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Doreen Bowie

MY “ART” BIO" FROM CRADLE TO PRESENT DOREEN M. BOWIE

7/7/05

I create this document because, as I work with those who have real demonstrable art in daily life, breath and expression, they may better understand why I have interest, not only in all of the arts, and in support of the arts, but additionally in encouragement of society to participate and join support of the Arts. It is part of why I am here. The beginnings were this way.

My earliest memories of music were with our family, where most were able to sing wonderfully. I remember being held with my face resting on my Dad’s shoulder as he sang such songs as “My Castle in Spain is a Shack in the Lane”, and “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.” in his rich baritone. His voice resonated through my body as he rocked in the old wicker rocking chair, and sang as he patted my back in time to the music. My aunts and uncles all sang and kept beside the radio a stenographer’s notebook with shorthand on one side of the page and the transcribed words on the other side, as new songs became popular on the radio. I thought they had great voices. My Dad told me that my Grandmother had had a beautiful voice, and sang in French. She was from Berne Switzerland. For some reason she developed a rather gravelly voice and that is all I recall, though she taught me the “Little Shepherdess” song in French.
A small 12 base accordion was placed on my lap when I was not quite four years old. When I turned four, I had my first recital, was able to read, play and memorize the music. I could not however read the words yet. When I asked my aunts and uncles to teach me to read the comics, they told me that after I started kindergarten, then started first grade, I would learn to read. I was already reading and playing music, a far more complex process, involving hand-eye coordination.
The next 4 or 5 years, I played at theater amateur nights and always won something, usually first prize (money, a few dollars). I played at various events. I recall being invited (with my Mother) to the major downtown YMCA in Toronto, playing at a dinner. I was half way through dinner and it was time to play. When I was finished playing and got back to Mom and my seat, my dinner was gone. I remember feeling disappointed. There were other places that had unfamiliar names, like the Odd Fellows Hall, Christie Street Veterans Hospital and birthday parties. At the parties I always had to play for musical chairs and other games, and I did not get a chance to play with the other kids.
After a year or so I had a 24 base Hohner Mother of Pearl instrument that was very pretty. At age 5, I was entered into the Canadian National Exhibition Music Competitions in Toronto, in the accordion section, for children under 9. Before the adjudication events, my father showed me the medals that were in glass cases. There were gold silver and bronze medals. He pointed to the gold one and said, “That’s the one you want to win.” I remember saying, “No I like that one better,” pointing to the silver. I do not remember how many children I competed with but I did get the one I liked best. The next two years I competed in the same category and won each year. I have written a little story called “The Fly Bite” about the last event. WWII had started and there were no more music competitions.
In second grade, our teacher was a music-major. She turned our class into a choir, and we sang on a couple of radio stations (CFRB was one of them I think) at Christmas in the days when it was allowed and encouraged at schools to celebrate with traditions and music at special times.
For many years afterwards the accordions got bigger, had couplers and a full 120 base, which was more complex and required broader memorization since the base is not visible, place on the front of the instrument. But then you were/are not supposed to watch your fingers anyway on the keyboard side either. The annual school concert at Leslie Street School was part of my participation. In third grade Miss Jennings our teacher formed our class into a choir. Part of the annual concert was a dramatization of Cinderella by the eighth students. The girls in my class got to dress up as magical fairies, sing and dance around Cinderella as she magically changed from her cinder clothes in to her beautiful gown. I did not get to do it because I played in the school orchestra, and was going to play a solo as well. I had wanted to dance and sing and dress up and pretend. I was missing the fun. At this time I was supposed to practice 2 hours every day after school. Then during the evening my Dad got out his accordion and we were supposed to be having fun. I asked my Dad why he wanted me to play the accordion. He said so I would have a way to earn a living. My thoughts about that are in “The Fly Bite” as well.. I liked singing because it did not require carrying an instrument.
