Ann Moss:
CLASS OF 1971
Putnam City High SchoolClass of 1971
Oklahoma city, OK
Ann's Story
IT'S NOT A JEEP!
THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS & NOT COMPLETED
CHECK BACK LATER IF YOU WANT TO SEE REVISIONS
Life:
Sounds like a prison sentence! You want my life, huh? Well, it all REALLY started when I found myself in a very dark, mysterious & most noticeably, warm room. I was completely surrounded by firm yet still flexible walls, but I didn't feel claustrophobic or distressed at all. There was a definite 'Presence' emanating an almost overwhelming sensation of what I can only describe as "SAFE-ness"! A general peacefulness I've never felt since.
As I had no pressing matters to attend to, I decided to just relax & enjoy. It was great! That is until, SUDDENLY, I'm being pushed from every side! I don't understand! I am so AFRAID! What is HAPPENING! It felt like I was going to suffocate and be crushed all at once! Then, without ANY warning, I am forced toward this unbelievably bright LIGHT! It was as if I was being shot out of a...
**What?"
"Well yes, I started at a very young age. Didn't you?"
"WHAT!?"
"OH!"
"A little too far back?!"
"Ok. Um, sorry. You coulda said!"
"But you're missing some very good material, especially if I have to start AFTER high school!"
"OK! OK! Geez...**
Life:
The boring stuff: I worked as an accountant for 15 years, though I cannot fathom why, since I hated it so. with a VERY small stint as a headhunter. I was moved to Houston with my (accounting) job in 1980 where I met my future husband, Robert, on the job at Getty Oil. He's a scientist who was, at that time, taking a leave from school at Rice University between getting his bachelor's and going on to complete his PhD there. In other words, his brain was fried & needed a rest or ELSE, & that's when we met. This is when it got more interesting.
**Um, excuse me again?"
"What?
"Busy?"
"OH, sorry!"
"Well, it's just that a very important turning point in the grand scheme of things occurred at this juncture in time and I am wondering if it would be ok to sort of well, you know, talk about it in a bit more detail?"
"WHY?"
"Well, there have been some P R E T T Y HUGE, 'coincidences' along my way that we refer to as "God Jobs"
0.o
"You know, when a ridiculously large number of things have to happen in a ridiculously precise way that it's as if God is whacking me upside the head & saying, PAY ATTENTION!"
"whu..Why?"
"I've always thought since God is aware that I don't DO subtle well, there have been times when He (thankfully) made it so clear a monkey would have 'gotten' it"
"Yes! I thought you might like it"
"So I thought people might like to know. I mean they are kind of interesting..,"
"What?"
"OH! Sorry! OK! OK! I'm "Getting ON with it!"
(sheesh)**
How I met my husband:
----
But FIRST, A Word from out sponsor:
It occurs to me that you may need some background information if you are to recognize these 'amazing coincidences¿. So I will attempt to do this as painlessly as possible.
As I said, I was working as an accountant, but at that time (before the move) it was only because I had 'placed' myself on this accounting job by being a headhunter, matching the right person to the job (& even got my own commission!) In fact, this 'Job Placement¿ company was the same one that had wooed me away from my position with another company a year before, promising I'd love the headhunting biz MUCH better & would even make more money while doing it.
Well, I did make more money, but after a year of 'selling' people & getting offers from every company that sells stuff, to come sell THEIR stuff, I figured out I hated sales even more then I accounting! I have a lot of respect for both kinds of work, I just never "fit" which leads us to the next -
Side Story OR
Why I Didn't Write the Music that Makes the Whole World Sing:
For anyone who knew me then & is reading this now, wondering what is up with me working in ANY 'regular' job?! Yes, I was/am a musician. I was a child prodigy, in fact. I started playing the piano at the age of 3, composing at 7, took up violin for fun at 9 & was in the Amarillo Symphony at 11. That was just grade school & before! I was 16 before I realized that everyone couldn't do this. I am STILL, amazed at this! That's how it is if you're born with it. It seems/is so easy! But, as with many girl child prodigies, I got old enough to discover there were things that were more interesting then playing the piano for hours every day. Yep, jr. high & high school came along & I discovered BOYS!!
