Carol Forbess:
CLASS OF 1968
Central High SchoolClass of 1968
San angelo, TX
Carol's Story
Recent update! Check us out on youtube. sjhs pink glove dance. I am the one who is 2nd out the front door. It reminds me so clearly why I didn't make Tex-anns when I tried out!
I live in Maine and am a middle school guidance counselor. I married Rick Forbess from Coleman in 1973 and am still happily married. We have 2 daughters--Rachel, who is a nurse practitioner in Salem, Massachusetts and Alison, who has a degree in history from University of Southern Maine but is following a career in working with kids with autism. Getting a history degree means graduate school, and that is something she can pay for. We backpack a lot --did a section of the AT in Maine this summer. We are die hard liberals and disgusted with the Bush administration. We have lived in Maine since 1980 and love it.
I am running now and just did a 10K race (The Beach to Beacon) in Cape Elizabeth. I was beaten by 3,880 others, but I finished. If I can do that (get in running shape again) after not running for 20 years, anyone can. My parents just moved to Maine, so I guess our yearly trips back to Texas will come to a halt. I will miss the barbeque and Mexican food.
January 2008: We have had lots of snow this December--moreso than usual, and it was 15 below zero the other morning. We have a long driveway, and I go out in the morning around 5:30 am to get the newspaper, and most mornings it is just beautiful--dark sky full of stars, cold and quiet. I have an astronomy club at school so I know a little about the constellations, and I particularly love Orion. We live on a ridge in the country so there is no light pollution. It is going to warm up to the 40's next week though. Sometimes I long for warm temperatures.
Workplace
I have always been in education--elementary teacher/jr. high teacher and for the most part middle school guidance counselor--ministering to the needs of the misguided youth of this small rural town. I love the rebels and unique artsy types. I work with some great people, and we laugh all the time. I love my career.
Now it is February 2009--we got a freaking blizzard last night, and after a week off for Feb vacation I had a snow day from school today. I had to go out and shovel since my husband is away on business. It is heavy wet snow. The banks on the side of the drive are up past my waist. I am ready for spring. We have done some cross country skiing lately though, and that is nice. I can walk down my field and through the woods to a snow mobile trail and follow that.
Happy about Obama and hoping the economy improves. I am expecting a new grandson, Griffin, in a week. The grandchildren are fun.I like going to the classmates site and reading about other people. It was so long ago, but as I tell my students, you just don't forget--well, not everything anyway. I like living up here--New England is quite nice. I am aware that Esta Dooley moved to Kathmandu, Nepal. I would love to hear her stories. My older daughter spent a summer there doing medical work. Did I mention how much snow we have had lately? We are due another storm next week. spring will come in May and that will be wonderful. The summers are just gorgeous as are the falls. There are 2 apple orchards and 2 blueberry farms on my road, so the rural life is nice. We are an hour and a half from Boston, 1 hr from the NH Mts and 20 minutes from the beach, but swimming in Maine waters is not so much fun like South Padre. One thing I have discovered, however, is remembering how beautiful West Texas is. I have only been back a couple of times since 1980 (my parents retired to East Texas), and each time I was really impressed with the horizon to horizon views. Lots of forests up here.
sept 09. I just read the best book--Born to Run. It has prompted me to train for a half marathon. Everyone should read it!
January 2010---Okay so I recently saw Avatar in 3D at the area IMAX theatre. I want to make the transformation and be Na'vi. I am really tired of news and although I have been addicted to NPR for 29 years, I want a hiatus. I will just play Scrabble on the internet and not read msnbc.com or cnn.com. I won't give up Perezhilton yet. It is a palate cleanser for the mind.
march 2014. Where does the time go? Still working. 5 grandchildren. Too much snow. Really cold winter, but no dust storms on the horizon. Enjoying life and remembering the days back when in San Angelo. I hope everyone is doing well and happy. I still feel like I did back then and still laugh a lot, but this body is aging! My happiest times are backpacking with my husband and hanging out with my daughters and grandchildren up in the Maine woods--loons on the ponds and beautiful views. And of course the summer brings Sam Adams Summer Ale--my favorite.
