I then became a volunteer firefighter when I was a civilian once more, the first woman in an all - male fire department in West Point, Ohio for three years. Today? In the Olympics? Women now fence in foil, epee and sabre, thanks to what we did as a vanguard showing the world it could be done.
Together, we changed the sport and changed the mind of the men. I was part of a surge of women fencers on the East Coast in the 1970's to push for equality in the sport. I said baloney and fought the males and won half my bouts. These weapons were closed to women because they were too 'heavy' for a female to handle. I was one of the first AFLA (American Fencing League of America) women fencers to fence with epee and sabre. Later, I flew in a B-52 bomber for a day and night mission (18 hours total), a T-38 Talon jet, USAF, where I was riding in a "chase plane" on a test flight in a Dragonfly jet. But I could look at the clouds in the sky -). There was no airplane club, so I couldn't fly when I was in the Navy.
I was in the US military and was an AG3 (weather forecaster). From that time until I left for the US Navy at 18, I had accrued 39 hours of flight time in my Cessna 150 single engine airplane. I also plunked down $600 to a flight company at the Medford, Oregon airport and asked them to teach me.a girl.to fly. I earned enough money to buy my school clothes and book. I learn to break them with love, not threat or pain.Īt 17 years old, I picked night-crawlers (worms) out in our Oregon orchards from 9pm to midnight, every night. I was always a risk taker and broke mustangs at thirteen years old in Oregon. I've lived six lives in one and it all shows up in the books I write, one way or another.