Penny

After class yesterday I caught the bus back to Ted & Wally's to get my bike. Joe was there talking to Penny, an older lady who we always talked to when she came in. Always great to talk to her.

She had beaten her cancer and quit smoking. She told us about holiday feasts with the Le Sole Mio family (which I'd like to go to), to her life in radio and singing.

She grew up in Montana and got a job at a radio station there in a building with no bathroom. So she had to borrow a car to a friend's house or work her way to the farm next door, which she had to battle the gaggle of aggresive geese. Her father finally gave her brother money to get her a car which had no radio or a/c.

She ended up singing in big bands and groups and toured the country by herself to apparently meet up with the musicians.

She worked at KFAB here in town and sang at the Paxton and other places in the Big Band Circuit.

Her friend also did that as well and she wrote music and put it away. Eventually, 50 years later, she dug them out and gave it to someone to arrange it for a big band and released a CD and performed it in Lincoln to a 500+ crowd. It's in today's paper that (gulp!) Rainbow Rowell wrote, but I'm keeping it and would like to purchase that CD.