Camai! means Hello

[fishpoem]

Camai fish! Welcome aboard.

Thanks.

 

[IOM]

Welcome aboard...

 

[fishpoem]

Welcome!

Thanks! I've gotten so many Welcomes, I'm not sure I thanked them all. I didn't expect ANY!

 

[OldBroad44]

Welcome from the gun-totin' old broad contingent. You sound like an interesting character.

 

[fishpoem]

Welcome from the gun-totin' old broad contingent. You sound like an interesting character.

LOL. Thank you, ma'am.

 

[fishpoem]

Speaking of broads with guns, my Mom grew up on a ranch. Her Dad was an enthusiastic hunter and picked her as his favorite hunting partner because she was the best shot in the family, including the boys. She was also a good athlete and loved baseball. When the boys wouldn't let her play on the school team, she laid in wait and beat the crap out of each one, starting with the catcher. By the time she reached 2nd base, the boys gave in, but only if she cut her hair like a boy's, which she did. As an adult, she was plenty feminine. But when she hit you, she'd hit you like a man. Rattle your teeth. LOL now, but not so funny then. She wasn't afraid of any man that walked. Do they still make girls like that anymore?

 

[OldBroad44]

Speaking of broads with guns, my Mom grew up on a ranch. Her Dad was an enthusiastic hunter and picked her as his favorite hunting partner because she was the best shot in the family, including the boys. She was also a good athlete and loved baseball. When the boys wouldn't let her play on the school team, she laid in wait and beat the crap out of each one, starting with the catcher. By the time she reached 2nd base, the boys gave in, but only if she cut her hair like a boy's, which she did. As an adult, she was plenty feminine. But when she hit you, she'd hit you like a man. Rattle your teeth. LOL now, but not so funny then. She wasn't afraid of any man that walked. Do they still make girls like that anymore?

Sounds a bit like me , actually. I learned to shoot from my career Air Force dad. He taught me some hand to hand stuff too. And a lot of woods skills. My mother also shot, having also been taught by Dad. I also always walked, threw a ball, and hit like a boy. I hated bullies, and protected any littler kids from them. In third grade I sent the main bully in the neighborhood to the hospital to get twelve stitches in his arm the day he tried to beat me up. He was older and outweighed me by about twofold. i could have hurt him lots worse, but he was actually a friend, and I didnt want to do permenent damage, and wanted to be able to play with him the next day. Which we did, with him telling everyone "Ya dont wanna mess with Carol", and showing off the very gruesome bite mark on his arm. Found out many decades later that bully's mother had called my mother to complain about my biting her son. And my mother, knowing the kid was the biggest bully in the neighborhood from other mothers, had merely said "If my daughter bit your son, I'm sure he deserved to be bitten." And my mother never mentioned it to me. I was normally very gentle. Just couldn't stand bullies and was very protective about the little kids. In those days all the kids in a neighborhood mostly ran free and played together in mixed age groups and were self supervised.

Got sent to the principal for fighting in third grade, but had only been protecting a little kid from a bully. Principal was outraged mostly about a girl fighting, but I said it was the job of everyone to protect the littler kids and being a girl or boy had nothing to do with it. I refused to apologize or say I wouldn't do it again. Lived across from school in second and third grade and spent every day there wasn't snow on ground playing sand lot softball. I normally pitched or played first.

Family moved to Massachusetts for my fourth grade, and during recess teachers split boys and sent them off to play baseball and girls to jump rope. I rebelled totally. Snarled at supervising teachers, who told me I couldn't play ball, and even if I could, the boys wouldn't want me playing with them. I stood around supervising teachers snarling, insisting I could play ball, and refusing to jump rope for three days until they finally relented. The boys were happy to have me, since I was by far the best player. When we moved from Tokyo to NY for my 9th grade, a boy on the bus groped my breasts to humiliate me. At least he groped where my breasts would have been if I had any then, which I didnt. Couldn't do anything about it on the bus, as fighting on the bus would get you expelled. But the next morning at the bus stop in front of everyone, I grabbed that boy and threw him about eight feet using a judo trick I learned in Japan. He landed on his face. And of course was totally humiliated by being beaten up by a girl. That was a very rough school, but nobody tried to mess with me thereafter. The last time I ever hit or aggressed upon anyone. Actually the only times other than putting a stop to bullying. Am actually hugely gentle and slow to take offense. But totally would not tolerate any bullying in my presence. Neither physical or verbal. PE was no fun thereafter, as boys and girls were in separate classes and the girls weren't athletic in those days. I had huge exercise needs, which I mostly satisfied by walking alone after school in whatever woods or swamps were to be had wherever we were. I did have fun one day in 9th grade. This day, gymnastics equipment was out, including thick ropes hung from structures in the top of gym. I was a regular tree climber.... A couple people before my turn, I called to the teacher, "How high should we climb?" A seemingly irrelevant question since none of the girls had made it more than a foot or two. "As high as you can," the teacher called. Hee he he. Perfect! By the time my turn came, the teacher was looking the other way, and I quickly scrambled up the rope and was hanging from the metal bar to which the rope was attached, a bit disappointed there was nowhere further to go. "Get down from there!!!" the teacher cried desperately. I came down. But it was fun both climbing the rope and scaring the he11 out of the teacher.