I played in the elementary school orchestra for several years. Eventually the war intruded on all that, and students spent their time collecting newspapers and aluminum to recycle into boxes for shipping food and stuff to our armed forces. But our Choirs were active. During WW II we were strutted all over Toronto to sing at Victory Bond rallies, taken there by our parents who then invested in the bonds. We were all essentially good kids. There was no time for otherwise. We sang uplifting and national anthems , such as “Oh Canada”, “The Maple Leaf Forever”, There’ll Always be an England”, “Rule Britannia”, and others always ending with “God Save the King.” The icy flats (where the toboggans and runnered ice sleds came down hills and across the vast grassy expanse when covered with ice and snow) at Riverdale Park were full of thousands of people. Our massed schools choir was really something sounded great we were told on one occasion. The choir was so big that the PA system did not have enough microphones to pick it up but it was still audible. That area is now a freeway, the Don Valley Parkway.
For Armistice Day or Memorial Day, our whole elementary student body walked from school to the United Church 2 blocks away for a service of remembrance, since our school had no auditorium or gym. For several years for that ceremony, I was asked to read a memorial poem, I guess because they knew that I had stage presence and could speak and project adequately because of both my music experiences and lessons, which had, thanks to Miss Weller and Miss Jennings, included allocution lessons. The very phonetic resonance and mental image of the second verse of that poem excerpt has stayed with me since I knew that both my Grandfather and my Uncle had served and suffered in the trenches and battlefront during that war. The poem excerpt was…”We lay and heard the bullets swish and sing like scythes amidst the garnering. …” In sixth and eighth grade (I skipped 7^th grade) I was in “Miss Tedd’s Choir”, which was in all actuality, the All Toronto Elementary School (K-8) two hundred voice choir which gave a concert each spring at Massey Hall. During all those years of voice instruction, we were taught much about projection, control, emotion, following direction, and harmonizing, which is of great importance in any team process. Of course I could always read music and that was always useful. Much of that instruction was repetition and therefore reinforcement of prior learning, which was very useful.
In eighth grade I wrote and directed a short play for our class. Phoebe Hughes and Evelyn Taylor were in it. I recall that it involved a girl who wore glasses and had an ugly hairdo. The story had something to do with making her more attractive with a better hairdo and taking off her glasses. I laugh as I think about it now. How many doors did she bump into without glasses? Was it unkind? And thoughtless? Phoebe wore glasses. Only recently did I think of that. Evelyn was the beautiful one. The script was full of language in the way that we spoke. Mr. Christopher our teacher told us that we should use proper English (Bless his heart.) We argued with him that THAT was not how kids spoke and it should be written the way the people talk.. I was never certain of the exact outcome but we did not change anything.
Periodically I was invite to birthday parties to play for musical chairs. My last accordion activity of any size was at the commencement exercises from Leslie Street School as an eighth grader. I was going to go to Riverdale Collegiate Institute as a ninth grader. At that time, I wanted to be a chemist, and headed toward the professions.
One of the first events at Riverdale for ninth graders was a Big and Little Sister meeting in the auditorium where new Little Sisters were linked with Big Sisters from the Upper grades, who would serve as guides at school. They asked for volunteers to perform as entertainment. I sang a song I had learned in the All Toronto Choir. It was based on the traditional story of the “Owl and the Pussy Cat.” I have sung that song for each of my children since that time. None of my grandchildren have wanted to bother listening to it. It is not part of their comfortable memories. I always preferred singing to the instrument. I did not have to carry anything. When I was younger, we had to have a “big boy” carry my accordion to school for anything. I did not like that. It was a bother.
During my early years (up to eighth grade), Saturday afternoon was dedicated to the Metropolitan Opera presentation on the radio. Listening to the music with my father, I heard and learned fro Deems Taylor interesting aspects of the opera performed that day, and an interview of the artists in the opera during the assorted intermission. They presented visual images for me that television later broadened. Years later I would experience the “Real Stuff” in Seattle at the Opera House. For several years I had series tickets to the “opera in English, since I knew that that would appeal to my children in a more comprehensive, appealing and understandable manner.
During all high school years, I did not sing or play the accordion. For my 16^th birthday, my Dad bought me a new accordion which I still have and have hardly played since. The purpose was to return to The Royal Accordion Band, led by Eric Mundinger, my former teacher.
In tenth grade I played the role of Betsy, in “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow” at the Riverdale Collegiate’s every four years big all sports, all arts (demonstration of student skills for two evenings) and was the beginning of my thespian efforts.
As a teenager, my Dad took me to see “La Travietta” in Italian in Toronto. We used to listen to the opera each Saturday, from New York City. I was an avid story listener and reader, spending many hours at the library, and reading with the flashlight under the blankets because I was supposed to be asleep.
I loved figure skating as well as many sports, but the figure skating felt good, though I never did have lessons. I watched and practiced. I attended many ice shows. The engagement of the music, story grace of the skating synthesized the figure skating art.
Then “Teenagerism” took over by grade 11 and all was almost lost. I danced a great deal, and participated briefly singing in preparation for a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta but by that time I had graduated from Grade 13 and was in nursing school. Life interrupted the process and distracted me from any of the arts except the art of Nursing. My family moved out of the city and life changed..
In Nursing, we had an All Toronto Student Nurses’ Choir for some reason or other for one major event, on the steps of the old City Hall, which was at the time, the actual City Hall. In a box I have a photo of that choral event. Christmas eve, the Wellesley Hospital tradition was that the student nurses started at the top floor of the hospital, and descending down through the stairwells, out on a floor singing carols and along to another stairwell descending floor by floor was a very moving participatory activity enjoyed by singers, patients and staff.
After I was married I sang in the church choirs wherever we lived; in Leonia New Jersey at All Saints’ Episcopal Church; in Hancock Michigan, at Trinity Episcopal Church across the Lake in Houghton; in Minneapolis Minnesota, at St Andrew’s Episcopal Church where I began singing solo’s occasionally; in Enumclaw, at St Catherine’s Episcopal Church, I was the choir for a number of years, did occasional solos and anthems, then; in Auburn Washington, at St Mathew Episcopal Church, under the direction of an excellent choral director, enjoyed several years of interesting anthems and real music instruction with occasional solos but interesting arrangements and direction. Came back to Enumclaw and there was a sort of choir. Just putting a bunch of people together does not make a choir. Picky.
At one point Bob Estby led a women’s barber shop quartet series which was exciting but laborious. It was in the days before copy machines, and we were required to hand copy our music for the next week while we were trying to encourage new members to enlarge our group. The problem was new people would come and take our music home (over which we had spent hours copying), and they would not ever be back again. Membership required the copying and it was not an enticing requirement for the group’s growth.
While in Upper Michigan in the Copper Country, worked with a little Theater group on “My Three Angels, working on props, costumes, in charge or the curtain and prompting since I was imminently pregnant again.
While living in Minneapolis, I took voice lessons at the University of Minnesota, with my 6 year old daughter as Pinkerton’s child in “Madame Butterfly”. The following quarter, I was formally enrolled in opera production in the music department. I worked on “Cosi FanTutte” in English, working on costuming, props, scenery, and understudied the part of Despina, as well as singing in the chorus. Our trusty troupe performed that opera in Minneapolis at U of Minn., and in St Paul. That was a good time!
Peter Halleck, the organist and choral director at St Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle held a three day week-end work shop for choirs of the Episcopal Church at Providence Heights, to learn new music and service formats. We learned new anthems, had opportunity to play hand bells, white gloves and all, and how to use moving banners effectively in pageantry. One of the most beautiful anthems we learned we sang on the last day at the service we designed. Accompanied by a complete string ensemble, we sang in the stone chapel with wonderful tones and high ceiling, “Let us In the spirit Gather” which is a plea for the coming together of people, and peoples in compassion and collegiality. It was breath taking and felt good. That group of people became the “Lost in Wonder Choir” (the title is a line from a hymn.) and have sung with them at the Cathedral several times since.
