Gayle Lee (Wrigglesworth) Pulley

safe4you@comcast.net

My parents' one stipulation, when looking into colleges, was that I live in the dorm. For reasons I have no idea of, my friends & I didn't start looking into colleges until Spring of our Senior year! Needless to say, we couldn't get into any dorms in California! But, while in Eau Claire the summer before, my parents had me apply there "just in case"!! (How smart were our parents?!) So in 1960 my family put me on the train in Apple Valley CA headed to college in Eau Claire. I stepped onto the train, there was no "Flight Attendant" to tell me where to sit, and I looked back down at my whole family standing there with tears! That was a difficult day, and I was only 17 'til the end of the year! My aunt and uncle picked me up in St. Paul, and drove me to Catherine Thomas Hall. Outside my room was a group of girls waiting to see what a girl from California looked like! As luck would have it, my first room mate was a smoker!! Yuck! But, at least I was able to switch at the end of the semester. Having been a cheerleader since my Freshman year of High School, which seemed to be all that girls could participate in back then, I tried out for cheer leading once again. When I made it, I called home, and my mother said, "You called long distance just to tell us that?!" So, needless to say, I didn't call home much! I could only go back at Christmas and summer, but, luckily had friends and relatives there. For 2 years I was told they would be getting my major, Speech Pathology, but it didn't happen in that time. So, my parents convinced me to transfer to the University of Alabama, where they were then living, and they would take me to Europe in the Spring, space available with the military. But, first, I started my sister at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, as I had started in the Fall with 18 credits, a bit difficult right out of High School. So we lived in a Kitchen Privilege House down there, and our parents said they would pay for everything but our food! So, we stuffed envelopes, etc. to make $ for our food! One time my sister found a box of doughnuts on sale for 10-cents, and I wouldn't let her buy them!! I still feel bad about that! Poor thing! My youngest sister wouldn't go to Europe with us because she didn't want to get the shots! The first meal we had, when we landed in Paris, was hamburgers, as it must have been a military base! Then, that evening we went out for, good grief, Chinese!! As we sat in the sidewalk cafe eating, we saw a man walk by in the rain with flowers all covered up and a baguette with not a thing covering it! That struck us funny! After that year Eau Claire got my major, so back I went. My favorite thing was teaching a little deaf boy lip reading. Right out of college I went in to the airlines "to get travel out of my system" before I went in to my major field! No one warned me you don't get travel out of your system!! So I ended up flying mostly to Europe, getting so spoiled, having my hair cut at Vidal Sassoon in London on Bond Street for a 33 1/3% discount, taking 6 months off one winter to live in Switzerland, studying French and skiing, Christmas shopping in Germany with big flakes of snow falling, etc.! In 1970 I married a Golf Course Architect and still flew a few more years until I was 6 months pregnant with our son, trying to get a transfer to San Francisco, so it would be easier to fly after he was born. They called me the day before he turned 3 months and wanted me back in New York to fly the next day! I said I was nursing him and couldn't be back the next day, so they said they would have to write on my records that I preferred to remain at home! I called the Union, who said they couldn't help me as they weren't getting paid while I was on maternity leave!! Their dues had been taken out of my paycheck for 8 years! So, years later I was told I was going through mourning over the loss of my job! But, I was able to be at home with our son, & 2 years & 10 months later our daughter. When he was a baby, I joined the Lafayette Junior Womens Club, where we would babysit for each other, when working on our projects. Oh, yes, I was in 2 babysitting co-ops so I could get my hair cut, etc. We had 49er Season Tickets, so when attending Tail Gate & game, it cost a lot of hours I had to repay! I started taking French in a nearby Junior college on Saturdays, my husband was at home with the children, & slowly I wouldn't hurry home so quickly. Eventually Saturday became his day with them! When they got into school, I helped out in their classrooms a day or so a week, & took Jackie Sorenson's Aerobics. Once they were both in school, I joined the Junior League of Oakland/East Bay. I spent quite a few years volunteering for Battered Womens Alternatives, as it was called then. I recently finished reading Nicholas Sparks' "Safe Haven," & he did an excellent job of going inside the head of the perpetrator as well as her amazing plan of escape, so I highly recommend it, if you know anyone, or anyone who knows someone who could use the help! As my daughter got older, we joined the National Charity League, where Mothers & Daughters volunteer together. That was a very special time. My son & I even tried a project together, but once they are Seniors, they have no time! I went through mourning his whole Senior year of HS, as he was only applying one place, The Air Force Academy, & I knew I'd see very little of him after that, if he was accepted! His birthday was the first week of school, & we invited his whole small Christian School to come, as long as they attended his Soccer game that day! The Girls' Volleyball team called to ask if they could come, as their game was at the same time! Our daughter played the song, "Letting Go" by Kathy Matea(sp?) her whole Senior year, as she had seen the difficult time I had! Every year the Air Force Academy Soccer Team came out here to CA to play Cal & Stanford one year, & the next Oregon State & Washington. So we got to watch them quite often. Our daughter's first Soccer game at Colorado Christian University was against the Air Force Academy women! Oof! So, we got to watch her play as well.
Now my main volunteering is going to Juvenile Hall to do a Bible Study with some of the young men in one of the units. I think I volunteered out for way too many years!

