https://books2read.com/West-to-Grande-Portage-V2
https://bwlpublishing.ca/donaldson-yarmey-joan/
My Dream Job
My
desire to travel goes back to when I was in high school. There were so many
places and things I wanted to see in the world but I had no idea what job would
pay me enough to be able to travel around the world. Then I decided the only
way I could see all the countries and their cities, historic sites and scenery
was to become a stewardess. Just that name should tell you how many years ago
that was.
To
help ensure that I would have a better stay in the places I visited, I studied French,
German, and Russian so I would know some other languages for when I landed and
maybe stayed over in another country. In my last year in high school a job show
was held at my high school and I went to talk with the representative from an
airline that had a booth there. She was dressed in her uniform and was very
nice.
I explained that I wanted to be a stewardess
and asked for information. She told me that I had to be a certain height and
weight, which I was. She said that all stewardesses had to wear a girdle even
though their figures might be perfect. I was okay with that. Then she told me
that anyone who wore glasses could not be a stewardess. I was devastated, since
I needed prescription glasses but seldom wore them. I went to an optometrist to
get contact lenses. This was when they were still made of hard material and my
eyes could not adjust to them.
So I gave up my dream of being a stewardess.
I married after graduation
and had wonderful children who have given me wonderful grandchildren. After
taking some courses I became a writer, starting out with one article and then
adding some historical and travel articles. I attended a course on finding a publisher
and spoke with the publisher afterwards about an idea I had. He invited me to
visit him at his office which I did and we decided I would write two travel
books on the province of Alberta. I travelled extensively through Alberta and
was amazed at the scenery, history, and sites in my home province. When those
books were a success, I did the same in British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska.
These I called my backroads series.
I began my fiction writing career with mystery novels. I gave my main female character the parttime job of being a travel writer. She always gets involved in some sort of mystery when she is travelling and researching articles for magazines. I called the three novels The Travelling Detective Mystery Series. I hope to one day write a fourth in the series.
I belong to a dragon boat race team and I have
taken part in international festivals in Caloundra, Queensland, Australia (spent
four week visiting the sites of Queensland and New South Wales then a week in
Fiji), Sarasota, Florida, USA, (my husband and I travelled through two
provinces and nineteen states on our way there and back home) and Florence,
Italy (I did two bus tours, one cruise, and rode trains and stayed in hostels while
visiting twenty countries.) I’ve also been to Japan and China with my sister.
So not realizing my desire to
become a stewardess, or flight attendant as they are called today, has not
stopped me from doing the travelling I dreamed of when I was younger.
