Growing up on a street like La Honda (the road to Dixon Dam) was a delight. As I got older, my bus stop moved away from our driveway and to the end of La Honda which seemed about 50 miles away. Danah's house was about half of the way home and anytime I’d see him outside, I’d stop, rest, and chat. I had a huge crush on Danah when I was young, but he never thought of me more than a little sister. Growing up, he’d walk up the hill to see me; sometimes with a steer in tow. If he went inside, he’d leave me a secret “Danah” note hidden. The “Danah” note trick continued to spread. As a wedding present, Cliff and Danah got us a knife holder and carved on one side; Danah and on the other, Cliff. My best friend, Laura loved the Danah note trick. After our honeymoon, we came back to our condo and there must have been hundreds of Danah notes! Laura and I got inventive; often giving each other gifts with “Danah” written on the bottom. The best Danah note happened in the 1990s when both Laura and I lived in Minnesota. Keith and I had helped Laura and her husband put up rain gutters. There was a six inch section left over which Laura wrote “Danah” with a red tip marker and snuck into the back seat of our car. For the next few years, the rain gutter would go back and forth between our houses. I babysat her kids a lot, so every time one of them picked them up, or I’d drop them off, we’d hide the gutter. Finally Keith and I found the perfect hiding place. Laura’s car got into an accident and was being repaired in a body shop that the company that I worked for owned. I got the workers to put the gutter inside of the bumper. After I told them where it was, they tried so hard to get it out, but it stayed there until they traded it in. I’m sure that someday it will be found at a junkyard and they’ll wonder how a rain gutter got inside a bumper and why someone wrote “Danah” on it!
When I was in high school, Cliff and Danah took off one summer for a long road trip which left me devastated. I missed them both so much. Thankfully they wrote me a postcard or letter almost EVERY day. I remember running into C.J. who asked if I had heard from them and I shared what I received. C.J. was so upset because he hadn’t gotten any word from the pair! I offered the excuse that maybe they didn’t have enough stamps, and C.J. complained that he had given them self-addressed, stamped envelopes and they still hadn’t written. Hopefully he eventually got a letter! My relationship with my long-time boyfriend, Lee was failing and Danah would come up and we'd sit under the big tree outside my bedroom and talk. Our nightly chats eventually took a serious romantic turn for us. Danah and I fell in love, but there was one problem; we were no longer compatible like we were when we were younger. Danah had become deeply religious at a time when I was becoming more interested in the sciences. I had originally wanted to be a large animal vet, but although Danah had tried and tried to teach me to give shots to animals, I just didn’t have the stomach for medicine. Instead I became very interested in agri-business and developing better ways to grow food through better irrigation. It was after one of our dates to a Christian youth rally that Danah had the dreaded “talk” with me. It was obvious that I didn’t have the passion for Christ that he had developed and would never want to be a pastor’s wife. He was able to get me to admit that I wanted to travel and save the world. As I became more scientific and agnostic, our paths were no longer the same. Although I ended up not going to CalPoly as planned and switched from agri-business to accounting and computer science, I did end up traveling the world and 47 of the 50 states. I’m still working on the “saving the world” part, but for now just working on my little part of the world; my four granddaughters and my tiny backyard. As teenagers, when Danah would leave, I would complain and didn't like it when he said that it was time to say “Goodbye.” To appease me, he quit saying goodbye and replaced it with as kiss and “Later.” As a teenager, I was happiest riding around in the front of Danah’s car with Cliff and Danah on each side of me.
After I met Keith and he truly liked Cliff and Danah, it was a big factor of us falling in love. Keith didn't feel threatened by my friendships with Cliff and Danah and picked both of them to be groomsmen at our wedding. Danah did become a pastor, but died in 1982 at age 30 of cancer. I hope that he was right and there is something after all this and if so, I'll never have to say goodbye again.
