Thursday, November 19, 2015

My Life as a Rock and Roll Star



by Dennis Weldon





CASPER (1974)
Larry Bish, David Herr, Geoff Marenchin & Dennis Weldon


OK, so maybe I wasn’t a star, but I did play rock music in the early 70s.  My love of music started back in Junior High School, as I can distinctly remember music class with Mr. Groves.  In High School I sang in the choir and mixed ensemble, so I developed a love of vocal harmony. Then I saw my first live rock and roll band.  It was the band that I think both Jim and Bill Sparks were in, when they played at the American Legion on State Street. 

I got my first guitar our senior year and started to play a little.  My first instruction came from Linda Mamone’s brother, Nick, and we played together quite a bit.  When I went off to Penn State to study aerospace engineering, I continued playing with Nick and others.  Then in 1967 at a summer job, I met Larry Bish from Transfer.  He was an extremely good guitarist and singer and we started playing a lot of Simon and Garfunkel and similar songs.  

In the summer of 1968, I met a woman whose husband owned a small recording studio in the basement of a store downtown on State Street.  There Larry and I recorded Weldon and Bish’s first and only album, “Obiter Dictum” (i.e., “a passing remark” in Latin).  Recently someone posted the songs on the internet, so you can Google “Weldon and Bish” to hear them. The album was a bit crude and I was still a novice guitar player, but it was fun.  We made just 50 copies of the album for ourselves and our friends.

After a year of graduate school in the MBA program at Penn State, I dropped out because Larry and I decided to form a band and to try to make a living playing music.  It took a while to get things together, so during that time I worked on the railroad in Sharon as a brakeman and clerk.  We finally found a very good drummer/singer, Geoff Marenchin, from Sharpsville, and in 1973 we moved to State College.  There we met a bass player, David Herr, from the Philadelphia area, and our band was formed.  Against my strong objections, we named our band Casper! 

We played soft rock, and harmony was our specialty. We covered songs by groups like Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Neil Young, and Eagles, and we also performed some of our own material.  We got fairly popular in town, especially at our favorite bar called The Phyrst. But in the spring of ’74 Larry decided to quit the band and do something else.  By that time, I had spent almost three years trying to get this going and I wasn’t ready to invest more time, so I re-enrolled in grad school and finished my MBA in transportation and logistics.

And that was the end of my short-lived career as a rock and roll star!  It was challenging and frustrating but sometimes great fun, and I’m glad I tried it.

After that, my wife, Charlotte, and I moved to the Washington, DC area when I took a job as a management consultant with Ernst & Whinny (now Ernst & Young).  After seven years there, due to all the travel and having two young children, I found a job with a Fortune 500 electric utility company in Raleigh, NC.  I got into the IT world there and eventually found my way to IBM Global Services, where I was a project manager and eventually a senior manager, managing a number of our clients’ IT operations.  I retired in 2012 and now I do a lot of volunteer work, particularly with the Raleigh chapter of SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives), providing advice and counsel to small businesses.

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Class of '65 "Regional Gatherings"

By Linda Mamone Thompson

Our 50th reunion was so great that some of us didn't want to wait for the next one.  Thus began the planning for a mini "Regional Gathering" of classmates.  I knew that there were four of us living in the Lehigh Valley in Eastern Pennsylvania.  Grace and Rick Sutherland and I briefly connected at the Avalon reunion, but really didn't have a chance to talk much, and Gary Webster wasn't able to attend the reunion at all.  We four shared a few emails and decided that the first HHS Class of '65 Regional Gathering would be held at my house on Thursday, September 17.  Gary and I checked the address database to be sure that we weren't missing anyone and found no other classmates within sixty miles.

Gary and I had recently discovered we had never known that we have been living only one mile from each other for the past twenty years!  He lives just down the road from the high school my younger daughter attended.  Grace and Rick and I had run into each other at a children's concert at Symphony Hall in Allentown in the mid 80s, so we knew we lived about ten miles from each other.  But I guess "life got in the way," and in all that time none of us attempted to get together.  This time we were going to make time to get together and get reacquainted.

