about

When I was a student at Michigan State University, I had a friend named Arch who used to tease me by saying that I was only in college to get my MRS. degree, and if I ever did land a job he hoped I knew how to make coffee because that is what I would be doing. (We were only friends because I knew he was kidding!)

Though it would be a year after earning my graduate degree before I would accomplish the first part of his prediction, I was the one in charge of making the coffee at my first job out of school as an executive assistant with a small mortgage lending company in Denver, Colorado.

The other thing Arch used to say was that someday I should write a column, call it “melba toast” since my nickname at the time was “Melba” and simply write about what happened on any given day. Since Arch lived in my co-ed dorm, he was one of the people I could tell my tales to over dinner or during my visits to the brother floor, where I had been made an honorary member. It was a real conversation starter to show up pretty much on a daily basis with, “You will never believe what just happened to me” and proceed to share the tale of another set of unique circumstances. My life would be played out in vivid detail as the storytelling went on, entertaining and informing my “audience” in spite of my possible misfortune.

Although melba toast in its flat, dry and tasteless form is not anything to talk about, my life tends to be a bit more interesting. So here’s to you, Arch, wherever you are, and to all who desire to take a walk in my Birkenstocks from time to time. To life!