Our basketball team was at the State Championship, we got to our PE swim class, where there was a way for us to listen while we swam, but, no, we weren't allowed to listen to the game!! So, Carolyn Domer and I went across the street to listen to the game at her house! I got a RED F for the semester for that class! Was her name Miss Ulrich?!

I enjoyed Mr. Weber as a home room teacher, & totally missed the announcement at our last reunion, when his home room students had their picture taken with him!! Bummer! I sure hope they do it again next time!
I had Mr. Lystrup(?) for Biology, & so did my parents! They were lab partners, which I could have used dissecting that frog! I love thinking about the wonderful summers he spent each year at Old Faithful in Yellowstone. We did get there, but not while he was there, sadly.

Skiing, downhill & cross country, Ice Skating, Water Aerobics, reading, Community Bible Study,

I am taking Ballet, Hula, and quite a few Aqua Aerobics classes, besides a few other classes. I'm in my 26th year, I think it is, in Community Bible Study, where I'm a Greeter, and took 5 years of Bible Study Fellowship before that. I go in to Juvenile Hall once a week with a friend to do a Bible Study with some of the fellows in one of the units. I play Bridge at least once a month. Am a member of Daughters of Norway, which is a wonderful connection to my mom and her mother, whom I never met, as she died when my mom was 8. I'm also in a P.E.O. chapter. My daughter and I were in National Charity League, volunteering together, so I still am a part of the sustainers for that. I was also a member of the Lafayette Junior Womens Club & the Junior League of Oakland/East Bay.

