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Light a Candle
Diane was born to poor but honest parents at home in Chicago, IL, a very long time ago. Both her parents emigrated to America from Croatia. Both were married before and had children from their earlier marriages. Diane had three, half sisters and a half brother from her father's side and two half brothers from her mother's side. It was a sort of yours, mine and ours family. Diane was the only child of both parents. She was spoiled rotten, and still is, being an "only child." Diane's family never took vacations as her father was a workaholic. Never even took a day off sick. All of her half siblings were much older than she. She grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Chicago and thought she was Italian until she went to High School. Her brother Tommy taught her to appreciate the Italian Opera and other classical music at a young age. She sang in a chorus in High School and was offered an internship with the Chicago Lyric Opera Company when she graduated from High School. But unfortunately her father had died by this time and her brother Tommy was killed in Anzio during WWII. Her older brother Peter was going to college under the GI bill after invading Normandy and helping General Patton win the war. Her mother became very sich and needed Diane to work and manage the house. Diane was working in the mail room at a big insurance company when she heard that the manager was going to need a secretary. She got out her Greggs shorthand manual, borrowed a typewriter and started to take down the songs played on the radio in shorthand. She got the job as an executive secretary and soon had that company functioning much more efficiently. Eventually she met a sailor that looked like he had been keelhauled and needed a good straightening out. She took control of him and indeed straightened him out. Her reward was four children that she could shape up too. She moved that dumb sailor to the frontier town of Houston, Texas where she soon was stomping scorpions to death in her bare feet, grabbing copperheads by the tail and bashing their heads in against a rock or brick wall. Also fighting the never ending battle against cockroaches and skeeters. As a girl scout leader she took her troops out on campouts to the Sam Houston National Forest and to the seashore to watch tornados swirl over the waters of Galveston Bay. With her children all grown and scattered all over the country she decided to go west and see California. She liked what she saw and made the sailor boy buy a nice little apartment near the ocean for her to retire in. She allowed the sailor to live with her because he still needed more improvement. Diane spent the next twenty years exploring the California and western states. In Leisure World, where her little apartment was, she became involved in many clubs and activities. She was an officer in the Slavic Club, disc jockey for the formal dance club, a regular at the AD HOC singing group and entertained at the Community Singalongs and sometimes just entertained. She belonged to the Leisure World Theater Club for 20 years and served as secretary for many years. That included 4 big shows a year, and many smaller shows in between. She and her sailor took many wonderful trips together, until her body just couldn't take any more fun. She is still hanging around, waiting for him to join her, so they can start their last great adventure, together.
