CONTINUED . . . . . A few days later, still unwell, she returned to Pearl Harbor. Conscious that she was a Navy officer, she saluted, said, "Do you mind if I sit down?" then promptly fainted. She woke up later in officers sick bay, a nurse in need of nursing. Then it was back to work. With all the men around, Phyl says she did a lot of cooking. "The food was plentiful, there was no gasoline for driving around, there was no liquor. It was one healthy place!" Before long she was ordered to Annapolis. Phyl loved it. She was still going with her ensign, but he was all over the Pacific. "I saw what Navy families and kids went through," she muses. "I didn't want to be a Navy wife." It was a decision she has never regretted. In fact, she reports of the 29 nurses in her unit, only a third ever married. Her next assignments were Gulf Port, Mississippi and then Panama. She had enjoyed her military career, but knew she had used up her share of "good duty" stations. She asked herself, "Do I want to keep taking orders from the Navy?" She resigned, but remained in Panama as a civilian nurse at a 1,000-bed hospital run by the Army. After three years there she began thinking of places she would like to go. Washington, D.C. appealed to her. She went to work for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) research hespital where she worked for three years in the heart surgery postoperative unit. "In those days, children came in a week ahead of their surgery and the nurses took care of them, dressed them and came to love them," Phyl explains. "But there were so many children that didn't make it through the surgery. It just got too hard for me to take." Phyl decided to try psychiatric nursing. The FDA wanted her to lecture about medications, so she came home in 1960 to attend the University of Washington and, in 1963, a bachelor's degree in communication to add to her credentials, she returned to NIH as a psych nurse. Wanting to be near her aging mother, Phyl returned from the other Washington in 1966. Because she did not want to lose retirement credits with civil service nursing, she went to work at American Lake Veterans Hospital near Tacoma for the next 11 year. The day she turned 60, Phyl served notice that she was retiring. her sprit, of adventure still juch alive, Phyl got in her car and went visiting. She spent two months and traveled 10,000 miles, seeing friends from Washington to Delaware to Florida. Upon her return she got a call from a friend who asked her to housesit for a month. Thus was born a "new career." For the next decade as word spread, Phyl house-sat for wkks to a month or os in homes ranging from modest to palatial from Vancouver, Canada to Southern California. "I had the time, I could read a map, I had a car, so why not?" she reasons. "I had a charming time, met lots of favorite pets, saw old friends. I still hear from some of them." Between housesitting jobs, Phyl traveled overseas with Elderhostel. Twice she ventured to Australia - "the land down under." She went to New Zealand and drank in its spectacular contrasts of fjords and beaches, glaciers and volcanoes, snsowcapped mountains and subtropical bush, clear streams and geysers. She took three trips to the British Isles and another two just to London, thoroughly enjoying places she had read about since early childhood. Eventually, Phjyl narrowed her housesitting to the P{uget Sound area. Wanting to always have a home base, Phyl maintained an apartment in North Everett from 1978 until last year when her sister, Barbara Friend, talked her into moving to Marysville. Phyl's brother-in-law has declared Wednesdays "Phyl Day" and takes her grocery shopping, to get her hair done, to the bank, etc. She also enjoys getting together with her brother, John Newell Dana of Snohomish. Phyl gave up driving three years ago after backing her car into a wall. "I decided someone else could have been there and it scared me," she says. "It's one thing to bang up youself, but you could also bang up someone else. So, I did the responsible thing and stopped driving." Crumbling vertebrae have forced Phyl into leading a more quiet life these days, but it is still very much a life. "It's a beautiful day, the flag is flying and I'll makt it," she says. "It will be slow, but I'll make it. The very fact that I can live alone is a privilege." Phyl is grateful her 84-yhear-old eyes still permit her to read. "I used to spend days at a time at Everett Library," she says, and now I get 12 books a month from the Sno-Isle Bookmobile." She gives them a list and says not once have they failed to bring her the books she requested, whether mystery, history, biography or poetry. Surrounded by books, artwork by friends and former patients and a collection of tiny ceramic animals from all over the world, she can't spend too much time reading because she believes in preserving the nearly lost art of letter writing. No quick e-mail for Phyl. She keeps up a consistent network of friends all over the country. "Navy people retire all over the place," she explains. There are 12 nurses left from Phyl's unit at Pearl Harbor. "All are active women doing exciting things," she says. "At reunions and when we correspond we talk about families, not Pearl Harbor." Phyl has no children, but that does not mean she has no family. She is quite close with her sister and often gets together with nieces and nephews and their families. "We're always having parties," she says. "I have a good life with lots of friends. Life is different, but it's not dull!" And, it is still truly meaningful. END OF THIS EXCELLENT ARTICLE that should be an Inspiration to all who read it. That's why I bothered to pass it on to ALL OF YOU. * * * 30 * * * Today I rec'd a Christmas Card from a former student that I had when I was teaching high school. His son is now 16 and he has just celebrated his Silver Anniversary of marriage. He was in my electronics class in high school. He bacame a broadcaster on more than one well known FM Stations in Puget Sound, and he continues to be gainfully employed, and it active in civic affairs in his community. It is great to hear from him and his Family each year after all these years! He comes to visit me when he is in the area. * * * 30 * * * Carroll in Snohomish, who wishes you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year with Good Health; and to those who do not celebrate in this way, I wish you The Very Best among your Beliefs as you Wish Them.