1. I have been married for 29 years (getting married at 12, I know, I know old joke) and I have two daughters who are great people and Siena students. Go Saints!
2. In high school, my best friend was from England. At 16, I was able to spend the summer abroad traveling from relative to relative with her through Europe. Something way out of the stratosphere in the mid 80s for this young person from a modest background. During that trip, I saw many sights but two cool things I experienced are the flights I took. One was a Pan Am double decker airplane with a smoking lounge!!?? On the second floor of the plane! And the other was the Concorde which was the fastest plane at the time- twice the speed of sound.
3. I have driven across the top of the country going from east to west with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law and across the bottom going from west to east with my husband. We stopped at the Anasazi ruins, hiked into the Grand Canyon and followed Route 66 to see the Cadillacs that are sticking out of the ground. I have been lucky to visit 37 states in the Continental U.S. during those trips and during my sales career.
4. Speaking of my sales career, I spent much of my early years working for Russell Stover Candies (straight out of college) and Wrigley’s Gum. The neighborhood children loved me…
5. I have been a life-long dancer and have studied tap, jazz, ballet and modern dance. In the most recent past, I participated in a production to bring awareness to domestic violence and sexual assault.
6. My territory for Wrigley’s Gum was in the Outer banks and Virginia Beach. Every February, I ask myself why I felt the need to move back to New York State!
7. I love and appreciate nature although I am not a huge outdoorsman. Some of the most magical things I have experienced just in my daily work travels are thousands of birds (of a many species) wintering in the back bay of North Carolina, a field of sunflowers in full bloom near Watkins Glen/Hammondsport NY, and a fall mountain in the Catskills that was so bright with orange and red it was hard to look at for too long.
8. I worked in Ogunquit, Maine during a summer at college. If you have been there or driven through, you know it is a special place. I worked two jobs and every single day of that summer to afford to both live there and save money for school. (By living there, I mean renting a Boston professor’s summer porch; spiders, a flying squirrel and more!) Still awesome, though.
9. I was an anchor on a television show for kids called “Action News for Kids.” It is what drove me to get my undergrad in Communications.
10. I have been involved in Girl Scouts for two decades. To me, one of the scariest things I did in my life was walk through the woods in the pitch dark at Camp Woodhaven in Galway, NY. My youngest opted out of camping and I thought, no problem we’ll just stay for the campfire and then drive home. Here I was on a dark path with one flashlight whose weak beam barely lit two feet in front of us. I was terrified and trying to hide it, thinking a mountain lion, a bear or a person was going to come out of the woods or I was going to take the wrong path. My heart was pounding in my ears but obviously, we finally made it to the car.