he does all the time. The biggest news in Sacramento is probably the re-emergence of my political activism. I never stopped being politically active, but haven't really worked much in the past. No more! The Bush administration has shoved me into action! I started going to Meetups for candidates and Democrats in about May, and it turned into a real passion. Of course politics was always in my blood, but I never really went into it as I have here. After one or two Meetups I went to a local MoveOn House Party, met some lovely people, some of whom are still friends, and then I had a few parties of my own, which were a blast. Then they established a campaign headquarters nearby, and it almost became a second home. I worked phones, registered voters every weekend, walked the precinct, became a Precinct Captain, worked in the new downtown headquarters, pretty much you name it. I had a wall full of campaign buttons, kind of an altar. I went to Reno with a friend to call voters, and I went again to see Kerry at a rally there. I became webmaster for the website of a local candidate and worked for yet another. Of course EVERYONE lost. I was working the polls election day and also took the next day off, to wallow. If it weren't for Jon Stewart, I don't know how I would have made it. (I discovered him during the Republican convention. I could never have watched that without clearing my palate with The Daily Show every night.) Two days after election the Sacramento for Democracy group had their first post-election meeting, and that helped drag me out of the abyss. It's not just that we lost, it's not even that I'm angry. It is that I am so fearful, and I am so angry (all right, I am angry!) that this is not the country I love any more. I considered moving to Europe; my brother is still in Germany and actually is now a German citizen, but of course that is not so simple. Neither is Canada . So I opted for getting back on that political horse. I now am a member of the Democratic 5 th AD committee, which had as its rep. Bob Matsui, and am an alternate of the Central Committee. I am meeting Saturday with the guy who is in charge of the new one-room Democratic office in Phil Angelides campaign committee…. Angelides is running against Arnold … not only do I have to be embarrassed for my country, but also for my state! He is having me do a website for them and also one for the Stonewall Democrats in Sacramento . I am now the webmaster for the Sacramento MoveOn chapter ( www.sacmoveon.org ) and the town and Country Democrats ( www.tandconline.org ). I spent Saturday in San Francisco at the Peace March and am going to the state Democratic convention in two weeks. My political work has been wonderful for me, in every way. But I think it was hard on Morgan. He's pretty independent, but he still needs more diversion than he has gotten with me gone as much as I have been. So in October, after my 60th birthday, I decided to get another dog. After many trips to all the nearby dog facilities, I finally found us the perfect young lady, Cookie! She is most likely a cocker-poodle, and who knows what else, about 5 years old, about 23 pounds. (Morgan is 32 pounds.) Whatever she is, is cute! Cookie is from the Roseville SPCA and Morgan is from the Sacramento SPCA, making me a true believer in the value of animal adoption. We have a lovely and pretty large backyard, and with our doggie door we are ready for anything. Baby Pictures
In 2005, my job at CRIHB was eliminated, along with several others. Of course it was stressful, but it allowed my to take a month to go to the South with my frind Lyn after Hurrican Katrina. Pictures and story of that adventure are here.... When I returned, I started attending Gray Panthers meetings and ultimately started working for them. I maintain and website, www.gpcal.org, make plresentation about Medicare Part D (for Dreadful), and advocate for change at the state and local level.
The campaign to fix Medicare Part D is continuing. I have laptop and projector, and will travel at long or short notice to educate small or large groups on Medicare Part D. Here is my latest document:
while I was traveling last summer, my Mazda 626 crapped out, never to be revived. (It's a long story, but it was in Utah, I couldn't get it home, it needs a new transmeission, etc.) I ended up with a 1991 Dodge truck which is really ugly and doesn't have air conditioning, but I am fond of it becasue it is a terrific repository for bumper stickers!
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Questions,
comments or suggestions? Please contact me at
margiemetz@hotmail.com