Grace Watson Sutherland, Linda Mamone
Thompson,  Rick Sutherland.
Seated, Gary Webster.
It was a lovely, warm late September evening.  We had dinner outside, enjoyed a couple bottles of wine and talked and laughed, sharing stories about growing up in Hickory Township.  Gary told a wildly funny story from his memories of sixth grade, but it's unprintable!  Rick talked about playing baseball on my dad"s team from Little League in elementary school all the way through American Legion in high school.  He remembered me sitting on the bleachers, in the 8th grade, keeping score for my dad, and most of all remembered my dad offering him some chewing tobacco.  Having my dad as my classmates' coach was always challenging for me.  Yes, I got to see all of the cute boys at the games, but I also had to risk feeling mortified by my dad!

Our mini gathering was an enjoyable success, so I encourage all of you to set up your own HHS '65 Regional Gathering.  Check the class database for zip codes and contact classmates in your area.  It can be as simple as meeting for breakfast or a walk in a park.  Send pictures and information about your gathering to LMT at this blog so that we can all be a part of it.  Ours was lots of fun, and Grace baked a killer chocolate cake!

Friday, September 18, 2015

Tar Heel Home


We have noted before that quite a few of our classmates now live in North Carolina, indeed ten of us.  Intrigued, we asked Brian Hasenflu to comment on his adopted state.  Learning about his log home was a plus.

Brian:  I also find it interesting where our classmates ended up and how they got there.  My wife Marsha and I and our two kids had vacationed at North Carolina's Outer Banks for 28 years and decided that when we retired we would move close to the ocean.  The Outer Banks are too touristy so we chose 3.5 acres to build a log home in Richlands, NC, forty-five minutes northwest of Topsail Island, where Bill and Bob Bartlett each have homes.

After high school I attended YSU to escape the draft, but had had enough after two and a half years and joined the Air Force, for four years with one year in Viet Nam.  I was discharged from the Air Force on a Friday, drove straight home from upstate New York and applied for a job at GM Lordstown on Monday.  Apparently that impressed the HR department because I was hired on the spot.  I felt pretty damn lucky.  The GM jobs were hard to come by.  I retired in March, 2003.

Our fellow classmate Tom Warrender's parents had a log home, and after seeing it I knew we had to have one for our retirement home.  We had lived in two sub-divisions when the kids were growing up.  Marsha and I started planning our new home five years before I retired and did a lot of research into log homes.  "Log Home Living" magazine was a great help.

I was surprised to find out there are so many of our classmates living in North Carolina.  We love it here.  The weather can't be beat.  Two to three months of mild winter weather and some years maybe a little wet snow.  Looking in the class directory I saw the Barlett boys live nearby on the coast.  We chose to live back from the ocean a little ways for a buffer between us and hurricanes.  No regrets leaving PA.  The best move we ever made.


Wednesday, September 2, 2015

More Picnic Pics 8/15/15

Mary Jo Peters & Vic Ellenberger
Theresa "Sue" Paul, Bonnie Shaffer, Cathy McKnight, Nancy Titus
Ron Pethick & Delinda McCarrier
Sally & Tom Warrender, Bruce & Sue Dale
Leslie Yeoman, Carol & Ron Myers, Fred & Jackie Bulik
Richard & Carolyn Banjak

Click on photo to enlarge.
Thanks again to Bob Muszik for these photos!

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Picnic Pics

Bob McClimans & Bob Gavala

Bob Muszik with Denise & Jim Detelich

Brian Hasenflu, Fran Fragle, Shirley Hodge & Andrea Bohach

Cheri Gealy, Bill McCoy & Terry Stefanick

Hickory High School
'65 Class Reunion Picnic
Farrell Lion's Den - August 15, 2015

Click on photo to enlarge.
Thanks to Bob Muszik for these photos!

