I was born and raised in the beautiful garden state of New Jersey. My town was suburban with tree-lined streets and beautiful parks where I spent many afternoons playing tennis until it got too dark to see the ball.
I fell in love with tennis the first day I learned to play the game. My father taught me the basics and I took it from there. I reached the semifinals in my first tournament at age 10 after a summer clinic in Newark taught by a tall, handsome and very talented (I thought!) Upsala College student whose philosophy was to stress the serve and volley game. I’ve always been grateful to him for that.
Athletics has always been a big part of my life – ice skating in the wintertime and playing tennis during the warmer months of the year. I guess that’s how I developed a passion for physical fitness in general.
Music is a major passion of mine. I play the guitar and the keyboards every chance I get. My favorite genres are jazz and classical. I learned the basics of music theory and performance years ago in my grade school Glee Club which continued through high school. Music was part of our school curriculum in Irvington. These performances (especially when I had a solo) were exciting and gave me a great sense of satisfaction.
As a National Honor Society member in high school I tutored students in a variety of subjects and they did well in their classes. I decided that I wanted to become a teacher and got my B.A. in Education at Kean University, a New Jersey school, in 1965.
I got tired of the snowy winters there so after teaching for a year I moved to San Francisco and got into Public Relations with Dole Food Company. This was my first exposure to Community Relations at the corporate level and I liked it.
I learned about nutrition from a book I borrowed from one of my roommates while renting a house in the Marina District. I discovered that some of the foods I ate as a child and young adult living at home were not as healthy as they could have been. There was indeed room for improvement. The book is called How to Eat Right and Keep Fit by Adelle Davis. I became enthralled by what I learned so I continued to read other nutrition books and self help books on motivation and changing habits. I slowly began to make some basic changes in my diet, my thinking, and my fitness.
I adopted a daily stretching routine that I found in a book on stretching for all sports. I took aerobics and yoga classes from various instructors. I even studied ballet for 3 years with the San Francisco Ballet Company in their nonprofessional division. It was a dream spawned by a childhood experience of attending a production of Swan Lake with my mother and falling in love with the swans and the ballet. When I discovered that the reality of ballet didn’t fit my personality I moved on to Jazz which was more my style. However, the discipline and techniques I learned from ballet have stayed with me all these years.
In 1989 I moved to Tucson, AZ to care for my mother who was seriously ill. I discovered that I could play tennis every day here and continue my work in Community activism. I soon found myself being a distributor for Amway and nutritional products companies including Herbalife and Nutrition for Life because I wanted to share what I’d learned about the benefits of nutrition with others.
When Nutrition for Life changed ownership I left the industry but have continued to study nutritional science on my own, adding and changing things to my diet as needed. I think of myself as a work in progress and learning to be a lifetime activity.
I love the outdoors and am a volunteer with the Audubon Society. I also work with other Environmental groups where I’m needed. I support the efforts of the Sierra Club and other groups trying to preserve and protect our natural resources.
I’m blessed to have my brother Mort living here in Tucson and we often do things together. He’s a financial planner and a very talented watercolor artist.
Published 10/2019