My love of music started in Paris in the 3rd grade with classical piano lessons. My love of movies and theater also began then with multiple movie exposure to 50s epic films: Rob Roy, Demetrius and the Gladiators, and Désirée among others. In 4th grade my most treasured possession was a thrilling collection of Lone Ranger records which I memorized. If you were particularly simpatico, I’d bring you to my 3rd floor bedroom and play them for you. I also had a brief appearance in Max Ophuls’ film, Lola Montès, where I spoke one sentence, earned $15, and bought my first pair of riding pants. The 5th grade was spent in medieval studies and theatrical performances which required my recitation of Tennyson’s melodramatic and long poem, The Lady of Shalott. My first crush on an actor developed in the 6th grade — Jacques Sernas as Paris in Helen of Troy, a movie that made an indelible impression.
Growing up, I lived in Lourenco Marques (now Maputo in Mozambique), Bremen, Paris, Berlin, Washington, D.C., Bonn for several summers, Paris again, and Budapest. Moving to the West Coast, I migrated north from Riverside, to San Francisco where my son was born, to Portland, and finally to Seattle where I have lived for forty plus years. Travel has always been an integral part of my life, and I missed it while under interdiction from Covid-19. I have, thankfully, resumed traveling again.
I had a checkered work career beginning with summer stints at the State Department and several US Embassies, most memorably at the Embassy in Cairo, when I was in high school and college. I worked at the Reader’s Digest in Paris, the World Affairs Council and the County Welfare Department, both in Riverside, started a child-parent cooperative, NE Indoor Park, in Portland which exists today, owned a children’s bookstore, Alligator Tooth Popsicles in Seattle, and worked in architecture and insurance companies. My most fulfilling work was as the co-owner and then sole owner of a well known coffeehouse/cafe, Still Life in Fremont, for almost eighteen years, and owner of a smaller cafe, Still Life on the Ave, for two years.
My interests are broad, and I have enjoyed my progress through the different worlds of music, literature, film, gardening, photography, and art. My childhood urge to share my pleasure in the Lone Ranger records has expanded considerably over the years, and I now have the free time and inclination to write about many years of evolving and compelling interests gained through self-education and exposure. It is always advisable to write about things you actually know a little something about and have direct experience with, and so I am writing these pieces in the spirit of sharing, and to entertain and amuse.