Sherry Meske:  

Hmmm....where to start? I guess from when I left school. (some of you may possibly remember that I got married in January of 1975 while I was a Junior in high school. No, I wasn't pregnant - I just wanted to get the heck away from home.) In late '76, I moved to Yakima with my husband and we had a son, Joshua, in 1977. In 1978, we moved to Kennewick to follow work. In 1979 a daughter, Carianne, was added to the family and Daniel followed in 1981. In October of '82, I divorced my husband and moved back to the Bonney Lake/Sumner area. I ended up raising the kids pretty much by myself, which was tough, but rewarding. I had a local boyfriend for 13 years during this time and I'd have to say he helped raise the kids too. The boyfriend decided drugs were more important than our relationship though, so it ended with hard feelings on his side in late 1998. I have decided since then that I would rather be alone than deal with that kind of crap again. I apparently have had bad taste in men. Probably because I was always attracted to the 'bad' boy. That's what I grew up with since my brothers (Bill, Steve and Jack) were wild. I don't need a man to feel like my life is complete, though sometimes it would be nice to have someone to do things with instead of just my lady friends. God didn't make many men who would find it easy to deal with me though because I am independent, opinionated, blunt, brash and have balls the size of North America. (Told you I was brash.) It's tough for most men to deal with a tough type of woman, but I've had to be tough. Life hasn't always been kind, which most of you can probably relate to. I had to be tough to raise three kids with little help from anyone. In 1999 my youngest son, Danny, was injured in a foolish kid accident and received severe head injuries. After a week in Harborview, I ended up having to decide to take him off life support. Within moments, he died. The older two kids had already left home and I found myself really alone for the first time in my life. I was no longer a full-time mother, I was empty-nested and I was trying to figure out how to make it through the grief of losing a child. I remember very little of the next two and a half years of my life except that I survived. Dealing with the grief associated with the loss of a child is MAJOR tough. During this 'recovery period' I remember I did a lot of camping alone and hiking all over Mt. Rainier, but other than that, this time is rather a blank in my mind. I did some traveling for a few years and slowly, but surely, found myself again and figured out how to restructure my life. In about 2003, a long time friend introduced me to a form of living history and I became active with that and I love it. I participate in Black Powder or Mt. Man Rendezvous events where we recreate the American historic period of about 1760 to 1840. We compete with black powder guns and we even throw tomahawks and knives during the competitions. I have a blast at the events. You won't meet a nicer bunch ...Expand for more