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Monday, August 17, 2015

Rolling Back the Years

One of many highlights at our 50-year reunion banquet was a poem read by Lynn Saternow.  Found on the internet by Nancy Titus and a friend, it seemed to strike a chord with the crowd.

Class Reunion

It was my class reunion, and all through the house,
I checked in each mirror and begged my poor spouse
To say I looked great, that my chin wasn't double,
And he lied through false teeth, just to stay out of trouble.

Said that 'neath my thick glasses, my eyes hadn't changed,
And I had the same figure.  It was just a mite rearranged.
He said my skin was still silky, although looser in drape,
Not so much like smooth satin, but more like silk crepe.

I swallowed his words, hook, sinker and line,
And entered the banquet feeling just fine.
Somehow I'd expected my classmates to stay
As young as they were that long-ago day
We'd hugged farewell hugs.  But like me, through the years,
They'd added gray to their hair, or pounds to their rears.

But as we shared a few memories and retold some class jokes,
We were eighteen in spirit, though we looked like our folks.
We turned up hearing aid volumes and dimmed down the light,
Rolled back the years, and were young for the night.

-- Donna Presnell

Sunday, August 16, 2015

FIFTY YEARS

Copyright, The Herald, Sharon, PA

50 years isn't as long as you may think
Posted: Saturday, August 15, 2015 4:00 am
FIFTY YEARS is a long time, right? Don’t count on it.
I say that after attending the Hickory High Class of 1965 reunion festivities the last two nights. For my classmates and me, those 50 years went by awfully quickly. (Awfully being a key word here.)
It seems like only yesterday that we were walking the halls of the “new” Hickory High School in Hickory Township. Then again it seems like only yesterday, because at my age I can’t remember a lot of the years in between.
But that is a lesson that I gladly pass on to every young person. Enjoy everything about your life, because it will fly by quickly. 
That little boy or girl you are teaching to ride a bike will soon be headed off to college. And then, snap your fingers and you’ll soon be teaching your grandkids how to ride a bike. 
And 50 years later you’ll be trying to remember how to ride a bike. (Note to self: Don’t ever try that again.)
The class of 2015 at every local school is headed out into the world to make a name for itself, just as we did at Hickory 50 years ago. Those kids are headed out to seek their bright futures. 
But a word of advice: That future will be on you quickly. And that future will soon be your past.
Like us, in 50 years they will be saying how much things have changed since their graduation days. And they do. 
But what is the difference today compared to 1965? Long-time Greenville teacher Paul Miller, a 1965 graduate of Commodore Perry, compiled some interesting facts about that year for his reunion and shared them with me:
• A gallon of gas cost 31 cents. While we lament how much it has gone up, that 31 cents actually amounts to $2.30 in 2015 dollars. 
• A loaf of bread cost 21 cents. But that is about $1.56 in today’s figures, so we actually aren’t doing too badly if you buy the cheaper bread. Then again, I don’t remember having whole grain bread back in those days.
• The average income was $6,450, or $47,854 today. The average salary in Mercer County doesn’t come near that current value; then again many higher-paying industries are no longer here.
• On Aug. 6 that year, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. A couple of months earlier, Vivian Malone became the first black person to graduate from the University of Alabama.
• The Vietnam War was a serious bone of contention. On Nov. 13, the anti-war protest movement saw 35,000 people march on Washington, D.C., demanding an end to the war. The next day the United States sent 90,000 more troops to Vietnam.
• While today’s youngsters have no idea what a “record player” is, we used to spin our discs. The No. 1 song on the charts this weekend in ’65 was “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher. 
Fifty years from now, the classes of 2015 may be looking back the same way at their past at their reunions. Hopefully, I’ll be able to help them with some of the details. After all, I’ll only be 117 years old.
LYNN SATERNOW of The Herald writes this column each week for The Opinion Page. He can be reached at lsaternow@sharonherald.com.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Undercover Poet

By Greg Curtis



To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.
- Robert Frost

If someone had told me, in, say, 1980, that I would become an entrepreneur, I would have laughed in his face. I didn’t have an entrepreneurial bone in my body. What I liked was getting that steady paycheck at the end of the month. But then something very odd happened: my mother started her own business.