Not long after we started flying, my room mates and I met a group from West Point, who invited us to the Army Navy game in Philadelphia, which was so exciting. That evening Bill Cosby was the entertainment, the first time I had ever seen him.
We also hitch-hiked to the Naval Academy, when Dave Sjugrud from Menomonie had just graduated, & he & team mates were coaching the 100 lb. & under football team.
Later I had some very nice dates with Reggie Pettit, who was at West Point. He invited me to the Ring Dance, which was so special. All the females stayed in Thayer Hall & got dresses together. Such fun! We also had a date in NY City with his friends, all going to the Playboy Club! The entertainer had humor about British words vs. American, which I really enjoyed, as I was flying to London at the time.
One time I was on a flight to ski in Aspen, when I met one of Jackie Kennedy's Secret Service men going there to check things out before the family went there to ski. We dated a little and he had interesting stories about who she dated and how little she saw her children (after they were dressed and in the limo!), but did say she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in person.
A room mate talked another room mate and i into going to Africa, and we're so glad she did! We went to Tree Tops, where we were escorted by head hunters for out safety, and spent the night up in this wonderful, fascinating place. When we first got in, we went up on the roof for Tea. When everyone had had their fill, a signal went to the monkeys, and they came down and ate the dredges! Then Cocktail time was spent out on balconies watching the animals come to the watering hole. We almost hated going inside for dinner, which was delicious! Then I could hardly go to bed, just watching out the window of our bedroom! We also went to Ngorngora (sp?) Crater, where a buffalo came right up to our window! We slept under mosquito netting and always were brought tea in bed in the morning! What a life!
TWA liked to give us Personal Time Off in the winter, when the tourists were not all flocking to Europe, so one of my room mates and I went to live in Switzerland (I had always wanted to go there and be Heidi, after my favorite book as a child!) to work on our French. We started out at L'Institute Richlieu, and lived first with a woman who had a group of men who dined at her home for lunch. Betsy was so quiet, and never said anything, unless she could say it perfectly in French. (I just babbled no matter how correct it was!) They were always trying to get Betsy to eat more, so, finally one day she said very distinctly, "Je suis plein" That literally translates, "I am full," which we would say. But, in French, she said, "I am pregnant"!! Next we lived an another home with a group of students. Again, Madame cooked for us. One night we had company, so she fixed beef tongue! Everyone was polite and at least tried to eat it, looking at all the dents in the tongue, but not Betsy! So, Madame fixed Betsy something else to eat, and we all hated her!! For Christmas, we went to Zermatt, and my parents had sent Betsy some of our old ski clothes, so she could learn to ski. I've never seen anyone so exhausted after her first lesson. I came back to the room and she was lying flat on her bed complete with ski boots still on!! Christmas Eve we all paraded through the streets singing Christmas Carols after church. Beautiful! When we were through with school, Betsy and I moved up to a ski village called Villars. Our first job there was working in a Home d'Enfant, making something ridiculous like 5 francs a day or week! I can't remember! We worked for a slave-driving French woman, who had us working from 7 a.m. until night! Next we stayed in a Youth Hostel for $1 a night! We were only allowed 1 shower a week, so Betsy and I had long ago resorted to wearing knee sox! One night I got caught in the middle of the night sneaking a shower!! She worked in a Swiss Italian restaurant & I babysat through the Chamber of Commerce. After the Olympics that year, our US Skating team came to our village to practice before the World Championships. The skating rink was our favorite restaurant, so, we were there one day when Peggy Flemming and her mother were in the locker room. (They weren't very friendly!) Sadly, Betsy wasn't there long, as she thought she could ski with everyone else, after her few ski lessons in Zermatt. At the end of the day one day, on our last run down to the village, she broke her leg! So, I was left by myself in the Youth Hostel! My mom did come to visit me while there, which was fun. We skied after it had snowed straight for a week or 2. Mom abruptly ended up in a snow bank! I dated a fellow there who knew only one word of English, & it wasn't a very nice word, as he had learned it from the Canadian Hockey players! His parents invited me for dinner, but they didn't even know that one bad word! No English at all! Quite a challenge!
After that my room mates and I skied quite a bit in St. Anton, Austria. We would fly to Zurich, go right downstairs at the airport, get on the train, which went right to the base of the mountain in St. Anton. We would spend a lot of time with our ski classes, including eating dinner at night. One night I salted my French fries, which came with my baked chicken, & the German fellow sitting next to me said, "But you haven't even tasted it!" It sure made sense, & I salt nothing now!! (my husband and I were later able to take our children back through this same fly/train route to ski in St. Anton! We would ski over to St. Christophe, where we would eat sausage around a fire in one restaurant, where you grill you sausage over the flames! So wonderful!

My husband had a Heart Attack in December. After I had time to process, and saw how close we came to losing him, I realized that since I have known him (44 1/2 years?) he has had a dream of living in a log cabin by some water somewhere. So, we have to move out of the place we are renting by the middle of April & I'd love to find his log home! We would be willing to move wherever he can find work, but we do feel very blessed to be able to live in "Paradise", where we are now!
Then there's Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Machu Pichu (?). Cinque Terra (?), the wine countries of France & Italy, barge in France, & I guess I could go on and on, but I'm sure glad I was able to travel so much as a Flight Attendant!

