Who??
I
am
a middle-aged newspaper editor and former paramedic who lives in the isolated
desert
community of Ajo, Arizona. An animal lover in general, I am
particularly enamored
of cats and have been owned by some of the finest felines ever to
rumble
a purr.
What??
I'm a cat lover
first
& foremost. I can't remember a time when I didn't have a cat in my
life.
At the moment, I'm owned by Ralph, Fred,
Alice, Jane, Ricky, Mary, Judith, Claude, and Lilah Marie,
a clowder who keep the house well covered with discarded
fur. They aren't the only animals in my life, though. There are the
dogs -- Bruno, Chuy, and visting corgi Naru -- plus assorted turtles and fish. They
all demand, and sometimes get, their fair share of my attention.
I'm also a newspaper editor. In
1983, I succeeded my mother
as editor of the Ajo
Copper News,
a small rural weekly in southwestern Arizona, and
also
took over her column "Quacks". I run the paper with my
brother Hop, who stepped into our
father's
shoes as publisher. Our brother Joe managed to escape for many
years but is now retired from his job in Alabama and back on the
newspaper staff. I
sometimes
wonder if we own the newspaper, or if it owns us.
My second job, until recently, was as a paramedic.
I got started late -- I didn't
become
an EMT until 1991 when I was in my forties. I worked two days
a
week for Ajo Ambulance, a non-profit company I helped
start, until the summer of 2012 when sad circumstance dictated I retire from the field.
It was hard work, frequently dirty and often thankless, but I enjoyed
it. I wish I could still do it.
Books
have been part of
my life almost as long as cats. My childhood was spent in a
family
whose noses were all buried firmly in books (we didn't have a TV until
I
was about eight) and it seemed perfectly natural to me to lose myself
between
the covers of my favorite books. The earliest ones were The Bobbsey
Twins
and from there I went on to devour Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames, and other
preteen
fare. For most of my adult life I've read cozy mysteries, fantasy, and
history
-- though dips into other genres are the rule rather than the
exception.
I've added breast
cancer survivor to my list. I found the lump the day before
Thanksgiving 2007. Diagnosis followed rapidly with a bilateral
mastectomy in January 2008 and then six months of chemotherapy. It's a
rough road to go down but at least I'm here to do it.
I'm not yet an
eccentric
old lady surrounded by cats and books and shunning human
companionship.
I have family who are a big part of my life: my daughter
Paula with
her husband Joey and my granddaughters Ashlee & Danielle, my son
Gery and his daughter Chloe,
my
brother Joe, my brother Hop & his family. I am also
researching my roots and am gradually building a family history section for my
pages.
Where??
Ajo is a
small
town in southwestern Arizona, about 40 miles north of the Mexican
border,
in the middle of the great Sonoran Desert. Ajo was a mining town
for
most of its life, then became a retirement community when the copper
mine
was closed in the early 1980s.
Why??
That's an even smaller town about eleven miles southeast of Ajo. The
highway branches there to head south to Mexico or east to Tucson.
When??
I was born in 1947 to Richard F. & Ann Hollister David. After
floating
around for many years, I ended up in Ajo in 1980. I plan to
remain
here a long, long time.
Text and
page design copyright 1998-2010 by Gabrielle David