One doesn’t normally think of one’s mother becoming an entrepreneur, and that was especially the case with me. Mom had stayed home and raised four kids. Then, after we’d grown up and left the house, she stayed home as a housewife. But after that, when I was about forty, Mom and Dad split up and, worried about her economic wellbeing, Mom launched her company.

When your mother starts a business, it somehow seems easier to think about starting your own. What was formerly an impossible idea became not just possible, but maybe something you should think seriously about if you don’t want your mom looking down her nose at you.

So I started Greycourt [a wealth management firm]. And then my wife started her own company, the American Middle East Institute. And then my daughter and her husband started their own company, Legume Bistro, the best restaurant between Philadelphia and Chicago. We are now looking hard at the other five kids, wondering when they’re going to get off their duffs and start their own companies.

By the late 1980s I’d stopped thinking of myself as a poet who made his living in business and started thinking of myself as a businessman who wrote poetry.

There’s no real tradition of part-time poets in the West, but there is a long one in the East. In China in particular educated people are expected to write poetry and even to communicate with others in verse. Mao wrote poetry, of course, but so did Deng Xiaoping. Indeed, as Deng slid slowly into retirement in the 1990s, he published a series of “maxims” designed to guide the next generation of Chinese leaders, and these maxims were written in the classical Chinese poetic style.

It’s impossible to imagine such a thing happening in America, so business people who write poetry keep the fact tightly under wraps – otherwise, people would think we were slightly barmy.


– This is a selection taken from Greg’s book, Working for a Living: Selected Poems, published in 2014.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

You Made a Difference in My Life


Susan Snyder Bowers

Thank you, Susie!  If you love Alaska, then we do, too!  We also are sorry you could not make this 50-Year Reunion, but we appreciate your greeting and the memories we share.

40th Class Reunion




Hickory VFW-Normandy Banquet Center  -  July 23, 2005



1st Row, L to R  - Jim Fryman, Keith Thompson, David Panin, 
Charles Frankel, Alfred "Butch" Meyers, Richard Sutherland, 
David Misko, Larry Stefanick, Frank Beveridge, Roman Namisnyk

2nd Row, L to R  -  Leslee Elder, Kathy Frost, Ann Marie Sicilian, 
Linda Merolillo, Diane Lutz, Bonnie Shaffer, Gayle Horseman, 
Carolyn Tota, Loretta Pleasant, Toni Kennedy, Carole Spetar

3rd Row, L to R  - Bob Gavala (standing), Evelyn Styduhar, 
Marilyn Thompson, Kathy Raley, Theresa “Sue” Dzurinda, 
Leslie Heasley, Nancy Malone, Cynthia Hirsch, Barbara Dresel, 
Andrea Bohach, Bonnie Likins, Grace Watson, Mary Jo Bobish

4th Row, L to R  -  Tim Titus (standing), Margie Grove, Lynn Saternow, Steve Laskey, Jim Downing, Vic Ellenberger, Mike Dunder, Ron Klingle, Richard Rutherford, Ray Zagger, Ken Darby, Bob McClimans, Tom Aaron, Gayle Yeager, Bob Miszik
                 

         
 49 Classmates attending    


Please help us correct any errors using the comment button below.

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Monday, August 10, 2015

Guy Paul - Surfing the Decades


Kids & wives.  Gems, jazz & jail.  60-year friends.  Surfing with God.  Guy would have loved to attend our 50-year reunion, but was not able to do so.  He offers this video greeting in his place.

Want to create your own greeting?  Click here for one method using a computer.