As my children grew I attended concerts in the Enumclaw School District (they all had opportunity to play the instrument of their choice) including the Christmas Concert with opportunity to sing the Halleluiah Chorus with the rest of the audience and those on stage, as well as membership in one of the community choirs for several years., and worked one summer with a little theater group for production. I can’t remember the name of the play.
Took both television production and Cinematography appreciation at Central Washington University in my BA program. My Video tape was used as a model for several years in the program. I stimulated the development of the television studio and production programs at Rainier School during the 1980’s.
Took Drawing and Oil Painting classes with Elinor Ulman through GRCC, and watercolor with Faye Chong, Japanese watercolorist, through the Alpine Art Guild in which I was a member for some time during the 1970’s.
I initiated and was the editor and producer of St Catherine’s Episcopal Church’s monthly newsletter (which I called “Hark the Herald”) for three years, from 1992-95.
And of course I have become Mrs. Cratchit for the past 5 years. But Mrs. Cratchit’s story is too long to write here. It stems from several points in my history, as well as the development and appreciation of her character, family and the real meaning of her presentations.
During the past 5 years I have been writing, for surely it has taken me almost that long to write this gripping drama! But under the guidance and gentle direction of Mary Kay Tipton’s instruction, and under the aegis of Green River Community College, I have filled a lot of paper with memoirs, poems that do and don’t rhyme, the beginning of adventures and impending mystery stories, and at least one book (possibly two) that is as close as I have ever been to publishing but still needs work and an illustrator. As a member of Plateau Area Writers” Association for four years, serving as editor of their newsletter for two years, and for one publication of PAWA,, as salesperson, it has been another transition. When Mary Kay asked in her introductory class to creative Writing 1, that we write “why I write”, I remembered that a report card at Leslie Street School (elementary K-8) in far away Toronto said “She talks too much.” My pseudo-Haiku-response to that and for Mary Kay re the issue was/is:.

Was told I talk a lot.
Elementary school report cards said,
“She talks too much.”
I talk to paper.
It listens.

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	Doreen Bowie *MY “ART” BIO" FROM CRADLE TO PRESENT DOREEN M. BOWIE* *7/7/05* I create this document because, as I work with those who have real demonstrable art in daily life, breath and expression, they may better understand why I have interest, not only in all of the arts, and in support of the arts, but additionally in encouragement of society to participate and join support of the Arts. It is part of why I am here. The beginnings were this way. My earliest memories of music were with our family, where most were able to sing wonderfully. I remember being held with my face resting on my Dad’s shoulder as he sang such songs as “My Castle in Spain is a Shack in the Lane”, and “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.” in his rich baritone. His voice resonated through my body as he rocked in the old wicker rocking chair, and sang as he patted my back in time to the music. My aunts and uncles all sang and kept beside the radio a stenographer’s notebook with shorthand on one side of the page and the transcribed words on the other side, as new songs became popular on the radio. I thought they had great voices. My Dad told me that my Grandmother had had a beautiful voice, and sang in French. She was from Berne Switzerland. For some reason she developed a rather gravelly voice and that is all I recall, though she taught me the “Little Shepherdess” song in French. A small 12 base accordion was placed on my lap when I was not quite four years old. When I turned four, I had my first recital, was able to read, play and memorize the music. I could not however read the words yet. When I asked my aunts and uncles to teach me to read the comics, they told me that after I started kindergarten, then started first grade, I would learn to read. I was already reading and playing music, a far more complex process, involving hand-eye coordination. The next 4 or 5 years, I played at theater amateur nights and always won something, usually first prize (money, a few dollars). I played at various events. I recall being invited (with my Mother) to the major downtown YMCA in Toronto, playing at a dinner. I was half way through dinner and it was time to play. When I was finished playing and got back to Mom and my seat, my dinner was gone. I remember feeling disappointed. There were other places that had unfamiliar names, like the Odd Fellows Hall, Christie Street Veterans Hospital and birthday parties. At the parties I always had to