Now, I couldn't draw a straight line if my life depended on it! One of my daughters started painting when she was about 6 & I've just recently seen another duplicate ,BY HAND, a photograph of a bridge in Venice, getting every detail so exact it looked like a printed copy, in less then 30 minutes & then look at me with the "too bad Mom is so 'simple' look when I was in awe of it, telling me 'No I am NOT an artist! I have to SEE it instead of invent it!" I asked her if she had heard of Mona Lisa! He had to SEE her! & I begin to understand how this 'natural' talent works. I also hope I meet the 'teacher' who
I have taught private lessons & even played professionally for a while. I KNOW what they mean by 'starving artist'! I still have the gift God gave me, AND I have no doubt that everything that happened to direct me away from the 'natural' path I was on, that happened between high school & meeting Robert, that made it pretty much impossible for me to follow that career, were just some of the 'coincidences' that got me to Houston, to Getty, & to Robert. & It has been SO "odd" when looking back, that we have named them "God Jobs".
"Does that explain it better?"
"I thought you might"
"I am very happy you're happy"
**AHA! I have been waiting for you!
YES! Yes I know I am digressing! Yes, & getting ahead of myself! BUT, there's a difference between writing to people who knew you & your family back then, & writing to total strangers!"
"Yes! I DO write some, LOOK, what are you? "The writing police?"
*Ok, so your point issss...?"
"Oh!"
"Why yes. My parents were both pretty incredible people. You should hear THEIR stories! My Father, who was one of the most incredible men I, or anyone who had the privilege of knowing, died September 14, 2006. I really miss him a lot."
"Oh, thank you. That's very kind"
"What?"
"Oh, yes. My Mom is still living at a nursing home in OKC. Thanks for asking! In fact, one of my sisters is living in our old home there.
You know you can be very kind, when you put your mind to it."
"Pardon? Yes, both of my sisters & my brother & all of their kids, except for 2, all amazingly wound up living there, & the 2 that don't just moved away, so there are a lot of people to take care of her, It is really kind of odd how they wound up in OKC, in fact."
"Well one sister lived there briefly, then moved away, as did my brother. The other sister never had. She'd gotten married when I was just 12 so hadn't moved with us. Then another 'magical' series of events brought them all to live in OKC near our parents! In fact, my brother actually lived IN Houston & told me he was moving back to OKC exactly 1 month after I announced I was moving there! Quite a 'coincidence', huh?"
"What?"
"Yes, that's correct. I don't believe in coincidences."
"Well, yes, I suppose all of them moving there as I moved away for the first time could be considered 'strangely - odd..."
"STOP LAUGHING!"
-_-
*Are you finished?*
*Where was I before I was so rudely interrupted?"
"Yes, RUDELY! Well, what did you expect?*
*Oh HONESTLY! I can't think... you are going to have to leave the room!!"
THANK YOU!**
So I went back to accounting (where I 'fit' less badly), but this time in charge of my own department, hoping to have a bit more creative room. The problem there, as I'm sure you know by now, was if you mention the word 'creative' & the word 'accounting' in the same sentence, you can land in jail! I was not doing that sort of accounting OBviously, but 'creativity' is not what one thinks of when one thinks of accounting, you have to admit. However, it paid the bills & I had just bought my first home. It was not so bad, after all.
Then, in less then a year, my company got bought out by Getty Oil Co & against all odds (who'da thunk), I was offered a position in Houston! Whoever heard of transferring accountants? It just was not DONE! PLUS, they offered me enough raise & benefits it was impossible NOT to grab the chance as it drifted by. I'm not stupid, after all! (can you hear the whacking?) So in a fairly brief period of time, I found myself in a brand new house in Houston, working for a great big oil company who had made it clear that they were THRILLED to have me! Life was going swimmingly.
In the mean time, Robert was finishing up his bachelor's degree (which he got on full scholarships) & had been granted a fellowship (which is scholarships with a paycheck! How obnoxious it THAT?) to continue in grad school at Rice! Not an easy school to get into, & REALLY amazing when it's completely paid for by the school! What is even MORE amazing was what he studied to get all this, but I digress (again).
**You like how I left them wondering there?
"OK! I'm going! Just don't start laughing again!