Oldies But Goodies



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Sunday, August 9, 2015

Biographical Update from Carol Callis Johns



The following was received as an email to our class from Carol Callis on 8/8/15

Greetings to the HHS Class of 65!
Since I am not going to be attending the reunion I did want to send my best wishes to the class.   I have to admit, I went to my husband's 50th reunion a few years ago (David Johns, Sharon HS Class of ' 63) and on our way home we talked about it and decided if we had it to do again we wouldn't travel from the State of Washington to attend.  Now, a couple of years later, it seems that the HHS Class of '65 reunion is taking on a life of it's own.  I must give credit to those who have been busy planning and organizing.  The enthusiasm is amazing!  David said to me this week, "We really might be missing something".  I am sure we are, however, our travel plans this year have been pretty busy and with children and grandchildren who live scattered around the country (Boston, Orlando and Chicago) we could not justify a trip to Sharon.


To let you know what I have been doing for the last 50 years, Wow!  I left home after HS and went to Allegheny General in Pgh to become a nurse.  I worked six months after graduation in Pgh and returned to Penn State graduating 12/69.  I got married and returned to Sharon General to teach in their nursing school while my husband finished at YSU.  We then moved to Baltimore, MD.  I went back to school at the University of MD and became a nurse educator, had two children and was divorced.  I ended up getting married to David who had custody of his two boys and when we were married our four children were 1, 2, 3, and 6.  I could write a book!  There was never a dull moment in our home in Jacksonville, FL.  We moved to Avon, Ct., that was where we were living when you had the 25th reunion but my in-laws were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary the same weekend in Portland, ME (sorry I missed it!).  We moved to Fresno, CA where I taught Nursing at California State, Fresno and then on to Spokane, WA where I retired 4 years ago from Washington State University.  We finally did achieve an empty nest and our children are happy and productive adults. Now that they have children they wonder with amazement how we got them raised and educated, none of them are planning to have four children!  We celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary in May during an around the world trip that took 108 days ( who said it could be done in 80 days?).

I think it is amazing how many of you live in and around the area where we grew up.  I would love to talk with you and know what you have been doing.  We had a great childhood and were lucky to have grown up in Western PA!  I will be thinking of all of you next week and hope you have a wonderful celebration.  Best wishes and if we have a 60th I hope to attend!
Fondly,
Carol Callis Johns
Liberty Lake, WA


Sent from my iPad


Friday, August 7, 2015

HHS Class of 1965 2010 45-Year Reunion Photo


1. Jim Downing  2. Robert Gavala  3. Chuck Focht  4. Roman Namisnyk  5. Vic Ellenberger  6.  Donna Bonner Wansack  7. Jerry Keryan  8. Lynn Saternow  9. Jim Detelich  10. Ben Norris  11. Frank Beveridge  12. David Misko  13. Jim Fryman  14. Linda Merolillo Thornbrugh  15. Steve Laskey  16. Margie Grove Ford  17. Marie Halloran Kreidler  18. Greg Curtis  19. Dave Panin  20. Marilyn Thompson Bauer  21. Bill Barlett  22. Carolyn Tota Smith  23. Bob Muszik  24. Elaine Kuchmak Germadnik  25. Cynthia Hirsch Kosut  26. Evelyn Styduhar Perry  27. Shaun Lally  28. Andrea Bohach Grega  29. Pat Stanger  30. Ray Zagger  31. Ann Marie Sicilian Morocco  32. Tim Titus  33. Nancy Malone Titus  34. Bob McClimans  35. Bonita Shaffer Shaffer  36.  Leslie Elder Himes  37. Toni Kennedy Sheehan  38. Ron Klingle  39. ???  40. Margaret Miller Kananaan  41. Chuck Frankel  42. Ellen Muscarella Monroe  43. Darlene Collins  44. Jim Sparks  45. Tom Warrender

Please help us identify the ??? using the comment button below.

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Thursday, August 6, 2015

That's it! Keep fit!


