Angela (Angel) Gott:  

School I did my freshman year in Cinti- in a Catholic boarding school and one year was enough. I really was so happy to get to Westport for the next 3 years. I really did not have to "work" hard academically that much at Westport after earning the 6 credits I got in the boarding school and the solid studying skills I also acquired in boarding school. I wound up with 23 1/2 credits with Westport H.S. and I feel I got a well-rounded education that was useful in preparing me for doing college-level work. Plane Geometry was the only class I hated. I always "liked" going to school and Westport was really a great school with dedicated and interested teachers for the most part. When I got to teach for a year in Western N.Y. while getting a Masters, I got to see what it was like from the other side. The teachers I had at Westport served as a good example to follow. Where I went to high school influenced where I wanted to go to college. Most of the class went to UK or to WKU and I am glad I went to WKU because it was small and personal and I needed that mentoring and small classes with tenured professors to succeed. WKU gave me everything I needed and then some. The semester I had at UK as a Junior showed me how impersonal and bureaucratic huge Universities can be and I realized that had I started out at UK, I probably would not have graduated in 4 years or even graduated at all. While I made great grades at UK and had the best semester in my grades achieved at UK, in all 4 years of college, I know I graduated largely because of the way WKU goes out of its way to help students succeed and I just didn't get that level of attention or commitment or mentoring at UK at all. UK did prepare me for what to expect when I got to SUNY Buffalo though for Graduate and Law School. I adjusted easier because I had already been to a huge "factory" like school and knew how to get out of it what I needed to, etc. Workplace-- I wrote this in 2008 when I still worked at Borders Books so I changed from present tense, to past tense and changed it. New version: All I really wanted to do with my life was go to college "forever", and "travel the world" and get a law degree among other degrees-- so that I'd know how to use it if I had to--Lawyers seem to "rule the world" so it looked like a useful body of knowledge to acquire and I did earn the JD in Law from SUNY Buffalo. Working was always been a means to be able to travel. Going to school in Denmark for a year gave me access to 33 countries and living in CA has moved that up to 90 countries and all 50 states! I did not want to get tied into a career or be stuck with a job I hated and so I changed jobs and moved around and have always been able to juggle jobs while going to school and find "survival" jobs as needed. Borders Books was a fun place to work for 8 years until it closed in bankruptcy in 2011 as we all turned 60. I liked the fixed schedule and the short commute and the benefits were great too. Since I love to read books and go to movies, Borders Books kept me going with these activities. Since I am really into news and politics, Borders Books kept me up to date with all its newspapers and magazines. The job did not pay well, not even a living wage, but I was never really driven to earn a lot of money or to acquire a lot of assets. I'd rather be happy working than unhappy and bored, but rich!!!! So for me, Borders Books was really a great job to have and I was very sad when it closed in bankruptcy two years after our 2009 40th Class Reunion. Everything about working at Borders Books really "worked" for me!!! 7/26/09 If you are still reading--I will be coming to Louisville for the 40th Reunion--attending all events, looking forward to seeing all--hope most show up for it. The planners went to a lot of trouble and those locals really should do their utmost to attend. It should be a great time and the more the merrier. I am still at Borders, still reading lots of books, very glad how the last Nat'l election went, hope we get Universal Health and this country gets "mended" from the damage from the previous 8 years, etc. I am only a yahoo away angelagott and would love to hear from Y'all. Angel January 27, 2018 Senior Years in semi- retirement now My email in yahoo is still angelagott, still the same and would enjoy hearing from anyone who cares to contact me. I plan to come to the 50th Westport HS Reunion in 2019 and I do hope it will NOT be set in Winter. It is already a hassle enough to fly. Winter takes it to a harder level. I really thought the first SAT after Labor Day weekend was over, was perfect timing which is when our 40th was held. It wasn't too hot or too cold and not much else to compete against people attending. If you hold it in May/June there are family events, school events, weddings, etc. People vacation in the summer so after Labor Day really is good planning--and before University homecomings happen also. So it's about 9 years later, 2018 and I manage two self-storage facilities. I got into this industry in 2014. Borders Books closed in June 2011 and I still miss working there. 2011-2014 were pretty wretched years due to the very real age discrimination in hiring. But this is a great retirement job since it is solitary and allows for emailing, reading, watching shows on the computer, working on your own projects, and is not that difficult to do either. Much of the time I see no one-- get a few calls, process payments from incoming mail and that's it. So if you can get onboard with self-storage, it's a nice source of additional income in retirement. I work 31 hours a week. I will probably do this until age 70 and then I will get Social Security and get an old van and do some camping and road trips. I have the NPS Parks pass and would like to see some of the Canadian Provincial Parks too. I was last in Louisville for our Class year birthday in October 2011. I do not get paid time off so it takes a lot of planning to travel. I am so thankful I did all the traveling back when I could still climb the trails and switchbacks and "rough it" on a shoestring. Just after Labor Day, is good for the reunion as airfares are lowest then. Most of us "seniors" have to be mindful of our retirement dollars since the cost of living, cost of Medicare, cost of just about everything is so much higher now. This site, Classmates, has made the Westport HS yearbooks available to look at, page by page online for free. I went back and looked at the very first yearbooks to see how Westport opened and expanded and learned a lot of background that I did not know since I only got there in 10th grade, Fall 1966. Everyone should try to get as much out of this site as possible. I did not pay or upgrade but I utilize what is there to use for free. Looking through all the old yearbooks was really a lot of fun too. I feel lucky I somehow managed to find Marin County when I did in my mid-30s and managed to find a way to remain in this beautiful Northern CA countryside, despite low earnings. In May 2017, I basically "won the lottery" with an apartment in public housing for seniors which is tied to my income. The cost of housing in most of the country is absolutely outrageous and many boomer generation seniors will experience homelessness. Many of them will be women because most of us if not all of us were subjected to sex discrimination in pay & promotions throughout our work lives. Also our generation, many of us were in and out of marriages, struggling as single parents, then taking care of our own parents and not able to save for retirement either. This fell heaviest on our women classmates. I never married, never had children to raise and I honestly have no regrets. But some of us are likely even raising grand-kids, or trying to pay for their college access. So, I feel I escaped a lot of struggle & hardship, simply by remaining single and childless. I was 25 when I took Family Law and it was 1976 when a lot of our classmates were going through their first divorces. So that was the first wake up call, to avoid what I was seeing in my caselaw textbooks. Then when Ronald Reagan created the changes in tax law and social security, that is when I realized at age 30 I would likely never be able to afford to raise children in this country. I certainly knew I did not want to try to raise children on Section 8 and in poverty. The changes in 1983 in Social Security were designed to go into affect for our boomer generation, raising the full retirement age to...Expand for more