The fact that our children made it through college as "good kids" with their purity in tact! They both are married to Christians, and are raising "our precious babies" in The Lord.
I'm also proud of both of my parents. My father served our country as an Air Force Pilot for 26 years, but also coached, refereed, & participated in sports his entire career. When he retired, he was offered a good job with Boeing Aircraft, where he could have made good money, but his boss would have been 29, & his main boss 35! Instead he chose to go back to his first love: coaching and teaching!
My mom was what I would call the perfect Air Force Wife! We never lived with boxes! We always had curtains on the windows! My dream was to be an Air Force wife like my mom, but I think God knew that was not His plan! I do not do well with these things! We have to be out of our rental by the 15th of April, have no idea where we will go, & the thought of packing is overwhelming to me! I have Attention Deficit, & my problem is with sequencing. Packing has to be done in sequence!! Help!

I don't think I can ever have another pet, as it's too difficult to lose them! We didn't have many pets growing up in the Air Force, as my parents didn't think it was fair to keep them so restricted, as they had to be on the base. But, in Apple Valley CA, where I lived my Jr. & Sr. years of H.S., we lived 15 miles from the base. So, we got Heidi, 1/2 miniature & 1/2 regular Dachshund. We loved her so much, & snuck her in bed with us, which our Dad hated! We also, at that time, had a parakeet named Honey. He would say, "Hi, I'm Honey Wrigglesworth, what cha doin'?" He would also say, "Hurry up, Gayle, you'll miss the bus!" Then, when our son was in 6th grade, the teacher brought a box of kittens to school, let the children play with them all day, then said, whoever could bring a note from home the next day could take one home. Well, I wouldn't dream of writing the note, but Mr. Alergic wrote the note! The next day I picked the children up from school, & there was this little "bump" on my son's knee. I asked him if it came with food and directions! So, I went to a nice grocery store, stood in the aisle by the cat food & waited for someone to come along buying some! I asked him when & what he fed his cat, & that's what I did! I had 2 different appointments to have her spayed, felt the 3 people responsible for her should take her, but, they didn't keep either appointment! Jeff would sleep with her right outside our back door on a cot in a sleeping bag, as I didn't want her in the house! (How mean was I?!) One night he came in & said something strange was going on with Frisky! I rolled open the window & looked in the sleeping bag. A long black thing was coming out of Frisky!! By morning there were 4 little kittens! We said they could keep the one that looked the most like Frisky, & a neighbor took the one that looked like a tiger. We were headed to the grocery store with the 2 black ones, & our son, who never cried, was sobbing! We stopped on the way down the street at a neighbor who was out by her mailbox, she took the female, & back home we went with Sambo! Needless to say, I didn't stick to my rules long, as Sambo would sleep with his 2 front paws around our daughter's neck! He'd also curl up on my Bible on my lap when I would try to do my Bible Study in the afternoon in front of the only window with sun coming in! No, I can't go through losing any of them again! Too difficult for me!

Kindergarten - Riverside CA
1st & 2nd Grades - Elmendorf AFB, Alaska
3rd Grade - Shorewood Hills Elementary -Madison WI
4th, 5th, 6th Grades - Longfellow Elementary -Northfield MN
7th & 8th Grades - Damon Elementary -Loring AFB Maine
9th Grade - Limestone HS -Limestone Maine
10th Grade - Memorial HS -Eau Claire
11th & 12th Grades -Victor Valley Union HS -Victorville CA
UW-EC, University of Alabama, Motgomery, L'Institute Richlieu, Lausanne, Switzerland, George Washington Univ., Diablo Valley College, Los Medanos College, both here in the East Bay.

Sammys was my introduction to pizza
Loved the Fourniers (sp?) dances
We walked everywhere! from Memorial to downtown to Carson Park!

Maybe taken Latin, as my youngest sister sure loved it, & felt it was a big help to her. I'm sure I could have used Home Ec, as I'm not very domestic!

Jeremiah 29:11- "For I know the plans I have for you", declares The Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." We had this put on our son's paver, when he graduated from the Air Force Academy, and on both of their graduation invitations as well.

Family, good health, staying in God's Word, and any time we can spend with our precious grandchildren, as I know they are growing up too fast as it is!

I would sure love for our daughter and daughter-in-law to home school their children! I'd also like to keep them away from movies, television, & all of the "garbage" that is out there!