By Shirley Hodge Ulrich


I have done fitness walking for years. I wasn't able to exercise for a while because of a bad hip and spinal stenosis, but I had a hip replacement surgery in February 2013 and I'm good as new. Surgery was a blessing. Also I've done basic yoga, which I loved, but don't want to kick my new hip out of place, so yoga is on hold. 

Anyone not working out should just start to walk, a little at a time, You will feel great and it's so easy to do. Girls, buy yourselves some cute walking garb to lift your spirits and listen to some upbeat music. I walk to David Cook CD's (American Idol winner). Yes, I am a COOK COUGAR. 

Can't wait for the 50th class reunion.

- June 2014

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Saternow on Klingle

Copyright, The Herald, Sharon, PA

Ron Klingle’s successes built by embracing risks

By LYNN SATERNOW | Posted: Saturday, September 6, 2014 7:00 am
ONE THING about Ron Klingle, he always thinks BIG. And so far his ideas have been big hits as well.
I say this after reading the front page Herald story Thursday about Klingle preparing to make the former Avalon Inn in Howland into a world-class destination, similar to Nemacolin resort in southwestern Pa.
When I emceed our 45th Hickory High School anniversary reunion, I lauded my 1965 classmate as: “How about Ron Klingle. He started out as a garbage man and he  now owns country clubs.”
Of course, he was a lot more than a typical guy driving a garbage truck who wakes you up early in the morning dumping your toter. He was head of a large waste company and parlayed it into a bunch of money.
He then became CEO and chairman of Avalon Holding Company, which brought about the huge expansion of the former Sharon County Club to become the beautiful palace known as Avalon at Buhl Park. And he oversaw work at both the former Avalon Lakes and Squaw Creek country clubs.
His idea was to provide country club settings for the average family, keeping prices low for all activities while serving the community. While some people scoffed at the concept at first, they have to be believers now.
Adding the Avalon Inn to the grouping of the three Avalon golf courses is a risk of course in today’s economy. But Klingle has never been afraid to take risks and that’s part of his success story.
I wonder if Ron would like to invest in a theater in downtown Sharon? Bringing in top national entertainment to coincide with people staying at the new resort hotel might not be a bad idea.
Hey, you can’t play golf at night. Then again, knowing Ron, he may want to put lights around all his golf courses so you can play 24 hours a day.
I’ll have to mention that at our 50th anniversary reunion next year!
———
Speaking of people who think big, Frank and Julia Buhl were a couple who did just that when they donated Buhl Farm park to the people of this area.
And once again it was nice to visit the park on Buhl Day, which each year attracts thousands to take part in the festivities each Labor Day.
From the Buhl Community Recreation Center 5K race that opens the day, to the parade and all the activities at the park, again it was terrific. And once again the Buhls must have put in a word with Mother Nature, because the weather was fine.
As I talked with various people at the park, the one thing that was mentioned more than once was that there should be fireworks to conclude the evening, which would keep people later at the park.
Unfortunately, the Buhl Day organizers have a difficult enough time raising money to put on the day’s activities and the cost of fireworks could be prohibitive.
Maybe the Avalon at Buhl Park would sponsor them. Who owns that place, anyway?
LYNN SATERNOW writes this weekly column for the Opinion Page. He can be reached at lsaternow@sharonherald.com. Follow him atTwitter@HeraldSaternow.

Monday, August 3, 2015

Mrs. Young's Fudge Recipe

Mrs. Young had a home run with her Marshmallow fudge.  Mary Jo Bobish Peters and Ben Norris remember making it in class.  Nanci Wagner Bauer makes it still!  Thanks to Jim Banas for this vintage recipe:

Dug thru my Mom's recipe box and found the Mrs. Young fudge recipe. Here it is as written way back when:

           2 cups white sugar
           1 lg can evap milk
           1 Tblsp flour
           1/4# margarine or butter (original recepie said "oleo.")
           Cook together until forms a soft ball.  Let set on stove and add:
           8 oz. jar Marshmallow Creme
           2 bags chocolate bits
           1 cup broken nuts
           Stir until mixed and pour into a batter pan
               Makes 5#

Jim

Mrs. Young's Fourth Grade Class



Row 1 (front) Mary Jo Bobish, 2?, Linda Jackson, Gail Hobbs, Paila Vogan, Ellen Muscarella, 7?, Margaret Malia, 9?, Sherry Bellas, Susan Snyder, Linda Mamone, Ann Adams, Nanci Wagner, Gail Paxton

Row 2 Lynn Saternow, Steve Laskey, 3?, Greg Curtis, Margaret Miller, Cheryl Witzigman, Wanda Dout, Debby Myers, Cynthia Hirsch, 10?, Terry Fornadley, Ken Darby, Bob Barlett, Richard Rutherford, Mrs. Young.

Row 3 Rand Cairey, Jim Fryman, Jim Banas, Dick Shepherd, Richard Weller, Jim Sparks, Bill Sparks, Pat Mong, Larry Patterson, 10?, Dick Wilcox, Mark Ebert, Joe McCullough.

David Barner?  Ruth Ann Blough?  1957.

Does anyone have a clearer photo of Mrs. Young's fourth grade?  Please email it to hickoryhs65@gmail.com.  Thanks!

Transportation in Early America



Once again Rich Rutherford has reached into his bag of goodies and sent us this program from a musical presentation given by Mrs. Young's fourth grade class.

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The Story of My Life So Far…


By Sara Harder (AKA Sally Andree)

The easiest way for me to explain what’s happened is to itemize it by where I’ve lived.

The first seventeen years were spent in Hermitage, grade school, high school, not very eventful but where all the psychic started.  I had dreams of what would happen in the future.  Never anything like answers to tests and not as simple as Déjà vu, complete conversations with people.  That is why I knew I would go to Slippery Rock and only applied there for college.

I attended Slippery Rock for 4 years and got a BS degree in Elementary Education.  Knew where I would teach school and knew I would only be there for three years so applied and was hired to teach kindergarten in North East, PA.  (My husband says the only reason I was the teacher is because I was the biggest kid in the class.  Probably true and probably why it was such fun for me.)  

My next stop was Atlanta, GA where I applied and was accepted to do a master’s
degree program at Georgia State.  I had also applied to and been accepted in the same program in Florida at the University of Florida in Gainesville.  Decisions, decisions…  Then a shelf fell down in my apartment I took that as a sign that I needed to be in Florida so I left forthwith.

I  knew one person in Gainesville – my younger brother’s ex-girlfriend’s sister.  Just so happens her husband knew Robert Harder.  Robert was studying Mathematics, Economics and Statistics at the time but was also the local Tarot reader.  Yes, that is a contradiction.  I at the time did readings using drawings that I interpreted.  We were introduced, left school together and moved to Winter Haven, Florida to study Astrology with one of the founding members of the American Federation of Astrology.  Hey, it was the seventies.

We got married by a county clerk in Bartow, FL – not sure if that was legal or binding but after 40 years who cares?  So we studied Astrology and both worked for the post office.  Our son was born in Winter Haven, FL and then we decided it was time to get more serious about our future.   We sent out resumes everywhere and after being rejected by the CIA where he had not applied, Robert took a job in Suitland, MD at the Census Bureau.  It was too expensive to live there so more searching around and someone at Ft. Huachuca, AZ offered a civilian position with the Army.  Since I had and aunt who lived in Tucson we packed up in our VW and drove across country.  Our son, Jeremey was five at the time.