play for musical chairs and other games, and I did not get a chance to play with the other kids. After a year or so I had a 24 base Hohner Mother of Pearl instrument that was very pretty. At age 5, I was entered into the Canadian National Exhibition Music Competitions in Toronto, in the accordion section, for children under 9. Before the adjudication events, my father showed me the medals that were in glass cases. There were gold silver and bronze medals. He pointed to the gold one and said, “That’s the one you want to win.” I remember saying, “No I like that one better,” pointing to the silver. I do not remember how many children I competed with but I did get the one I liked best. The next two years I competed in the same category and won each year. I have written a little story called “The Fly Bite” about the last event. WWII had started and there were no more music competitions. In second grade, our teacher was a music-major. She turned our class into a choir, and we sang on a couple of radio stations (CFRB was one of them I think) at Christmas in the days when it was allowed and encouraged at schools to celebrate with traditions and music at special times. For many years afterwards the accordions got bigger, had couplers and a full 120 base, which was more complex and required broader memorization since the base is not visible, place on the front of the instrument. But then you were/are not supposed to watch your fingers anyway on the keyboard side either. The annual school concert at Leslie Street School was part of my participation. In third grade Miss Jennings our teacher formed our class into a choir. Part of the annual concert was a dramatization of Cinderella by the eighth students. The girls in my class got to dress up as magical fairies, sing and dance around Cinderella as she magically changed from her cinder clothes in to her beautiful gown. I did not get to do it because I played in the school orchestra, and was going to play a solo as well. I had wanted to dance and sing and dress up and pretend. I was missing the fun. At this time I was supposed to practice 2 hours every day after school. Then during the evening my Dad got out his accordion and we were supposed to be having fun. I asked my Dad why he wanted me to play the accordion. He said so I would have a way to earn a living. My thoughts about that are in “The Fly Bite” as well.. I liked singing because it did not require carrying an instrument. I played in the elementary school orchestra for several years. Eventually the war intruded on all that, and students spent their time collecting newspapers and aluminum to recycle into boxes for shipping food and stuff to our armed forces. But our Choirs were active. During WW II we were strutted all over Toronto to sing at Victory Bond rallies, taken there by our parents who then invested in the bonds. We were all essentially good kids. There was no time for otherwise. We sang uplifting and national anthems , such as “Oh Canada”, “The Maple Leaf Forever”, There’ll Always be an England”, “Rule Britannia”, and others always ending with “God Save the King.” The icy flats (where the toboggans and runnered ice sleds came down hills and across the vast grassy expanse when covered with ice and snow) at Riverdale Park were full of thousands of people. Our massed schools choir was really something sounded great we were told on one occasion. The choir was so big that the PA system did not have enough microphones to pick it up but it was still audible. That area is now a freeway, the Don Valley Parkway. For Armistice Day or Memorial Day, our whole elementary student body walked from school to the United Church 2 blocks away for a service of remembrance, since our school had no auditorium or gym. For several years for that ceremony, I was asked to read a memorial poem, I guess because they knew that I had stage presence and could speak and project adequately because of both my music experiences and lessons, which had, thanks to Miss Weller and Miss Jennings, included allocution lessons. The very phonetic resonance and mental image of the second verse of that poem excerpt has stayed with me since I knew that both my Grandfather and my Uncle had served and suffered in the trenches and battlefront during that war. The poem excerpt was…”We lay and heard the bullets swish and sing like scythes amidst the garnering. …” In sixth and eighth grade (I skipped 7^th grade) I was in “Miss Tedd’s Choir”, which was in all actuality, the All Toronto Elementary School (K-8) two hundred voice choir which gave a concert each spring at Massey Hall. During all those years of voice instruction, we were taught much about projection, control, emotion, following direction, and harmonizing, which is of great importance in any team process. Of course I could always read music and that was always useful. Much of that instruction was repetition and therefore reinforcement of prior learning, which was very useful. In eighth grade I wrote and directed a short play