Looking back, I really only lived in 4 houses growing up; the one on Spruce in Santa Ana where my parents lived when I was born. My dad said they paid about $900 for that house. Then we moved to Escondido and lived at 1468 Valley Parkway. Dad had owned a poultry business in Orange County, so he bought the chicken ranch. We lived there for only about a year before moving to the house I considered “home” at 1468 La Honda in Escondido. Although they did buy the 2 houses at 471 Citrus where this graduation picture is taken with my folks in 1972, I didn’t end up spending much time there; spending most of my time either staying with Laura, or housesitting a house with Laura in Rancho Bernardo, and then getting married. My parents finally moved up to Ranchita and then Valley Center where my mother died. Mom’s ashes are in Borrego Springs at Saint Richard's Catholic Cemetery.
On the other hand, Keith moved a lot. His dad was in the Navy and was stationed in Alaska, Hawaii, San Diego, Long Beach, and Illinois. He attended many, many different schools. I was lucky; never the new kid at school.
This is Keith's mom, Dorothy Jerome in 1953 holding my husband Keith with Jerry Jerome, Camille DeMoss and Paul Jerome. Jerry had spent the early years of the Korean war on the USS John A. Bole. He was an avid card player and won enough playing cards to buy a new car, which I think this was it. His tour during the Korean war was tough; his ship provided fire support during the amphibious assault on Inchon and then was parked three miles off Swatow, China, on the orders of General Douglas MacArthur, in an unsuccessful attempt by him to provoke China into a war with the United States. Armed Chinese junks surrounded the ship, but in the meantime, MacArthur was relieved and the ship was moved away from its "sitting duck" role off the Chinese harbor. USS John A. Bole also steamed with support convoys into Inchon before returning to San Diego in mid-June 1951. At that point, Jerry transferred to Adak, AK where they were building a Navy Communications base. I remember the story of Dorothy having to travel with two small children to Adak via train and ship, and then spend two years in that frozen wasteland. There is a scene in Fiddler on the Roof that makes me cry, thinking of Dorothy traveling so far away from home. But the daughter responds, "When I'm with my Love....I'm Home." There is a lot to be said of those who fought and those who stayed by their side. Jerry earned 5 bronze stars during his service; one for saving a shipmate’s life. After Adak, he transferred to San Diego where Keith was born. Steve Jerome came along much later. Jerry died in 2005, Dorothy in 2010 and Paul in 1968. Camille now lives in Alaska – sort of full circle with Keith's hair looking the same as it does today!
Over the years, I have staying in touch with my good friend Gayle; she is one of the few people that I know that lives in my hometown. This is a picture of her with her lovely daughter, Amy.
Gayle and I originally met in 4-H when we were about twelve or thirteen, but I didn’t like her because all my 4-H boyfriends really, really liked her, and I was jealous. She was blonde and pretty and I thought of myself as rather dark and gangly. I also thought that she was interested in my brother, Stan which I judged her poorly for. But in my freshman year of high school I was thrust into PE with a bunch of people that I didn’t know. Most of my friends like Laura, Sheila, Wendy, Pam, Ellen and Kathleen had other classes. OGHS was a mixture of 3-4 different junior highs. I sort of recognized Gayle and ended up hanging out with her. We also got to know Nancy who came from the Catholic school, and that sort of made my non-Orange Glen trio of friends. My best friend, Laura, in the meantime was fast-tracking into the cool kids group. In her classes she met Anne McLeod and they became friends. I got jealous which was odd; in my freshman year, I had lots of new friends, and so did Laura, but we still hung out. Thing were okay, but the the big problem was my boyfriend. He didn’t like the time I spent with Laura. They had actually gone together in junior high and I think he resented that she had broke up with him. In our sophomore year, he had convinced me that Laura was getting to be a “social” and was stuck up. He insisted I tell her. That ended up being disastrous. Laura and I broke up and were not friends again until late in my Junior year after my boyfriend and I started breaking up. It taught me a lesson about possessive and jealous behavior of boyfriends at a high price. Gayle and Nancy ended up being my "new" friends. When I got married, Gayle got the flu and couldn’t be a bridesmaid. I felt so bad for her; she was living in Chico and had driven all the way back to Escondido for the wedding and had sewn the bridesmaid dress! So my wedding party ended up being from left, my cousin Georgette instead of Gayle– who could fit into Gayle’s dress at the last minute. Nancy, my cousin Loretta, and Laura as maid of honor. My cousin Mary Ester was the flower girl. I have lost touch with Nancy. I last saw her around 1985 when she and her family came to visit us in Arizona. Gayle and I email weekly and whenever I visit Escondido, we see each other. We have hopes that someday she'll come here after Covid and I'm fully retired and we'll spend a week seeing the Florida Keys. The important thing is that is it great to make new friends, but make sure you keep the old; as the song goes - "one is silver and the other gold."
