Debbie Turner:  

School was very difficult for me. Socially and academically. I didn't "get" the system of what was expected from me. I didn't get the bigger picture. I was a very confused individual, and got off to a difficult start - then when my father died suddenly in the summer of 1972, it was as though I stepped off a cliff. The turmoil I was in during those years made it impossible for me to focus. I dropped out, got my GED, and went to Utica School of Commerce - then I found out I was smart and could have done it all along, if my thoughts and emotions had just been sorted out. At the time I got married in 1987, I was working in downtown Utica for a legal firm. I met my husband right here, in the Utica area, though he was from the west coast. He had come here to learn a product line that the company he worked for in California was purchasing. He was here long enough to realize he did not want to go back to California without me when he was finished here. He proposed, we got married, and he adopted my daughter who was 10 years old by that time. We lived in Southern California for 2.5 years, and moved back to New Hartford to be close to my family. I'm fine with living here, but it kind of stinks that my husband no...Expand for more