September 2022: Tempus Fugit. My mom lived with us for 15 years and died on Feb 14 here at home, in the apartment she added to our house. She was actually very low maintenance and was in top shape physically and mentally up until two weeks before her death at 100. It wasn’t easy for us all the time though because she didn’t hold back criticism and thought me to be a dreamer who wore rose colored glasses, and managing her investment portfolios gave her the greatest pleasure. Life is life. Both daughters are divorced, one remarried, both happy as far as I can tell and are well educated and have excellent careers. We have five grandchildren (15, 14, 13, 11, 9) with whom we spend a great deal of time and take traveling. They will be grown in a hurry. Getting a new telescope soon.
1/10/2023
Winter. No snow. We have lived in Maine 42 years, and the last ten or so we have had much less snow than before. When we moved to Caribou in 1980, we had TONS of snow and 30 below zero winters. We learned to cross country ski and even years later did some winter camping after skiing in to cabins in the woods of Baxter State Park. We have lived in southern Maine for 37 years, and for 32 of those years I worked at the local junior high. We had both winter break in February and spring break in April. The Friday before we got out for winter break we always had competition snow sculptures by teams of kids. The last 10 years I worked there we never had enough snow for that. April break was when we would go to East Texas to visit my parents, and there was usually snow on the ground here. No more does that happen. Right now we have patchy snow and are predicted to get rain. It’s cold, 27-35, but not enough snow to xcountry ski or snow shoe unless you go up to the mts. Climate change is real. I have good friends who live in northern calif (Santa Rosa area), and they live on a cliff overlooking the Pacific (stunningly beautiful), but their town is in the Russian River valley, and they are sending us videos of the flooding. Northern California is absolutely gorgeous, especially near the ocean. I worry about the future for my grandchildren. While I generally read the Boston Globe, NYT, and Portland newspapers daily, I am going to try to go in a news blackout because of the moronic horrible republicans in Congress. Engaging in political stunts rather than dealing with the multiple crises in our country. Heading to Eleuthera for a couple of weeks. On another note, the winning Megamillions lottery ticket was bought in a “town” about five miles from us at a place where we buy gas occasionally. Lebanon Maine is really just a bunch of houses in the woods on winding country roads. There are a couple of gas station convenience stores. People call it lawless Lebanon. They have no police force and use the County Sheriff for calls. Our electrician, a Renaissance man if there ever was one, lives there.
Eleuthera: an island in the Bahamas. It’s 111 or so miles long and about 1 1/2 miles wide. It is not for everyone as it doesn’t have big resorts. We have always stayed in the Palmetto Point area in the center part of the island and rent a cottage. There are a handful of “resorts” with cottages to rent in other areas but they are more expensive. The beaches are stunning and never crowd...Expand for more
ed. Snorkeling is good, funky cafes. Power goes out intermittently. Not the best road (the queens highway) is the only main road that runs down the island. The people are sooo friendly, andit seems that all the residents know each other, if you are cool with not luxurious accommodations (ac everywhere though) , you should check out this great place.
Sweet Jesus I write too much on this. I don’t do Facebook or Instagram and plan to stop writing here as I’m sure it is of no interest to others. Anyway, I do wish I was on the site with people I went through school with since graduating early put me between worlds, so to speak. Time just flies. We have crappy snow right now. I love to have a glass of wine while I cook and listen to books on audible. My happy place. My mom died a year ago tomorrow, and I miss cooking for her as she appreciated it. I hope everyone I knew in school is happy and doing well.
As I mentioned earlier, my mother lived with us for fifteen years until dying Feb 2022 here at home. She was almost 101. She was pretty low maintenance as she was in great shape mentally until she died and good shape physically until a couple of weeks before. It wasn’t easy though, but you just do what you need to do, and I don’t regret it. People need to have family around as you age. She was a good mother. Not demonstrably affectionate but a solid mother, and she left us money and told us to travel. We are doing that. It was great take our daughters and their families to Tucson, and I am glad for a break from them. Five kids, three of them teenagers and one on the cusp, reminds me how thankful I am I am not raising my grandchildren. I saw this often in my job, and I always had the greatest empathy for grandparents in that situation. As I would tell my interns, never make an assumption about people, whether they have lots of money or few remaining teeth due to meth use. There’s a lot to a persons life story and character. Except Trump supporters. I make assumptions about them, Amsterdam to Budapest is next on the list of travel. Coming up soon,
Biked through a windmill site and village in Amsterdam and that was cool but didn’t see any if the city. The middle Rhine was absolutely beautiful with forested and vineyard covered hillsides and small villages with medieval churches and castles all along the way. Old old castles. The small villages where we wandered around and had great beer and sausages were fun. Nuremberg and all the Nazi places was sobering . Houses in the town had plaques in the sidewalk saying who lived there and when they were taken by Nazis and died in Auschwitz or other camps. So very sad. Our guide was appalled that there are neo Nazis parading around in America. I’ve seen enough cathedrals for a lifetime, but the one in Passau was incredibly stunning in its beauty. The talent in art, in painting and sculpture amazes me. So many things were destroyed by allied bombing in WWII but were rebuilt to look the same. The cathedrals were spared and look incredible, there were Roman walls still standing. Vienna was beautiful, and we took a bike tour in the countryside around it to an old Abbey. (The church had all the money back in the 1200s as today, and the abbeys are everywhere.). Touring a winery and having a wine tasting in Austria was of course great. Budapest was amazing. It’s good to be home though.
