School Story
I left Cleveland in 1968 to live in Oregon. I worked for the Office of Economic Opportunity programs for the poor in Lane County (Eugene) Oregon. This included child care programs, food, clothing, community action centers and more. Lyndon Johnson funded these programs before leaving office. We serviced thousands of people in the county that had never received any food stamps, child care education; provided nourishing food and warm clothing and worked with the communities to begin to help themselves. I then trained retarded adults in a rehabilitation work shop training them to do piece work for a computer company in Portland, provided training on independent living, sex education, etc. We were able to locate 400 adults who had never received any services, including education, as they had been in mental hospitals or hidden by their families because they were retarded or slow. All 400 received various services needed to eventually live on their own. I organized myself out of a job as I had located so many in need. These were my hippie days and I loved every minute of it. My exit from Oregon to New York City put me in a different world that I eventually adapted to and was fortunate to find a job I loved that included organizing trade shows and conferences around the world for 33 years. I am grateful for all my experiences - they have opened the world to me and made me a better person. 6/14/2015. Wish I had a school story, but my years at Heights are painful memories. They have been put to rest by fortunately having a good life filled with gratitude.
