Sharon Himsl:  

After graduation I attended Western in Bellingham. Kathleen Miller was my roommate. We spent a lot of time talking about God and the meaning of life (be sure to read Kathy's story). I was so shy in those days. Just figuring out who Sharon was seemed daunting enough. I did eventually settle on Education and enjoyed tutoring elementary kids one quarter. But it was not meant to be. That summer I reconnected with my old boyfriend Vince Himsl, dropped out of school to work, and married the following summer on a weekend pass (he'd joined the Air Force). I stuffed our wedding gifts into 7 boxes and flew to meet him in Biloxi, Mississippi the following week. Thrilled with our new apartment (a converted home right across from the beach), I watched our life turn on a dime as we spent our second night together huddled in a base shelter. Hurricane Camille ravished the gulf coast like a raging lion. More than 100 people died in our area alone. We found ourselves making food and water runs and helping a couple (also newlyweds) dig out belongings from their gutted out basement apartment. The apartment building next to us was a skeleton, barely standing. A ship lay next to it. Rubble was everywhere. Our apartment was intact, as was our cheap $300 Corvair with the rusted out bottom. Our ring bearer's pillow, from the one box I had opened, was propped in the window soaking wet. Clearly, our lives had been spared. We spent the next four years traveling throughout the south and southwest, including Germany. I worked at the phone company as a telephone operator, transferring every time Vince got new orders. I could say more about the civil unrest and racism I witnessed there in the deep south in the 1970s. Suffice it to say, it was a personal wake-up call as to the social injustices ...Expand for more