Sharon Bowers:  

Here's the reader's digest, cliff notes version of the last 40 years of Sharon Goff (married name Bowers). More or less. I didn't have many friends in high school, but the few I had made up for the many I didn't. I think my shyness was taken for being "stand-offish, but I realize now, after all these years, I just didn't know where I fit in. Forty years later I'm really only still friends and in touch with one person from high school. (Dennis, you know who you are). Some of my most memorable moments were during my senior year and my "hippie, flower children" friends. (I was really hoping that Yorktown would have a 40th Reunion but wasn't surprised that it didn't happen). I think Mr. Shelton for English and Ms. Skirbunt for Government, were the most influential teachers in my life. Mr. Shelton encouraged me to write and think and Ms. Skirbunt made government class fun and understandable. We won't bring up what we learned in Humanties class with Matt. LOL After high school I went to Shenandoah College in Winchester, VA. After college I worked at Arlington Hospital in the ER, got married, had two boys, Andrew and Wesley (five years apart), starting working at Social Security Administration, after 34 years I retired on January 3, 2014. Learned to ski, went to Europe and got to ski all over the U.S. My husband Mike and I got divorced in 1983. Lots of drama, tears and heartache raising my boys alone. I lost my house in Arlington to a fire (caused my some pre-pubescent juvenile delinquents that broke into my home, trashed the hell out of everything we owned and then set it on fire). It took me eight months to clean up the mess, sell the house and then we moved to Fairfax (Annandale) where I've lived since 1991. I still cry when I think about the fire. I wouldn't wish an experience that awful on my worst enemy. (Well, maybe my worst enemy). Anyway, I survived the divorce, the fire and my boys growing up without killing or disowning them (finally) and now consider my kid's my best friends. I even managed to forgive and forget and became friend's again with my ex-husband before he died in 2003. I've learned how to let go of a lot of my anger, grief and disappointments from my past, and I'm trying to stop wishing for "do-over's" to fix what I didn't know I was screwing up at the time. Again, part of growing up and moving on. One of the top three best things in my life happened ten years ago when I learned to ride a motorcycle, (my passion, th...Expand for more