When she decided she couldn’t make a living painting, Sharon thought she could make a living as an animal technician. Then when that wasn’t interesting enough she decided to become a vet. So she took a deep breath and took pre-med courses at Tufts. Sharon didn’t like to deal with horses. She didn’t like the way horses are treated in our society; it was a thing with her. She didn’t like the whole idea of racing them--she thought that was all a kind of torture. Mostly, she treated other farm animals. One summer Sharon had a fellowship out in Nevada on a sheep farm where she was hired to do a project on doing caesarian sections on sheep. She could do a caesarian section on a sheep, and she could also shear the sheep, and dye the wool. Sharon was a spinner and a weaver and a knitter. And she was always saying, “Mom, why are you sitting there watching TV with idle hands?” She was embarrassed. She’d buy me knitting needles and buy me yarn. Hal was also good at art. He could draw, he could paint, he could do anything. He once had a collection of little plastic cartons, they were all in different colors, and I said you have enough there to make an encyclopedia of something. And he said, “What a good idea, and he started collecting little things to put into little boxes. Hal loved to make things and at home he was usually working on an art project, but of course, not the one the teacher assigned. Hals’ art folder came home with a blank cover, but his room was full of art. In third grade his teachers finally realized that he wasn’t doing his work. Today Hal is a retired painting restorer, now painting.
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