Elena Goldstein

Although I took it all for granted at the time, I am now aware of how fortunate I was to have grown up in Mount Vernon, been a part of a relatively heterogeneous community and to have lived so close to NYC. The years at Davis - the friends, the teachers, and all the fun - were deeply nourishing. It was bittersweet to leave that womb and launch myself into the world.

Soon after graduating from college I moved to Santa Cruz, California, where I lived for 34 years. While there I had a gratifying career as an educator in a multi-graded, alternative classroom, usually delighted in being a mother to my one son, enjoyed the stimulation of living in a university community, and did a fair amount of traveling abroad during those long summer vacations.

Eight years ago my partner and I "put ourselves out to pasture" in Western Colorado - literally living on a pasture in a passive/active solar house that we designed and built. I often pinch myself to make sure I am not dreaming; I am finally a "country girl" living in one of the last places in the west where cattle drives run right through the center of town. I treasure living beneath the gorgeous Colorado sky, the breathtaking Rockies in full view, with lowing cows and warbling, migrating sand hill cranes for music. This is a wonderful, simple way of life: No malls, no traffic lights, and no waiting in lines.

Other special joys over the years have included outdoor sports, being a part of a terrific book group, and gardening and harvesting every moment I can.

My retirement has been lively and stimulating. I have had the opportunity to be a fund raiser and design participant for a new library, a director for corny annual melodramas and a curator for our local historical museum -an appropriate position for an antique of the class of '57.

Come visit and try weaving your car through a cattle drive with me.