"I HEARD THAT!**
ANYway:
Like I said, Robert was completing his first round of degrees & had started grad school but, lo & behold, he found himself going brain dead from all the pressure! This is not an uncommon thing at most any school, but you saw it a lot at Rice. The problem was that his field didn't usually CARE if you had any issues, & even thrived on making them worse. BUT, when HE told them it was a year off or die, they actually told him "YES!" This was just "NOT DONE!" But they DID!! So he suddenly finds himself on a one year sabbatical from Graduate School & working at Getty Oil!
Now, I had been there about a year, getting settle...Expand for more
d in, & I had a woman that worked for me that was REALLY concerned about the fact that I was single. This was just unacceptable & she spent a lot of her time trying to fix me up. I was grateful, but I didn't really need the help, & certainly wasn't concerned about my marital status.
I suppose I should mention in here that I had also been having some health issues & had been checked from head to toe, starting out with "I believe you have a brain tumor" down! The issues with me, my health, & the health industry in America, is a COMPLETELY other BOOK,
*Don't EVEN start!*
so suffice it to say, I have been battling it all ever since the end of the '70's on. I've had both excellent doctors who saved my life more then a few times. But more incredibly bad treatment by some incredibly arrogant doctors who almost killed me. Thankfully, new research & the advancement of technology is reaching a point where some of my problems cna finally being diagnosed.
I have had some things that actually COULD be diagnosed (like breast cancer-7 years out) & some could even be fixed (like, um, ok I can't think of one now, but I'll get back to you if I do). Hey, I've learned it's all a matter of perspective. One woman's slightly sprained ankle could be anther's cause for an ambulance and 18 hours in a waiting room! Either way, you gotta laugh! Laughter is the best medicine for EVERYthing!
The point is that I had other things to think about, ya know? By this point I had lost 80% use of my left side and about 20% of the right and was walking around with a cane. And it wasn't even a very cool cane. NO, it was one of those 'institute' looking things with 4 little feet on it called a 'Quadri-poise cane. Boring! (The weakness got much better, btw, so not to worry.)
So...the stage is set. I am living a long ways from home, doing something I never expected to do, much less well enough to merit all this attention, and Robert was the only person we are aware of who was given a sabatical from Rice University so he could get his head together, certainly never expecting to work for an oil company!
Then one day, out of nowhere, my matchmaker friend talks me into going down the 2 floors to the new break room. I was using the 'ugly stick' cane by this time, so it always took some consideration before I felt I actually needed to GO somewhere, but I said, "Ok", and off we went. She went on ahead and found us a chair at the ONLY table with vacant chairs in the room, though it had one guy sitting at it, so she asked if we could join him. Then, she came to help me with my tray and I hobbled over to the table and I looked at him and he looked at me, and he turned bright red and ran out of the room like a rabbit!!!
"Hmmmm!" I thought. "Do I have a hole in my head or something?" I mean, yeah, I have a cane and, yeah, sometimes a guy has to help me navigate the elevator doors, but they always seem ready to jump to my assistance, so I figured I was not completely hideous. I had not had any damage to my face or anything. OK, whatever! The next day, she talks me into it again (and I found out later that she really did not know him or have anything to do with this, fyi), and I'm not one to back off over something like that, so we do it again, and he's there again, no other tables available, the whole thing! But this time he stays, even if he does have a totally panic stricken look on his face. Other people join us and we are all talking about trivial stuff, when I mentioned that my car needed work, hoping for help finding someone since I knew NObody there. Robert speaks right up and, as if he is being maneuvered like a puppet says, "Why I'd be happy to come up and look at it for you!" We are all looking at him a bit strangely, but I am also not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I said, "Ok", again (my conversation skills lacked something, now that I look back on it.).
Now, one other bit of information you might want, just to add to the GIANT pile of 'coincidences' so far, is that Robert HATES to work on cars! I mean he HATES it! It isn't just a passing distaste, he really avoids it at all cost, which explains the 'puppet' thing, AND the fact that he kept trying to look at his own lips because he couldn't believe they were speaking without his consent.
That night he came up the my house, as promised, and started working on the car. By this point, I am thinking he is REALLY, well, hot! He certainly looked great in a suit
*Yes, REALLY!
All men do, like it or not! I mean we all grew up with guys trying to get away from the whole suit and tie thing but the bottom line is I have never seen a guy who didn't look great in a suit! Why fight this...
WHAT!!!! WHO CARES? You are asking ME who CARES?