The childhood athletics was good practice for the rest of academics. I loved science and math. That was considered the domain of boys. Only men were given jobs in the sciences. A dean of undergraduate students at U of Florida, noticing me in grad student and faculty bio seminars when I was a sophomore, blocked my registration and tried to force me to change my major to a non science. "Its obvious you're brilliant. But nobody is ever going to give you a job in the sciences. Don't you think you should change to a major that's a little more realistic?" And I had straight As, had done three years of work in a year and a half, and had set the curve in all my bio courses. I stared at wall behind dean for several minutes in silence while he tried to pressure me into changing my major. It didn't work. He was right though about nobody giving science jobs to women, no matter what. But times were soon to start changing. I won an NIH predoctoral fellowship that gave me funding that I could take anywhere, and did a PhD at Harvard. Then was hired by the genetics department at U of MN. I was the first woman everything there. The first time I ever heard a female teach a university class or give a seminar, it was I.

Carol

 

[fishpoem]

Sounds a bit like me , actually. I learned to shoot from my career Air Force dad. He taught me some hand to hand stuff too. And a lot of woods skills. My mother also shot, having also been taught by Dad. I also always walked, threw a ball, and hit like a boy. I hated bullies, and protected any littler kids from them. In third grade I sent the main bully in the neighborhood to the hospital to get twelve stitches in his arm the day he tried to beat me up. He was older and outweighed me by about twofold. i could have hurt him lots worse, but he was actually a friend, and I didnt want to do permenent damage, and wanted to be able to play with him the next day. Which we did, with him telling everyone "Ya dont wanna mess with Carol", and showing off the very gruesome bite mark on his arm. Found out many decades later that bully's mother had called my mother to complain about my biting her son. And my mother, knowing the kid was the biggest bully in the neighborhood from other mothers, had merely said "If my daughter bit your son, I'm sure he deserved to be bitten." And my mother never mentioned it to me. I was normally very gentle. Just couldn't stand bullies and was very protective about the little kids. In those days all the kids in a neighborhood mostly ran free and played together in mixed age groups and were self supervised.

Got sent to the principal for fighting in third grade, but had only been protecting a little kid from a bully. Principal was outraged mostly about a girl fighting, but I said it was the job of everyone to protect the littler kids and being a girl or boy had nothing to do with it. I refused to apologize or say I wouldn't do it again. Lived across from school in second and third grade and spent every day there wasn't snow on ground playing sand lot softball. I normally pitched or played first.

Family moved to Massachusetts for my fourth grade, and during recess teachers split boys and sent them off to play baseball and girls to jump rope. I rebelled totally. Snarled at supervising teachers, who told me I couldn't play ball, and even if I could, the boys wouldn't want me playing with them. I stood around supervising teachers snarling, insisting I could play ball, and refusing to jump rope for three days until they finally relented. The boys were happy to have me, since I was by far the best player. When we moved from Tokyo to NY for my 9th grade, a boy on the bus groped my breasts to humiliate me. At least he groped where my breasts would have been if I had any then, which I didnt. Couldn't do anything about it on the bus, as fighting on the bus would get you expelled. But the next morning at the bus stop in front of everyone, I grabbed that boy and threw him about eight feet using a judo trick I learned in Japan. He landed on his face. And of course was totally humiliated by being beaten up by a girl. That was a very rough school, but nobody tried to mess with me thereafter. The last time I ever hit or aggressed upon anyone. Actually the only times other than putting a stop to bullying. Am actually hugely gentle and slow to take offense. But totally would not tolerate any bullying in my presence. Neither physical or verbal. PE was no fun thereafter, as boys and girls were in separate classes and the girls weren't athletic in those days. I had huge exercise needs, which I mostly satisfied by walking alone after school in whatever woods or swamps were to be had wherever we were. I did have fun one day in 9th grade. This day, gymnastics equipment was out, including thick ropes hung from structures in the top of gym. I was a regular tree climber.... A couple people before my turn, I called to the teacher, "How high should we climb?" A seemingly irrelevant question since none of the girls had made it more than a foot or two. "As high as you can," the teacher called. Hee he he. Perfect! By the time my turn came, the teacher was looking the other way, and I quickly scrambled up the rope and was hanging from the metal bar to which the rope was attached, a bit disappointed there was nowhere further to go. "Get down from there!!!" the teacher cried desperately. I came down. But it was fun both climbing the rope and scaring the he11 out of the teacher.

The childhood athletics was good practice for the rest of academics. I loved science and math. That was considered the domain of boys. Only men were given jobs in the sciences. A dean of undergraduate students at U of Florida, noticing me in grad student and faculty bio seminars when I was a sophomore, blocked my registration and tried to force me to change my major to a non science. "Its obvious you're brilliant. But nobody is ever going to give you a job in the sciences. Don't you think you should change to a major that's a little more realistic?" And I had straight As, had done three years of work in a year and a half, and had set the curve in all my bio courses. I stared at wall behind dean for several minutes in silence while he tried to pressure me into changing my major. It didn't work. He was right though about nobody giving science jobs to women, no matter what. But times were soon to start changing. I won an NIH predoctoral fellowship that gave me funding that I could take anywhere, and did a PhD at Harvard. Then was hired by the genetics department at U of MN. I was the first woman everything there. The first time I ever heard a female teach a university class or give a seminar, it was I.

Carol

Great life story. You've got guts and brains, two of my favorite traits. Thank you very much for sharing! Very fun.