This picture of my grandparents, Mabel Phillips Cook and Sheridan Cook was taken in Colorado Springs about 1927. The kids are Warren, Madenia, and Thelma. My grandparents spent a lot of time in the late 1920s in Colorado before settling in Huntington Beach, CA around 1930.
When I look at the 1930 census the depression is in full swing; 14 of the Phillips/Cooks in one house! It does show that 3 of the Cook/Phillips children were born in Colorado; Jean Phillips and Dorothy Cook about 1925, and then my dad – later in 1929.
My dad said his father, Sheridan Cook, was a bootlegger; he had a talent for driving a loaded truck fast. I think the Cook family in Oklahoma would have been considered “dirt poor” because they were country folk; the 1920s census lists Sheridan Cook as a farmer. My dad talks about his Uncle Hallard Cook who was “city folk” and had a nice job with the utility company and lived in the city. After the tremendous demand for food during the Great War in 1919, the rural communities suffered an early depression in the 1920’s when that demand quickly declined. For country folks, the 1920s were hardly a golden age. On the contrary, there was an agricultural depression that lasted the entire decade and kept a noticeable divide in place between “city” class and the rural classes. My dad said he was born in Colorado because his dad worked on the Royal Gorge Bridge near Canon City, Colorado. The bridge was built in six months between June and November 1929 at a cost of $350,000 (equivalent to $4.2 million in 2019 dollars.) Going full circle, now their great, great granddaughter, Chandra Jerome lives in Colorado. Visit my website for info on my books - https://www.sandijerome.com/
As I started to "age gracefully," I found myself overweight after struggling to lose even a few pounds. My metabolism had really slowed down when I turned 40. I started worrying when I hit 179 pounds at 45 years old compared to the 129 I had weighed in high school. These extra fifty pounds took a toll on my health; my arthritis and psoriasis were terrible. I was living in dark, damp and dreary Eugene, Oregon. I was under so much stress from my work and other family issues. Food was my only comfort in those tough times. Eventually, I got out of that stressful situation and moved to Florida and by the time I was 60, we had switched to a mostly vegan diet and gotten my weight down into the 160s. But I just couldn’t get rid of those last 30 pounds. I was rather “healthy” with my vegan lifestyle, AND I spent most of my day on a treadmill computer desk or walking out in the sun. How could I not be shedding those last 30 pounds? I found out that my real problem was inflammation, which is what most of us suffer from. It was caused by my genes, diet, and stress. This is the story of my journey.
I inherited psoriasis from my grandpa, and it started when I was seventeen. Boyfriend troubles caused stress in my life, and I started drinking. I remember my grandpa sitting in his chair, scratching. Psoriasis tends to appear on the outside of elbows and knees, the scalp, the lower back, the face, palms and feet. For me, it was almost everywhere! From my dad, I inherited arthritis in my neck, aggravated by my job as a computer programmer and moving that mouse back and forth, clicking and clicking.
The good news is that today, both my arthritis and psoriasis are completely gone – not one spot on me and a free-moving neck! I remember having psoriasis so bad that I couldn’t sleep at night (itching so much that I would have to wear socks on my hands), and once it was covering so much of my body that my dermatologist said I would need to be hospitalized to avoid infection. But today, I am sore-free, with no itching. I wish I had figured out the cure when I was younger, but some of the cure wasn’t possible. I worked in high-stress jobs and later traveled so much that I couldn’t control what I ate. But today, I have already lost 20 of those 30 pounds, and it is coming off without dieting.
