Alice Duncan's Newsletter

The Merry Month of June

This blog has been checked by Grammarly: http://www.grammarly.com/ 'cause what the heck. We all need help, and I need more than most.

After hurrying like a madwoman (not difficult, given the state of my sanity at the best of times) in order to get all my work done, I left New Mexico for my home state of California on June 19! The purpose of this visit was threefold:

1.    2013 is the fiftieth anniversary of my graduation (along with approximately 999 other kids) from John Muir High School in Pasadena, California, and I wanted to attend the reunion.
2.    I wanted to see my younger daughter, Robin; my younger grandson, Riki; Robin’s husband, Gilbert; and several of my old Pasadena buddies.
3.    I wanted to EAT! You can’t get good food in Roswell unless you make it yourself. I wanted to dine on Japanese, Middle Eastern, and East Indian food. And I did!

Therefore, the trip was a rousing success. Missions accomplished. Here’s a picture of John Muir High School, the school of my youth, which doesn’t seem so all-fired long ago, although everyone who attended the reunion looked terribly old:


At the reunion I also touched base with a woman with whom I played flute at the Eliot Junior High School Band. Janet Levine was her name back then. She’s Janet Levine Goldberg now, and it was mega-fun to see her again. Here are Mary Ray Cate (now a physician in Santa Fe, with whom I’ve been in touch for years), Janet and me in the Muir Auditorium. Hey, I played a Winkie in The Wizard of Oz in that auditorium! I think they left the Winkies out of the movie. Story of my life.



I got a ticket coming home from California. I deserved it, too. I was going eighty-five in a seventy-five mile-per-hour zone. However, since the ticket was given to me by a Laguna Pueblo Police Officer, it won’t go on my permanent driving record. It’s treated more or less like a parking ticket. I don’t understand why that is, but I’m grateful my insurance rates won’t suffer.

Then, when I came home again, much to the delight of my dogs and the kind people who cared for them while I was away (Ann and Barry Lasky), I participated in a Concert of American Music on June 30. It was so much fun! The only problem with singing in choruses, etc., is that I have a very low voice for a female and, therefore, sing with the tenors. I’m five feet tall. All the rest of the tenors are a lot taller than I am. Ergo, since I sat at the end of the second row for this concert, I had to take a giant step to my right in order to be seen and heard by the audience. What the heck. I guess we all use the talents we’ve been given. If I was meant to have been a soprano, I guess I’d have been born one, huh? Anyway, that was fun.

Altogether, June was a much more enjoyable month than May was. Here’s hoping good things for July.

If you’d like to enter my contest, this month I’ll be giving away a couple of copies of PECOS VALLEY RAINBOW, Book #3 in my Pecos Valley series. To enter, all you have to do is send me your name and home address in an e-mail to alice@aliceduncan.net . Also, please visit my web site: www.aliceduncan.net and join me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925