It’s hot here. July 6th. Okay, three days of heat amidst so freaking much rain this summer. I’m not complaining. It’s supposed to be back in the 70s by Monday I think, tomorrow is our 50th wedding anniversary. I can’t believe how quickly it has all gone. We are so fortunate to have found each other and to be able to make it work, but I do think we had been married for 20 years before I figured my husband out, he makes me laugh every day. I do feel like I did many years ago, but goodness how the body ages.
It is interesting and sobering to experience how quickly time has passed. Twenty years ago seems like yesterday and in 20 years I will be 92 if I am still living. In pictures of myself I look so old and yet I feel good and am still physically active. Luck of genes I suppose. My husband was a runner for years, and his influence has kept me going, My childhood life was spent with summer vacations camping in Colorado. My folks liked to fish so that is where we went. When I married my husband, we kept up the tradition, and all our vacations were spent camping. Moving to Maine allowed us to expand those experiences. We met people who backpacked, and we learned from them and had some great trips with them. They rode their bicycles from Seattle to the Maine coast, but we didn’t attempt that and only last year bought bikes.. We learned to cross country ski and snow shoe and do some winter camping. Now I prefer a bed (even in a wood stove heated cabin with gas lamps and bringing your own water) to sleeping on the ground. The climate up here is so conducive to outdoor activities. We do get some warm and humid days, but we still just rely on fans to cool us although we are getting a heat pump installed. I worry about climate change and can’t fathom living in the southwest even with its beauty. The mts in NH are just an hour away, and there are so many beautiful trails. I just want to keep in shape as long as I can. Weather considering. we have had so much rain this summer. It is raining steadily now, and I want sun for the solar panels to lower my electricity bills.
Late August often brings on a slight feeling of melancholy to me. Perhaps it is because I have lived my entire life on a school year calendar, and late August signals the end of summer vacation and the beginning of a new school year. I loved my career and looked forward to each new year, but late August reminds me of the brevity of life, The light is different. The birds are different. The crows cawing seem like they are calling their friends to travel away and saying goodbye to the summer. The air is cooler and there are moments of fall like temps. I am going up north tomorrow with my girlfriends for a treehouse getaway. They are all still working (one left teaching and has a thriving beer truck catering business with her husband)). Everyone in education seems so dispirited. Kids behavior is more difficult and parents are awful. A student misbehaves in a way that would call for an out of school suspension, and parents refuse to come get the kid and are belligerent about it. My former son in law, who was an excellent teacher and administrator and was the principal of the middle school m y grandson attends, resigned this summer due to the stress of dealing with parents and outsiders including the Moms For Liberty group—complaining about library books and wanting to demand veto power over curriculum being taught. It’s an outrageous assault on the integrity of educators, he took a job as an intervention specialist in a different district and is very pleased to be out of administration. So many good teachers are leaving the profession due to out of control demanding people who know little about content and the art of teaching. They should just pull their kids out of the public schools and put them in religious schools that teach flat earth theory and worship trump as a living god. Looking forward to the trip north and a hiking. Eating, cooking and winery trip to Italy this fall.
We spent two weeks in Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) with my daughters ex husbands parents. Great times. Norway is beautiful. The Fjords. pulpit Rock. The old cities in these countries are so cool. So old. I could live in Copenhagen.
November. Well Italy was amazing. The hiking was great. The scenery was beautiful. The food was so good. We were in the Emilia Romangna region from Bologna to the Adriatic. So much pasta and wine and olive oil and balsamic vinegar. We saw how parmigiana Reggie cheese was made, and every hike we took led us to a new region and their food specialty. We traveled in a van and then did hikes in the country. I’m glad to be back home.
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