for our class. Phoebe Hughes and Evelyn Taylor were in it. I recall that it involved a girl who wore glasses and had an ugly hairdo. The story had something to do with making her more attractive with a better hairdo and taking off her glasses. I laugh as I think about it now. How many doors did she bump into without glasses? Was it unkind? And thoughtless? Phoebe wore glasses. Only recently did I think of that. Evelyn was the beautiful one. The script was full of language in the way that we spoke. Mr. Christopher our teacher told us that we should use proper English (Bless his heart.) We argued with him that THAT was not how kids spoke and it should be written the way the people talk.. I was never certain of the exact outcome but we did not change anything. Periodically I was invite to birthday parties to play for musical chairs. My last accordion activity of any size was at the commencement exercises from Leslie Street School as an eighth grader. I was going to go to Riverdale Collegiate Institute as a ninth grader. At that time, I wanted to be a chemist, and headed toward the professions. One of the first events at Riverdale for ninth graders was a Big and Little Sister meeting in the auditorium where new Little Sisters were linked with Big Sisters from the Upper grades, who would serve as guides at school. They asked for volunteers to perform as entertainment. I sang a song I had learned in the All Toronto Choir. It was based on the traditional story of the “Owl and the Pussy Cat.” I have sung that song for each of my children since that time. None of my grandchildren have wanted to bother listening to it. It is not part of their comfortable memories. I always preferred singing to the instrument. I did not have to carry anything. When I was younger, we had to have a “big boy” carry my accordion to school for anything. I did not like that. It was a bother. During my early years (up to eighth grade), Saturday afternoon was dedicated to the Metropolitan Opera presentation on the radio. Listening to the music with my father, I heard and learned fro Deems Taylor interesting aspects of the opera performed that day, and an interview of the artists in the opera during the assorted intermission. They presented visual images for me that television later broadened. Years later I would experience the “Real Stuff” in Seattle at the Opera House. For several years I had series tickets to the “opera in English, since I knew that that would appeal to my children in a more comprehensive, appealing and understandable manner. During all high school years, I did not sing or play the accordion. For my 16^th birthday, my Dad bought me a new accordion which I still have and have hardly played since. The purpose was to return to The Royal Accordion Band, led by Eric Mundinger, my former teacher. In tenth grade I played the role of Betsy, in “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow” at the Riverdale Collegiate’s every four years big all sports, all arts (demonstration of student skills for two evenings) and was the beginning of my thespian efforts. As a teenager, my Dad took me to see “La Travietta” in Italian in Toronto. We used to listen to the opera each Saturday, from New York City. I was an avid story listener and reader, spending many hours at the library, and reading with the flashlight under the blankets because I was supposed to be asleep. I loved figure skating as well as many sports, but the figure skating felt good, though I never did have lessons. I watched and practiced. I attended many ice shows. The engagement of the music, story grace of the skating synthesized the figure skating art. Then “Teenagerism” took over by grade 11 and all was almost lost. I danced a great deal, and participated briefly singing in preparation for a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta but by that time I had graduated from Grade 13 and was in nursing school. Life interrupted the process and distracted me from any of the arts except the art of Nursing. My family moved out of the city and life changed.. In Nursing, we had an All Toronto Student Nurses’ Choir for some reason or other for one major event, on the steps of the old City Hall, which was at the time, the actual City Hall. In a box I have a photo of that choral event. Christmas eve, the Wellesley Hospital tradition was that the student nurses started at the top floor of the hospital, and descending down through the stairwells, out on a floor singing carols and along to another stairwell descending floor by floor was a very moving participatory activity enjoyed by singers, patients and staff. After I was married I sang in the church choirs wherever we lived; in Leonia New Jersey at All Saints’ Episcopal Church; in Hancock Michigan, at Trinity Episcopal Church across the Lake in Houghton; in Minneapolis Minnesota, at St Andrew’s Episcopal Church where I began singing solo’s occasionally; in Enumclaw, at St Catherine’s Episcopal Church, I was the choir for a number of years, did