As I went into my teenage years, I was body surfing, beaching really just all the time. Homework was always really important, but so was getting away and being with my friends and dancing. We used to dance to all the surf bands that you only hear about like Dick Dale and the Deltones, and the Ventures. All of these groups were who we went to see at places like Harmony Park in Anaheim and the Rendezvous on Balboa Island. We used to go out and just dance to live surf music. Surfing was really getting big then. It was very different times though. Girls did not wear pants to schools. We wore only skirts. And we would tease our hair, except we called it 'ratting' your hair. You would put lacquer on it and have it just so cool. You wouldn't wash it for at least three or four days because it would be all styled. There were all these urban legends about how somebody would have mice or rats hatch in their hair or black widows because the spider would get in there and then they'd get bitten. It was sick. You'd sleep with big rollers in your hair too. Talk about insomnia. Why don't you try to sleep with huge brush rollers in your hair with pins digging in your scalp.

In planning for college, I had stars in my eyes: Yale, UCLA, all these colleges. But my parents weren't able to help me much so instead I went to Long Beach State for two years. (I grew up in Long Beach.) So I was working a lot of hours to earn money. It was a struggle because I was trying to do pre-med, where I had to take German and five unit chemistry and all of these classes. When I was 20 I got married to Harry Thiobald, with whom I am no longer married. I met him at Hermosa Beach. He seemed to be the nicest guy. We dated for a year and in those days you didn't live with people before you got married. After a couple of months into the marriage, we got pregnant. He turned out to not be such a nice guy and I left him when my son was a year and a half. That's when I came to Encinitas with my baby, my dog, and my two cats.