Here I will try to tell you a little bit more about myself.

I was born in Buffalo, New York, on November 19, 1952, the younger of two daughters. I am of African-American, Creek, Choctaw and Cherokee heritage. I have spent almost all of my life in New York state, except the five years I lived in Phoenix, Arizona; about a year in Washington, D. C.; a year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the six months I have currently spent living in Hagerstown, Maryland.

I am now living in Hagerstown with my sister Anna who is three years older than I am. Oh, and with my niece, her dog, named Resistance. Resistance is a Shetland Sheepdog (Sheltie) or an Irish Sheepdog and is about seven years old. We two (the dog and I, not my sister) spend most of our days now in bed, having become quite good buddies. I beat up on Resist all the time: pull on her ears and punch her lightly in the sides. She loves it! Keeps wagging her tail and coming back for more. Crazy dog!

In case you did not read my whole story I will inform you of the illness that has put me in this state. In my story I say that I was diagnosed with TMJ. My diagnosis has since been changed to include a sliding hiatal hernia where the stomach rises up through the chest/esophagus and that is why I have the sensation that I am all "mouth" and "eating" myself. Actually, I am being engulfed by my stomach. LOL. Well, due to this debilitating condition, I am more or less an invalid, and spend most of my time in bed, surfing the Net when I am up to it.

One of the few things I can still manage to do is surf the Net. I do this usually flat on my back, while in bed. My sister, too, spends time on the Internet and has created two websites of her own. Her main site is at http://www.qwikpages.com/backstreets/standingdeer/index.htm and deals with prison issues. Please drop in and check it out sometime.

Well, back to me. I spent most of my youth in upstate New York moving from city or town to city or town every few years. We lived in Syracuse, Saugerties, Woodstock, Rosendale, Mt. Marion, and probably a few other places I don't recall, during my grammar school years. See my father worked for IBM which was often called the "I've Been Moved" company or something like that.

I considered it normal to move every year or so and to be confronted by children who looked like they came from some alien planet with different modes of dress and hairstyles.

By the sixth grade we had moved to Peekskill, New York, where we more or less settled down even though my father still worked for IBM. While in high school, I sang in the chorus and was in several musicals including "Camelot" and "Finian's Rainbow." With "Finian's Rainbow" having many Black characters, I was able to win the part of singing the solo, "Necessity." Not that I had much competition: My high school was something like 99% White. I didn't move again until I was an adult seeking adventure.

It was while in Peekskill that my sister and I acquired a brother. His name is Bo. He was from New York City but came to live with our family to finish high school in the suburbs. He easily became the star basketball player at our high school and was very much liked by many of the students and teachers. Today he lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and was my main support and contact when I lived there. He is such a darling! You must see his photo in my photo album.

One of my earliest young adult adventures was hitchhiking down to Washington, DC, to be part of an anti-Vietnam war demonstration called the "May Day" demonstrations in 1969 or 1970. I managed to get myself arrested with thousands of others. Because there were so many of us, they eventually moved us to the library in a female prison where I thoroughly enjoyed myself reading books. It was the perfect spot for me, an avid reader, and left me with plenty of pleasant memories rather than horror stories.

We were not treated like criminals or kept with the general population so it was not like being in prison except for the food which included scrapple which I had never seen or heard of before. Eventually, I was released on a technicality, thanks to the ACLU and an anonymous donor who paid for their services. I was released with another woman and as we were returning to the site to get our belongings (which had been ravaged through) we bumped into someone who asked us if we wanted a gift. We thought it was a joke. Turned out the man was serious. He gave us two tickets to see a performance of "Hair," as a present for our release, I guess. I'm sure he could tell we had just been through some kind of unusual experience that made us look eager to get out of town.

In that age of hitchhiking, I ended up hitchhiking, with the woman I was released with, to Amherst College where we were taken in like two lost waifs. There we had an even more pleasant time being able to order almost whatever we wanted for meals and enjoying frequent volleyball games. Eventually, I came back to reality (when my family hunted me down with the help of an IBM detective) and returned home. I was well aware that I was ill-equipped to take care of myself as of yet. But I had fun for as long as it lasted. When I returned home, I knew it was time for me to get serious about being able to leave home for real.

Before settling down to a regular job, I spent about a year with my sister in the Georgetown area of DC, having grown to like the city after our many demonstrations and hitchhiking visits there. She worked in a restaurant bar called Mr. Henry's, which was fairly famous. She was the first female waitress hired in this previously all male-staffed pub. Roberta Flack used to play the piano there and later became established as a singer there. It was a real tourist trap. On weekends it would become quite lively with a piano player and regulars who sang along. My sister and I and the regular customers had our "own" tunes which we would sing. I learned a whole repertoire of songs, adding to the others which I had learned while taking singing lessons since the age of 16. I used to have a very high soprano voice. More than a few times I was pleasantly surprised with a few bucks people would put into the glass for John, the piano player. He liked me so much that he invited me up to his place to learn a few songs he had picked out for me and we even learned to do "High Noon" as a duet.

Oh, I did have one last hitchhiking adventure: My sister, her newly acquired dog and I hitchhiked from Georgetown across country to San Francisco with two duffle bags. We traveled day and night, barely stopping until we reached San Francisco. I remember spending one night sleeping along the highway with a Mormon we met along the way but usually we travelled at night, too. We met so many interesting and helpful people, but the ones I remember most fondly are the truckers who mostly picked us up and the truckers on the opposite side of the road who did not pick us up but would wave and toot their horns at us. I also remember quite well the young men who let us stay in their dorm room in Boulder, Colorado for several days on our return trip. We had a good time hanging out with them and spending time on the Boulder campus, especially the library where we would spend endless hours in the music section mostly listening to show tunes.