occasional solos and anthems, then; in Auburn Washington, at St Mathew Episcopal Church, under the direction of an excellent choral director, enjoyed several years of interesting anthems and real music instruction with occasional solos but interesting arrangements and direction. Came back to Enumclaw and there was a sort of choir. Just putting a bunch of people together does not make a choir. Picky. At one point Bob Estby led a women’s barber shop quartet series which was exciting but laborious. It was in the days before copy machines, and we were required to hand copy our music for the next week while we were trying to encourage new members to enlarge our group. The problem was new people would come and take our music home (over which we had spent hours copying), and they would not ever be back again. Membership required the copying and it was not an enticing requirement for the group’s growth. While in Upper Michigan in the Copper Country, worked with a little Theater group on “My Three Angels, working on props, costumes, in charge or the curtain and prompting since I was imminently pregnant again. While living in Minneapolis, I took voice lessons at the University of Minnesota, with my 6 year old daughter as Pinkerton’s child in “Madame Butterfly”. The following quarter, I was formally enrolled in opera production in the music department. I worked on “Cosi FanTutte” in English, working on costuming, props, scenery, and understudied the part of Despina, as well as singing in the chorus. Our trusty troupe performed that opera in Minneapolis at U of Minn., and in St Paul. That was a good time! Peter Halleck, the organist and choral director at St Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle held a three day week-end work shop for choirs of the Episcopal Church at Providence Heights, to learn new music and service formats. We learned new anthems, had opportunity to play hand bells, white gloves and all, and how to use moving banners effectively in pageantry. One of the most beautiful anthems we learned we sang on the last day at the service we designed. Accompanied by a complete string ensemble, we sang in the stone chapel with wonderful tones and high ceiling, “Let us In the spirit Gather” which is a plea for the coming together of people, and peoples in compassion and collegiality. It was breath taking and felt good. That group of people became the “Lost in Wonder Choir” (the title is a line from a hymn.) and have sung with them at the Cathedral several times since. As my children grew I attended concerts in the Enumclaw School District (they all had opportunity to play the instrument of their choice) including the Christmas Concert with opportunity to sing the Halleluiah Chorus with the rest of the audience and those on stage, as well as membership in one of the community choirs for several years., and worked one summer with a little theater group for production. I can’t remember the name of the play. Took both television production and Cinematography appreciation at Central Washington University in my BA program. My Video tape was used as a model for several years in the program. I stimulated the development of the television studio and production programs at Rainier School during the 1980’s. Took Drawing and Oil Painting classes with Elinor Ulman through GRCC, and watercolor with Faye Chong, Japanese watercolorist, through the Alpine Art Guild in which I was a member for some time during the 1970’s. I initiated and was the editor and producer of St Catherine’s Episcopal Church’s monthly newsletter (which I called “Hark the Herald”) for three years, from 1992-95. And of course I have become Mrs. Cratchit for the past 5 years. But Mrs. Cratchit’s story is too long to write here. It stems from several points in my history, as well as the development and appreciation of her character, family and the real meaning of her presentations. During the past 5 years I have been writing, for surely it has taken me almost that long to write this gripping drama! But under the guidance and gentle direction of Mary Kay Tipton’s instruction, and under the aegis of Green River Community College, I have filled a lot of paper with memoirs, poems that do and don’t rhyme, the beginning of adventures and impending mystery stories, and at least one book (possibly two) that is as close as I have ever been to publishing but still needs work and an illustrator. As a member of Plateau Area Writers” Association for four years, serving as editor of their newsletter for two years, and for one publication of PAWA,, as salesperson, it has been another transition. When Mary Kay asked in her introductory class to creative Writing 1, that we write “why I write”, I remembered that a report card at Leslie Street School (elementary K-8) in far away Toronto said “She talks too much.” My pseudo-Haiku-response to that and for Mary Kay re the issue was/is:. Was told I talk a lot. Elementary school report cards said, “She talks too much.” I talk to paper. It listens.