Vickey Garner:  

After graduating in June 1975 I worked at High's Ice Cream as my fist job before going to college at William and Mary. I started as a math major but calculus changed my mind after freshman year. I became an elementary education major ONLY because my roommate Beth was and I was too chicken to do anything on my own. Best friends at college were Beth, Cary, Kathy. Lisa, Patty. Paula and Lisa's boyfriend Bob. No boyfriends in high school no boyfriends in college. I graduated with BA in May 1979 and cried all the rest of May when I had to go home from Williamsburg and my college friends. Now I actually had to teach damn it. I applied to Portsmouth Public Schools and taught fifth grade (6th once) at Hodges Manor for 1987. No boyfriend until Daddy died and I finally had paid for my car and could now afford rent on a small one bedroom apartment on Washington Street in Olde Towne. My future husband moved into the apartment across from me and we met in the parking lot one day.He was in the Coast Guard, 3 years younger than me and I went out with him once before I found out. I told him no but he gave me red roses everyday until I gave in. One thing led to another..got engaged, married in Wren Chapel, honeymoon at Little Palm Island in the Keys. Everything great..in love and happy. Spent one more year in Portsmouth before we were transferred to Valdez Alaska for three years. Beautiful Little Switzerland. Three years of nonstop adventure...fishing for halibut and salmon. bear and moose and caribou close encounters, northern lights, blizzards, 30 below. 500 inches of snow, white water rafting, snow machining, four wheeling . poker runs. teaching 5th and 6th grades at Hermon Hutchins Elem School. a golden retriever named Charley, my first baby, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, washing otters and cormorants with Dawn, NTSB testify. Anchorage, Fairbanks, Denali, Mount McKinley. Arctic circle. salmon bakes, copper mining ghost towns, raindeer sausage, strippers at the Alaska Bush company and fun visits to Hawaii twice to see Oahu and the volcanoes on the Bid Island. Next two years spent in Charleston SC while husband was on ship for weeks and sexually harassing a young female officer on board his ship. He was now a LT and XO in the buoy tender. Me and Charley left alone taking graduate classes at the Citadel and worried about my mom's health. Charley died after a seizure and we got Chelsey, a reddish golden retriever. She was sweet but stupid.I surprised my husband with a trip to Asheville and tee times for his birthday weekend and took him to the airport on Saturday AM as the surprise BD of his life. Not enough to keep him though. Few kisses because he wa...Expand for more