Mary Petrangelo Update

 

I’ve been living in San Diego for the past many years. Before that, my husband (Steve Kowit, the poet) and I spent several years living & traveling in Latin America. We had a traveling bookstore, working from a van & serving expatriate communities throughout Mexico and Central America. Then we sold the van in Costa Rica & continued traveling down as far as Peru.

                                

                                   Mary and husband Steve Kowit        

Between Latin American trips, we lived in Idaho, New Mexico, Maryland, Florida, and our old standby, California. My husband has been a college professor and well-known poet and I’ve been working in information technology services at the University of San Diego. It’s really interesting and you can always get somebody to help troubleshoot any of your own computer problems!

I chose not to have children and fortunately Steve was OK with that. I still really enjoy doing artwork, most recently enameling. I love seeing things transformed by fire. I’ve also done linocut printmaking, beading, and soft sculpture. I got a black belt in aikido (world’s least athletic person!), of which I am quite proud.

                         

And speaking of fire, in 2007 the huge Southern California wildfires came very close to where we live and we had to evacuate for 5 days, not knowing whether we still had a house or not. The power was off for another 2 weeks after that and I had to drive 86 miles to work instead of my normal 47 miles due to road closures. A pretty stressful time.

I’m a long-time vegetarian and an animal rights person. I don’t wear fur or leather or eat meat of any sort. Steve has joined me in this. I have 2 rescue dogs and 6 cats who live with us & provide me wonderfully entertaining company.

I was just in Minneapolis in early April for my father’s funeral and can’t come back quite so soon. I’m hoping to visit in the fall. I’m sorry I can’t come visit for the reunion. I’d love to know what everyone is up to these days. I was quite shocked to see how many of our classmates are already gone. What happened to everyone?

Anyway, I’m sorry I can’t visit for the reunion. I can’t tell you how many of you I’ve Googled over the past years. You’re a pretty low-profile bunch! The women are all un-findable because of name changes. If anyone wants to contact me, I’m at mary.kowit@gmail.com. (Miriam Egge, this means you!)

I hope you have a great time at the reunion!

Mary Petrangelo Kowit