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Occupation: Inclusion teacher Marital Status: Married Spouse's Name: "Airborne" Steve Hixon
Children and ages:
Education and Degrees: Primarily the school of life with several college child development and art classes. Hobbies and Interests: Textile arts, painting and paper maché, Western swing dancing, homeopathy, camping and my children's activities
Hello Classmates, I hope that all of you
are happy and thriving 20 years later! I have not contacted or
seem most of you, but that does not mean that I have not thought
of all of you. Elizabeth "Buffy" and I have visited
each other in the last couple of years. It seems healing to blend
the past with the present. I wish I could see all of you, but
unfortunately I cannot attend the reunion this year. So instead
I will send my story. I suppose I was destined to live out my own "Leaving Normal" story. Jeff my first husband was my ticket out of town. We lived in Wisconsin and I worked in factories (it's not like Norma Rae), then he joined the Coast Guard and we moved to Connecticut where I found work in a vegetarian restaurant. Then on the Woods Hole, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. I cooked and bar tended in a couple of restaurants, worked as a seamstress and at an artists' guild. I developed several deep friendships there and it became my pivot to San Francisco. It took a year to get here (the van kept breaking down) so we lived in Madison Wisconsin and St. Paul Minnesota until we arrived here in 1986. We quickly dissolved our marriage and went our merry ways (whew!) So I guess I had to play that episode out before I could move on. Now I am quite settled in San Francisco. We bought a pretty 1909 Victorian home in a nice neighborhood called No Valley. I am married to Steve Hixon, ("Airborne"), who owns a sound company, consequently we occasionally attend interesting concerts and events. Ironically, he is also from the Midwest so we sort of speak the same language (we both know that de-tasseling is something you do to corn.) My daughters, Sierra Lefay and Rhianna Rose, keep me very entertained. They both play basketball and soccer and attend art workshops. Sierra sings in a chorus and Rhianna does Irish dance. We established many friendships from their co-op nursery school and their elementary school. All of us parents attend the various events and help chauffeur the kids around--so I am still driving disorderly kids around in a van, but at least they are not drunk! I have been teaching art to mostly children at a mural arts center and an after school program. I also go to various libraries and do kids' art workshops, volunteer in my kids' classrooms, and occasionally create my own art. This past year I started to work at my children's school as a inclusion teacher. It is not as creative, but the hours, location and benefits are good and I still can do library workshops and artistic ventures on the side.
High school in many ways was an educational experience. Mostly I had fun and I enjoyed several of my classes, the various social events and the parties. I regret the hurtful choices I made in high school and I apologize to those of you who endured my wrath. Well, any of you can visit me in San Francisco, where the climate suits my clothes; the views are spectacular, and the spectrum of culture phenomenal! Love, Bessy |
E-mail comments / suggestions / updates to Dave Sutherland at sutherlandD@ci.boulder.co.us
Sometimes I miss Normal now
that we (my sisters live here also) moved my mother out here,
and I no longer have any reason to go back. My kids loved Normal:
they could catch fireflies and watch the bunnies at dusk, drive
through a thunderstorm, eat freshly fallen snow, experience heat
with humidity, and fierce cold without. I miss the beautiful
sky, the lightning, the changing seasons, and the orderliness
of corn.