Another letter written in September of some year from a dear old friend Ann, of Sturgeon Bay, WI. When I knew her, she was trying to get a job with Bay Boat as an electrician, but because they did not hire women in those jobs (1976-79), we were beginning a battle. During the course of the battle, Ann helped me develop and found the Women's Employment Project in Sturgeon Bay, an outfit which was eventually successful and which lasted for several years, I believe. I hired the first coordinators, who did an excellent job.

In this letter, Ann tells me that she has been fired from Bay Boat (she had another job there, one for which they did hire women), but she got a "tidy settlement" for illegal termination. Nothing happening yet on the discrimination case. NO enforcement of the federal laws, she says.

In the meantime, she had found a new, somewhat stable love, and, speaking of stables, bought a horse. A white horse. She reminds me of her telephone number. I'm thinking of calling it. It's been 24 years, at least!

Ever had your picture taken fucking in a commercial kitchen under stainless steel pots and pans with your hand dangling behind you down the drain - and someone turns on the garbage disposal?

I have.

Ever had your picture taken naked, sprawled out over a grand piano, hair hanging down over the keyboard, with a strapping youth hunked over you while the piano player looks on, cigarette dangling from his lips, the only other prop being a black plastic ashtray?

I have.

Sometime in the summer of 1980, while I was "babysitting" my two kids at my ex-husband's apartment in Madison while he was off filming a Nova segment in Italy, I was asked to "act" in a movie farce which parodied both porno and splatter films. The director was a film student at the University of Wisconsin. One of the actors was a professor of physics, I believe - well, a professor of something at any rate. The kitchen scene was filmed in the kitchen of the student union. I have a still photo of the piano scene, sent me by the director with a note reading, "Send $75,000 to me or I will release this photo to the press!"

Everything was just pretend! :)