I tried college twice, New York University and Hunter College, but just couldn't deal with it. I ended up either spending most of my time at home or in Central Park. I think big city schools are just not for me and at that time I was incapable of dealing with large institutions. I just never felt at home or figured my way around.

After realizing I wasn't going to make it through college I went job seeking and eventually ended up employed at IBM, full-time. I became a second-generation IBM'er. Luckily at that time IBM hired non-college graduates and trained me in computer operations first and later in programming. I spent 13 years at IBM enjoying most of my work and associates there. And through the IBM club, I was once again able to express my love of theater: I played the part of Liat, Bloody Mary's daughter, in one of its productions of "South Pacific." First time I ever received flowers on stage! I left IBM (taking a buyout during one of their many downsizings) fairly well trained in project leadership.
After leaving IBM, I wanted to take time off from my workaholism and then to start my own company in the computer field. However, I had no PC skills. At IBM, I had worked with IBM mainframes only.

I also decided I wanted to live somewhere different. That is how I ended up in Phoenix, AZ, for five years. That hot desert climate was perfect for me. And I had always been drawn to the West from watching all those Westerns in my youth. Plus, I was so tired of New York's cold and wet weather and I wanted somewhere that was real hot for a long period of time so that I could teach myself to swim.

I have always loved water and found myself on several occasions nearly drowning and almost drowning the person who came to save me. So one of my major accomplishments while in Phoenix was to overcome hyperventilating and learning to float, tread water and swim reasonably well. If I didn't panic I should surely never be in danger of drowning ever again. See, you can teach an old dog new tricks! for I was about 37 at the time I taught myself these life-saving skills.

After my long vacation (it was so difficult to leave the warm pool and my laidback Arizona lifestyle), I started doing temp work in order to learn DOS, Windows and PC applications. I worked both in Arizona and New York, traveling several times a year, spending the summers with my (now) ex-boyfriend in New York. By the time I returned to live in New York to live with my ex-boyfriend I was being regularly hired as an administrative assistant by temp agencies.

My story of the PROUD Nut Case tells much of what happened to me after I moved in with my ex-boyfriend. My life went downhill fast. It was several years of getting in and out of psych wards and then being severely limited by what I then thought was TMJ.

I ended up moving to Pittsburgh with my sister after I visited there to see a specialist she recommended. She saw what terrible shape I was in and suggested that I should give up my apartment in New York and live with her. That is how I came to spend a year in Pittsburgh and came to live with my sister and her "daughter."

While in Pittsburgh, my sister told me about her desire to create a website. Because of my background in programming and computers, I did much to help her design and code her two sites. I was surprised to see that I could accomplish so much. Eventually, because I had managed to help her build her two websites, I figured I still had enough in me to create my own.

Early one morning I found a host site and uploaded a long narrative about what happened to me once I moved in with my ex-boyfriend. From there, each day that I felt well enough, I would add graphics, edit, make improvements. I even managed to add more pages. I was surprised each day to find I was still alive and able to do a bit more. Meanwhile, my sister was transferred by her job to Hagerstown and that is how we came to be living where we live now.

Having my original site created so haphazardly, there were many deficiencies in the writing, design and coding. During my many surfing excursions and correspondences, I was so lucky to come upon Mrs. Rebecca Eisenacher who offered to redo my site for me. And that is how this new and improved beautiful site with this about me page came to be.

Now who am I or who was I?

I was an unconventional hippie tomboy-type who loved to walk, hike, dance, sing, philosophize, read, solve logic and crossword puzzles, and contemplate just about anything. Oh, and I was a workaholic, a person who loved to use computers and other office equipment and people skills to solve every day work problems. Give me a manual and I would jump right in, re-documenting key points and passing on any knowledge I gained. And I guess I should add that I was also a big animal and nature lover.

Now I am, for all practical purposes, an invalid who lives from day to day, whose only activity is the Internet and computer games, Solitaire and FreeCell. I can barely see or read now. I can't dance or sing. That person has long been dead. I am a "mouth." I am a "stomach." I am a ghost on the Internet. I am fingers that somehow just keep typing, trying to make one last contact, one last impact on the world. LOL. Yes, I am the PROUD Nutcase whom I hope you have come to like and respect--at least a little bit.

I suppose there's not much more that I can say about myself at this time. I hope you have read my story, some of my poetry and given some thought to what I had to say. We all can work together to make this world a better place for everyone and every living thing. I know I tried my damnedest to do that. What about you?

Oh, there is one last thing I must say before ending. Without the hard work of my newly-found friend and most talented webmaster, this site would never have been created. Mrs. Rebecca Eisenacher responded quickly and professionally to my plea for help in moving, restructuring and improving my original, haphazardly built site which was on a very unreliable host. For this I am most grateful and forever in her debt. There is no way I could ever thank her enough for this beautiful site she has created nor for the countless computer and Internet tips she has taught me nor for how she continually reached out beyond me to help other people whom I knew woefully too little to help. Rebecca, you were/are a lifesaver! Well, a website saver at least. Thank you so very, very much!

Together we SHALL change the world!

To life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!

Vicky
The PROUD Nut Case
(Wouldn't, couldn't, be anything but!)

P. S. Please visit my AOL homepage. It's short and sweet!