We bought a house in Sierra Vista, stayed there for 18 years.  During that time I did readings and eventually had a group of women who wanted to meet on a regular basis to investigate anything from spiritual healing to massage therapy to learning to read Tarot cards.  One of the ladies called before a meeting and my son answered the phone.  She asked if there was anything she needed to bring. “Just the usual chicken for sacrifice.”  So we became the Chicken Society.  Members included the wife of an Orthopedic Surgeon – we did some past life work with him and found him in the history books after the session!!  We also launched a couple of massage therapists out of that group.  There was a yoga instructor. It was experimental in a lot of ways and educational for all of us.  Most are still personal friends.  During that time I also decided that doing readings was going to have to change or I’d go nuts.  Oh sure, you’re thinking I already am but not so much.  Anyway, I moved away from counseling people who didn’t want to change to working with more of a life coaching approach.

Our son graduated from college and went off to Montana for graduate studies.  Robert got an offer from the Army Research Laboratory to work at a University.   He had several to choose from and I was the one who picked North Carolina Agricultural and Technical in Greensboro, NC.  He got a master’s degree there and I spent one third of my time traveling back and forth to Hermitage.  Both my parents died while we lived there so it was fortunate that we were so much closer. 

Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas was next on the list.  By then our son had his master’s degree and had gotten a job with an agency that reviews satellite images.  We call him the family spy.  He has a burn before reading clearance so can’t really tell us what he does.  I decided that he balances his parents on the karmic wheel.  Kansas was a great place to live if you take out the tornadoes and ice storms.  The War College there is a school for U.S, and international military officers.  The embassies rented houses in our neighborhood for their officers.  The Australians lived two doors away.  They were always a fun group.  Crime is not usually a problem there.  There are 5 prisons including the Federal one that looks strangely like the Congressional building in DC.  However we did have a break in there.  I had to call 911 because our toaster, a loaf of bread, lunchmeat, cheese and $40.00 from my purse got stolen out of the house one night.  Robert had forgotten to close the garage door.  Anyway, when I called the incident in there was dead silence on the other end.  Then the officer asked me to repeat the problem and said they would have someone come out to investigate.  The detective they sent was grinning when I opened the door.  “Yes, this is the place where the toaster has gone missing.”  He took our information and said they probably would not be able to recover any of the missing items.  We use a toaster oven now.  Decided a little more bulk would do the trick.  (By the way, that was the second time we had a burglary.  The first was in Sierra Vista.  I had gone to Tucson to bring Jeremey home from college for the weekend and someone came in through the kitchen window.  We called the police and while they were going through the house one of them let out a yip.  Then they all started laughing.  When they came out they said the house was clear except for the cat burglar.  Our black cat had been shut in one of the closets and jumped out at them when they opened the door.  Nothing much was taken then, but they had gone through a bunch of boxes in one closet that held Tarot cards.  One of the decks had spilled out – the Devil card was the only one laying face up on the floor.  HA, I have my ways!!)

Robert retired from government service there after 30 years and we  - well I – decided we needed to move west again.  So now we live in Prescott, Arizona where it’s sunny year round.  It’s called the mile high city - because of altitude not the kind of high you get in Colorado now.   And since we are on the subject, I did have to call the police once since we have been in Prescott.  We had a HUGE steer in the back yard.  Our property backs up to the Yavapai Indian Reservation and they run cattle up there.  One of them had escaped and was just standing out there staring at me.  By the time they sent the tiniest little police person they could find the steer had wandered off.  The only trace being tracks in our soil that were six inches deep.  Not sure if she ever found the steer or not. 

We teach classes in Tarot and Astrology.  I have clients all over the place, England, Mexico, DC area – another foreign country – New Orleans, Kansas, Florida, Brooklyn.  Our business is not advertised, it’s all word of mouth.  Our clients are mostly professionals including lawyers, a chiropractor, military officers, realtors.  We are very non-threatening that is why we call our business Metaphysical Mumbo Jumbo.  The kinds of things people ask have to do with their businesses, personal lives,  children, romance, finances, health.  Give us a call if you want a reading!!  When people ask Robert why he does readings he tells them that he worked for the government and when he retired he wanted to do something respectable for a living.  The End - so far.

-July 10, 2014