Now, this is a lot to do, so I have tried to list it in the order of easiest to most complicated. The thing you are fighting is inflammation. Inflammation is causing you to put on weight, and more importantly, it can cause you to catch COVID-19 more easier and increase your chance of death. Inflammation is your new enemy; weight gain and other ailments, food sensitivity, etc., are merely by-products. Ready to begin? Try this for just the next month and see if it makes a difference. You need to do this for a least a month to cure yourself.
1. The outside you – Organic Coconut oil and NO CHEMICALS. Buy the big tub of coconut oil at Costco or Walmart. It has a natural SPF of 4-5, so lather it on before you go into the sun or outside. Yup, it is messy when it is hot and totally liquid or cold and hard to spread, but I put it on over the area that has wood floors and then rub it into the floor! I have it in smaller plastic containers all around the house. I rub it on after showers and into my hair too. That is the ONLY thing that goes on my skin. Everything else has chemicals that cause inflammation. Sunscreen is bad, bug spray is bad, hairspray is bad, most hand lotion is bad, anti-aging creams are bad, and even the prescriptions that I had paid hundreds for over the years caused inflammation. They are all gon,e and no chemicals touch my skin, nor do I ingest them. More on that later. I also use a more natural detergent and products that we get on Amazon; Grab Green Natural 3 in 1 Laundry Detergent Pods, Free & Clear/Unscented, 60 Loads, Fragrance-Free, Organic Enzyme-Powered, Plant & Mineral-Based. We don’t use fabric sheets; instead I use little wool dryer balls, Smart Sheep 6-Pack XL Premium 100% Wool Dryer Balls. Bounce fabric sheets are filled with chemicals that get on your sheets, towels and clothes then irritate your skin.
No Soap or Shampoo. I use PURA D’OR Scalp Therapy Shampoo – Hydrates & Nourishes Scalp – Scalp Care Shampoo For Itchy Flaky Scalp w/ Tea Tree, Peppermint, Patchouli, Cedarwood. It is my body wash, shampoo and conditioner. I don’t color my hair anymore – that is a big inflammation that spreads through your body and causes cancer. Instead, I use Light Mountain henna hair color, which is time-consuming and messy but has no chemicals. I make my own deodorant and air freshener. Buy a set of plastic spray bottles and essential oils. There are lots of recipes online,e but deodorants, bug sprays and air fresheners go right into you fast and cause inflammation. Yes, don’t have to avoid going outside which you love – that is actually great therapy. We spend 15-20 minutes each day in the sun to get the Vitamin D that we both need, so make sure you do that every day; the earlier, the better. We go out at 9:30AM while it is still cool in Florida and my coconut oil protects me. I am starting to make my own makeup powders, more info on that later.
2. The inside you – Good oils – Coconut oil, Avocado Oil and Olive Oil. Salmon. Now, we need to fix what is going inside you that is causing inflammation. I eliminated two things; bad oils and sugar. I don’t drink, but if you do, the alcohol has to go for now. You might want to consider replacing it with medical marijuana (the kids have this right) – but make sure you don’t smoke it. Any smoke (like your barbeque) causes inflammation. You might want to try CBD gummies first to calm yourself instead. Giving up alcohol wasn’t hard for us; we did that in our 20s but if it is part of your lifestyle and culture, a little tough. If you do get medical marijuana, you can have that when you go out and have a few gummies and soda water with a lemon and still have a nice buzz. Giving up sugar was VERY hard, but I have replaced it with stevia. That is the only artificial sweetener that is okay. The rest are very, very bad, so no more diet sodas unless they are made with stevia. I drink Zevia Root Beer which I order from Amazon or often find it at the grocery store or Target. Removing bad oils is also hard. Most products have bad oil. Even “olive oil butter” or “olive oil chips” are really made with sunflower oil (bad) and have a little olive oil added. I have an air fryer, buy corn tortillas and make my own chips. I eat my own guacamole that I make. I make my own butter spread (start saving all plastic containers.) No animal products except salmon. Yup, becoming vegan was a little too hard, especially when you go out, but everyone always has salmon on the menu. Try to only eat cold water-caught salmon – farmed salmon has chemicals. I buy it canned and make a sort of tuna salad every other day and on the other days, I eat a tofu burrito with lots of guacamole. The goal is to get the good oils in you and the bad oils out. I gained a little weight at first due to #3 next and all the good oil, but yup, I have now lost 20 pounds (although I might say 30 since I lost the first 10 from becoming vegan before 60 and stopping the cheese and Red Vine addiction that I had!) The hateful eight industrial seed oils are Canola, Corn, Cottonseed Soy, Sunflower, Safflower, Grapeseed, and Rice bran. Look at the ingredients of your “healthy foods.” They most likely have these and they are causing inflammation and belly fat.