Well, NO ONE, THAT'S WHO!!*
*Oh.*
*heh, er, sorry*
Where was I? Oh, he came to the house, he worked on the car, and we began to chat, surprising as that may be. He tells me he just finished his Bachelors at Rice and about the sabbatical. I realize that Rice is not an easy school to get into much less graduate from, and he's talking about a 'leave of absence' from GRAD SCHOOL? So I ask the obvious next question, "What was your Major?"
"Well actually, I got two. One in Chemistry and one in Physics." My eyes sort of glazed over while I pondered this. Those two areas of study, especially Physics, are not something one hears often. I said, "AAHH! You like to work with the very, VERY small! So what are you going to grad school to study?" "His brow kind of furrowed and he looked as if this question had been something he had spent a great deal of time worrying about. Then he said, "Well, I couldn't decide between Chemistry and Physics so I got a degree in both. When I was granted a fellowship to grad school there I HAD to choose, so I went with Nuclear Physics because chemistry had been too easy. I figured I could probably keep up with that in my spare time."
0.0
And we FINALLY come to the culminating moments for both of us. For me it was how he'd said it all. There was no guile or arrogance or even a HINT, I soon discovered, of having a CLUE that this talent might not be the same for everyone, was probably when I fell for him hook line AND sinker! Finally, someone I could RELATE to!
For him, I was the first girl he'd ever met who didn't just fall all over him when they heard what he studied. I may have been the first girl who knew what a nuclear physicist was. He
I helped him get thru his Masters and PhD in Nuclear Physics at Rice University. During that time we got married and had our 1st and 2nd daughters (13 mos apart-yes, we are brain dead).
I stopped work at what was by now Texaco before my first daughter, Rachel, was born in 1986 and never looked back. Haley was my 2nd child, born in 1987. We got Robert thru grad school (not just a job, an indenture!) and he went to work at...TEXACO! (and around we go). He worked in R&D doing cool cutting edge stuff with scanners and MRI's, getting to fiddle with all the COOLest knobs & I played dolls with the girls. I had another daughter, Molly, in 1991. It was great!!
I get to roll around in an electric wheel chair now and have even managed to break my youngest's toe! The older ones are too quick for me but I'm still trying (heheheh). I'm pretty good and can almost thread a needle with it, which is a good thing because most stores have no clue how to space things and it is often like an obstacle course, esp. where we live now (see below) with all the old buildings and streets. Once I got the chair I was reborn...I could SHOP!!!
In 2003, Robert (aka Dr. Bob) took a job with a company working with the government in Washington DC and we now live in Fredericksburg, VA. We loved Houston and will always be Texans, but we love it here too. Its nice to have seasons again. The girls got to see snow for the first time and it is just beautiful here. Lots of trees and topography! F'burg is a major tourist area with lots of history and antique stores, too.
Rachel attends Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond and has two majors-English and Psychology with plans to go on to her Doctorate in one of them-but I suggest you look for books by Rachel Moss soon.
Haley attends the University of Mary Washington (UMW....duh) here in F'burg and is majoring in Religion with plans to go in to Biblical Archaeology-(look out Indiana Jones) Both are excellent schools and we are so proud of them. They both graduated from high school with honors and have been on the Dean's List. Haley actually (and FINALLY) goofed off for the first time in her life after surviving Governor's School in high school here (think of the hardest honors/gifted program on steroids) during her first year of college, but she has gotten back to her usual manic, must know all, see all, or die, mode and is going great.
Molly is an actress and was accepted in to a very tough acting school here which she attends along with regular high school. She has done some run-way modeling for Lord & Taylor's but at 5'7, is barely tall enough to model (& isn't INto it anyway). But, they "like her for print work" so you may see her in an ad some day. This has been a ton of fun. She is such a comedienne/drama queen, its like high stress, high maintenance, but high rewards all the time. Molly never does anything small. I'm just happy she's made it to her senior year alive!
Robert has done as much as he can to make it possible for me to save some of my music for 'posterity' and that works for me. I have no doubt marrying him and having the daughters we had were my biggest and most important "duties" for God. He knows it has, and will always take all my strength and passion to advocate for them and make sure they can become what He means for them. One of my nephews, Chris Stephens, is a musician and has a song used in The Matrix (WAY cool!). Look for him.
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