Mary Warren:  

Over the last million years since graduation, I've worked at a number of jobs in a variety of fields. I've found so many niches that I don't really belong in one specifc one. But I surely did have fun at all the places I've worked! At this point in my life, I've given up the career/management stuff and moved into simple employment, get the paycheck and, hopefully, glide gently through these last working years into The Retirement Zone. As far as children, there are two. A manchild, who graduated from Rolla and is an environmental-geochemist working in St. Louis. He married a lawyer, and they have one incredible child...so I'm a Grandma, and I love it! My girlchild attended 6 years (really) of college with a degree in nothing (true), and is now an ophthalmic technician. She's married to a welder; no children...except for a maniac dog and 3 cats. She and her hubby travel a lot, and are getting ready to go to Spain, Portugal and France. Must be nice. My travels involve to and from work. I have four animals at this point in my life: 3 cats and a husband. While I love dogs and have had a couple of them in the past, I found it's easier with my lifestyle to have cats...less dependent as dogs...meaning I don't have to get up 7 times every night when it's raining, sleeting or freezing cold to let them out...and wait, falling asleep standing up with head on back door, until they bark to come in. I have to have my four-legged friends, otherwise I'd have no one to talk to. :-) I think a lot about the folks I went to grade school with because, after all, most of us spent 9 school years together. Yikes! That's unheard of these days! I always wonder what all of them are up to. I get nostalgic because the grade school is gone, the parish is gone, even the house I grew up in has been torn down. Oh hell, let's face it: I'm nostalgic because I'm getting OLD. Remembering the time of our youth and realizing just how good we had it (that's my current take on the past), I suppose I want to grasp that feeling again, even if it's short-lived. I am fortunate that sometimes an old song will suddenly make me remember summers as a child. I can almost smell the air and feel the actual moment. Somet...Expand for more