3. The Mental You. Exercise is the cure. I wish everyone could get rid of the stress in your life. I live a truly stress-free life. We sold our software company, and I’m in year 2 of a 5-year retirement plan. We didn’t make a ton of money, but we now have a monthly income and a reduced lifestyle that requires less income. I have no real human contact with clients anymore (part of the agreement) – that was a real stress builder. If you are a high-stress job and probably can’t retire – your goal is to fix this. Consider downsizing your lifestyle to live with less (what you need instead of what you want) and retire. Use a treadmill desk. Start doing Yoga. When the TV is on, I am normally exercising. It is hard because towards the end of the day when we sit down to watch TV, I can be exhausted, but it is just for a month to see what a difference it makes. I went to a personal trainer and got this routine. Right now, your body is mostly fat. It is merely a part of aging. After 30, we lose our muscles and convert them to fat to prepare us for the “winter” of our lives. This fat, especially belly fat, means elevated cortisol hormone, which means elevated blood sugar, which then raises insulin – the fat storage hormone. So even if you’re still eating the same, your body will hold onto more fat – especially at your waistline. So, getting rid of sugar (alcohol) and exercising are cortisol (the stress hormone) fighters. Every time you are angry, take a walk (if it is hot, jog around in a pool or the kitchen) or start exercising. It works! It gets you away from the stress and has the added benefit of your long-term plan to convert yourself into a lean, mean, fighting machine! Here is the exercise plan designed by personal training before they shut down. The goal is to convert fat to muscle so your body burns more calories per day and then you can either eat more (which I like) or lose weight (almost done with that.) Do not diet – under any circumstances. You need to instead convert fat to muscle and slowly burn the weight off. A 3″ square of muscle weighs more than fat, so you can gain weight at first, but then after 30 days, you normally turn the corner and start losing about 1-2 pounds a month. It is a VERY slow process of weight loss, but it has worked for m,e and I have very little belly fat left and 30 pounds lighter! I massaged my belly every night to make sure my skin tightened back up. I eat a lot – a whole lot. I often go off the “vegan” plan and have a cupcake, fish and chips, steak or fried chicken, but that is now rare, but I do not diet. This Sunday, I will have a pepperoni pizza! But now I really, really enjoy it rather than it being just dinner. When a friend makes something special – it is double special for me to eat!
Exercise plan
A. On the couch or chair, sit down and stand up. It is harder than you think. Don’t use your arms. Start with 12 reps and increase to 20. Then do it many times a day.
B. Using 10-pound barbells, I do 3 different arm strengthening routines; 12 reps each, then increase to 20.
C. I lay flat ahhh….resting, and then doing toe touches where I lift my toe up and then touch it down; 20 for each leg/toe and then 20 together.
