Camilla Brannen Baker *

I was nerdy when nerdy wasn't cool. Check the occupation line above for proof. Chorus and Latin class, not band or athletics. Good enough mind to make a career as an academic, but never had the discipline to start, much less finish, a Ph.D. Through most of my adulthood, I thought of myself as totally uninvolved in high school. Then, after I first set up my profile here, I pulled out the Legend from 1970 and looked at the picture on the first page of the Senior section, taken at a football game (probably homecoming), and there I was. Not alone, of course. I made friendships in high school that I remember very fondly, and I am looking forward to reconnecting, after being so far away for so long.

I went to college in Atlanta after high school and stayed there through graduate school. After Milledgeville in the '60s, I loved that city life. Then I married and moved to Buffalo, New York, where I lived for 25 years. I was a college librarian from 1978 until 2014, and my job involves a lot of teaching.

My two sons are the lights of my life. Their father died in 2000, so I've raised them alone after that. Carter is an Army reservist; he was deployed to Iraq twice before he turned 23. Clint graduated from high school in 2009, and is working part-time. Both of them still live with me. I have an open door policy. Several of their friends have lived with us when they needed a place. I'm certainly not going to turn my own out because they're over 18. Home will always be home, no matter where we happen to be.

I moved back to Georgia three years after my husband died. I still have family in Georgia (my brother) and Florida (my sisters), and my children at the time had cousins close to their ages who were strangers to them. So, I dragged out my resume one cold day in January and started looking for work closer than 840 miles away, and I got lucky. For those of you who think romantically of snow in the wintertime, let me just say that, for every white Christmas, there are a million snow plows, tons of road salt, and potholes that would swallow a small car. I miss the mild summers and the colorful autumns of upstate New York, but in 25 years, I never got over the loss of the spectacular springs that we have here in Georgia. Wearing sandals in January is a kicker, too.

City Elementary (aka, Little GMC)

I remember learning a tiny bit of grade school French in Mrs. Fuller's second grade, by ear only, no spelling or syntax. We also began learning Spanish in fourth grade. Some of our lessons were delivered via television, but we were tested regularly on vocabulary and comprehension. My first brush with foreign language instruction; I loved it. The upper grades at City Elementary were housed in the wooden buildings behind the main school -- what we would in contemporary terms now call portables. At least, that's what they called the overflow buildings at my sons' middle and high schools.

Raising two sons alone is the hardest job I've ever had, the one I will never finish, and something I'm proud to say I even attempted. My boys are neither scholars nor millionaires -- they're young yet :] -- but both of them can think on their feet and for themselves. I would like both of them, even if I didn't love them to pieces. Our house was the place where friends gathered for birthday parties and Friday night movies. Children I've watched grow up since middle school have finished college, and some of them have children of their own now.

I think of my life in unremarkable terms. I moved far away and stayed away for a long time, but many from our class did the same. I eventually came back to Georgia to be closer to my roots; again, not unique. I married twice; not unusual, but that one still surprises me. In my 20s, it seemed as though I would be single forever. Now that I'm in my 60s, it seems that way again, but I'm ok with that now. I like myself a lot better now than I did when I was young.

"Retire, please God, while I'm still vertical." This is what I said in 2010. Well, it finally happened. I retired from Georgia Regents University at the end of the Spring 2014 semester. Love it, so far. Retirement is one of the best things I've ever done for myself.

About a year before I retired, I took up knitting again. I made my first sweater when I was 12, and revisited it from time to time, over the years between then and now. I love working with pretty yarns, designing garments or blankets using different stitch patterns, and looking at a new batch of yarn -- or one I've rediscovered from my stash -- and imagining the possibilities.

One of my most consistent pleasures is reading. And not the dry academic stuff I have to read at work. No, I most enjoy brain candy fiction. I've often taken my vacations at Veranda Beach (a yankeeism for staying at home) with a big stack of books from the public library.

I also enjoy spending time with my family, for real and up close, not just on Facebook. :]