Remembering [Sonya Varea Hammond]

Thanks Anna for setting this up. I do have fond memories of my year in France. The Aurelia - being told that it used to be the second the smallest ship still sailing the Atlantic, until the smallest sunk, and now the Aurelia was the smallest... getting three miles out from NY harbor and seeing everyone (underage at home) swarm the tiny on-board bars...the last day, coming up top, in the early morning fog waiting to glimpse the first sign of England...entering the harbor and seeing Bobbies, and feeling like I was entering a movie set...in France being greeted by Mr. Garcia as we got off the bus, he calling us each by name, even though this was our first time to meet. That always impressed me, and taught me a lesson, also professed by Dale Carnegie, about the importance of a person's name.

Ah, many more memories, but that's enough for today. An update on myself. After Bordeaux, I returned to UCSB where I was an RA in Santa Rosa dorm my final year. After graduating mid-year I went back to France, to a suburb of Paris to help run a little neighborhood grocery store with a fellow I had met in Pau. We returned to Santa Barbara the following fall, me for my MA and teaching credential, he went to SB City College and was elected Student Body President. We had a daughter, Karima, who is now 35 and living in London with her husband and their two children. My marriage didn't last, so I raised Karima by myself and my mom's help until I married my current husband George, and we've been happily married for 21 years. He was a controller for Nestle his entire career, then retired and now has a full-time post-retirement job with Classis Residence by Hyatt in Monterey as their accounting manager.

I have had several 'careers'. I was a parent educator in Santa Barbara for the County Office of Education for two years, even though I had never parented! But, it was good training for me. Then I taught ESL in Salinas high schools for seven years before going back to school in Arizona to get an MBA in international marketing. The international job never materialized, so I came back to Salinas and got a good job as a controller for an ag company. I started looking for something else after nine years there and found the job of my dreams with the University of California. I am the County Director of Cooperative Extension here in Monterey County. I oversee a group of UC academics who conduct agricultural research at the local level.

With retirement in mind, about five years ago we bought a lakeside house in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains in South Carolina. It's about one hour directly south of Ashville NC. The kids call it 'the holiday house' and beg to go there all the time. We love the peace and beauty of the area. We also love the city of Greenville SC, about 30 miles away, and so we bought an 'urban condo', right downtown on the river to live in with the idea of working there. The downturn in the economy has delayed our plans, so we rent it out until we can move there, in about 18 - 24 months.

Thanks again, Anna, for setting up the blog.