D. 20-pointer dogs. Yoga Balance Table, then bring your right hand to touch your left knee. Reverse.
Yoga Balance Table
E. 5 minutes of stepper. Sunny Health & Fitness Mini Stepper with Resistance Bands – from Amazon
F. I also garden for 1 hour and do an 1 or 2 hour on the treadmill, but you might not have room or finances for the treadmill right now. If you can find a corner in the front room for these – the stepper and treadmill, great. We use a treadmill desk, so it’s easier. I have been on the treadmill while writing this, checking Facebook and handling my email, so I’m almost at my 1 hour, and it is almost breakfast time, then gardening. Ah… the life of the semi-retired.
G. WiiFit – I do the yoga and balance game and now I am adding more real yoga into my life. Just starting this, so more info later.
This is a lot to do, but it works. It also helps that it is hot and humid in Florida. Our house is pretty humid; we keep it hotter than most, 80 degrees in the summer since it is 90-100 outside. Running the air and heat dries out the house and you. Our indoor humidity is between 45-50%. You might not be able to do this, but it works for us. I am now allergy, psoriasis and arthritis free and lighter. All were caused by inflammation. We meditate twice a day for 20 minutes (you might call them senior naps), and that is a great time to chat. You and your spouse or significant other might try this; going into the bedroom, shutting the door and meditating for 20 minutes. Sometimes, we just talk, but being in that cool, dark room together and away from the noise can be helpful. We do it at 10AM and 2pm every day. You might just start at 10AM on Sunday. This means de-scheduling your life. Start saying “no” to events. Covid 19 has taught us that lesson; we no longer need to fill our weekends with travel, eating out, and attending events, so try to continue this when things start opening up. Hard when you have family still, but we moved away from all that. When you are at a restaurant, mall, lake or park with friends and family, ask yourself this, “would I rather be home in my dark bedroom, having a nap – or even in my own chair by the TV or pool floating around peacefully or be here – trying to look pretty and be witty?”
One of the best experiences I had in high school was playing field hockey. When I watch the game on TV today, I’m surprised how different it was when I played. Our coach – Mrs. Freitas insisted that we be ladies on the field; helping an opponent up if they fall and being humble with our scoring. In 1969-72 when I played, there was no money for girls sports – this was prior to Title IX and field hockey was a part of GAA – a girls club – not a sport. I don’t know how Mrs. Freitas came up with the money for field hockey, but somehow she managed. The fields were rather poor. I remember playing La Jolla Country Day School and they had a fence right at the end of the field. As a left wing, I would run down the field and at the last minute send my pass to the center. After an unusually fast breakaway, I sent my pass and couldn’t stop and ran into that fence – knocking myself out. This was one of the few games my dad attended. He was a hod carrier and working in La Jolla that day. If you ever want to read about a hard job – read about hod carriers for plasters. This was before they had guns that brought plaster and stucco up high rises. A hod carrier would carry that plaster up many stories on their back. Grueling work. After being knocked out, I woke up seeing his concerned face. I remember being a little embarrassed; he was still in his work clothes, but when I think of it today – I should have been proud. I think he was the only parent from our school at that game. I wasn’t a great athlete, but I really wanted to play field hockey. My dad’s best friend, Don Minter had recently remarried and now had a step-daughter, June Miller. They lived with us for a brief time before finding a house in Escondido to fit the new family. June sort of adopted me, she was a year old and a decade older in confidence! She talked me into trying out for field hockey and I noticed nobody wanted to play left wing. A field hockey stick only has one side, so to hit it from the left to the center meant a twisted hold. Being left-handed, it seemed a little easier for me than for most girls, so I tried out for that position. I ended up getting a lot of playing time and since most players can pass easier from the center/right to the left – I got a lot of passes and eventually assists. I did score a few goals, but mostly because I was it the right place at the right time and I think sometimes the ball hit my stick and ricocheted into the goal!
So playing field hockey taught me that there is usually a portion of the “market” that nobody else wants (left wing) and that you can be a good player, play hard – yet still be courteous and kind on the playing field – but watch out for unexpected fences.
You can get funding if you want (Mrs. Freitas did) and never be ashamed of your roots or anyone that is will to support your efforts – my dad!-
Dad (all cleaned up) 1972 – Larry Cook and Sandy Cook (now Sandi Jerome)
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