I posted mom’s “official” obituary today. My little sister wrote it and submitted it to the Daytona Beach News-Journal (to <paidnotices@news-jrnl.com>) this afternoon.
Until just a few minutes ago, I had completely forgotten that mom worked for the News-Journal at one time. She was a copy editor there, if I recall correctly. I know that she spent a lot of time with the sports reporters — she loved baseball, basketball, football, and tennis — and got to meet the NASCAR driver Bill Elliott while she was there. (She brought us home a signed 8″ x 10″ of him.)
This was way back in the 80s, when we were still in elementary school. She also worked for the Holly Hill and Daytona Beach Police Departments as a dispatcher. I can clearly remember sitting on the bed in the front bedroom of my grandparents’ house at 122 Azalea Drive and watching her go to work the graveyard shift, and crying because I had wanted to play with her more.
Oh, and I might argue with my sister that “The Sound of Music” was not her favorite musical. She knew every word to it because she saw it hundreds of times when she worked as an usher one summer in high school, I think. Her actual favorites were “The Pirates of Penzance” (with Kevin Kline, Rex Smith, and Linda Ronstadt) and “Little Shop of Horrors” (with Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene).