Phillip R. Craig Message Board
Terry Royne posts on 3/19/2009 9:29:27 PM
Hello Mr. Craig, | was a student of yours in the 1967-68 school year at Wheelock College. The following summer, the one before I transferred to Eastern Michigan University where I had a boyfriend and told myself they had a good special ed. program as the REAL reason I wanted to do so, I spent on Martha's Vineyard.
You had had me do an independent study the second semester--tried to help me write a book or the genesis of a book. I did not and you have ended up writing books while I floundered as a special ed. major and then graduated with a degree in English Language and Literature from Eastern Michigan University.
Which, of course, meant I had to get an RN diploma (cheapest way to become a registered nurse)and, eleven years later, get a masters in social work, being too lazy to actually write that book.
But you have written so many...which I discovered the next time I went to the much-altered Vineyard in 2000 for a week and, in the house we were renting, saw and read one of your
books and realized you were you; my freshman English teacher.
Anyway, my husband who has never been to the Vineyard as we discovered Block Island when our children were little and never ventured as far north as the Cape, and I are traveling to the Cape Friday the 27th of March and from there are going to ferry over to the Vineyard.
My cell phone is (518)506-8758 and you have my e-mail.
I am the one who was named Terry Stephany and so, being the gentleman that you are, you called on me as "Miss Stephany" but I didn't hear the "Miss" and thought you had, as so many had before, mixed up my first and last names and were mistakingly calling me "Stephanie." My standard answer to this was, "It's Terry" so you looked a tad flumoxed but said,
"Okay, Terry then" and I didn't notice until February or so that you called everyone "Miss ____" and was too embarrassed to explain my mistake.
At 59, almost all our mistakes are screaming to be explained if there is any possibility of doing so.
The other grave correction I wish to make was that you pointed out that I may have to work during the summers sometimes and I said, "My summers are my own." They have always been spent working of course.
Anyway, I would love to visit with you or speak on the phone this weekend or when out in Massachusettes.
Most of my Vineyard time has been spent in Oak Bluffs, Vineyard Haven, and Chappaquidick where I spent the first half of that 1968 spring and summer working for Tony Bettencourt, cleaning the cottages he owned and was getting ready to rent. You probably remember him if you are a Vinyarder with a history which you certainly seem to be. Laura Knight (who also went to Wheelock and also transferred out the year I did (though she was going to be a junior and I was only there that one freshman year) had a family cottage on Chappy where Kathy Gunst, Dory Kegelman, Laura and I spent a weekend in April, 1968 and where Kathy, Laura and I returned at the end of the semester in May to look for jobs. That is where we were when we heard that Bobby Kennedy had been shot too.
(and I am still not over Martin's assassination in April of that year)
I know I am going on and on and I hope it doesn't put you off. My Vineyard Summer is a good story and, if I told you, you could possibly use it as the basis for another mystery.
If not, best to you. Like many before and after you, I received much faith in my writing ability and appreciate your mentorship always.
Terry Stephany Royne
Note: the views expressed here are only those of the posters.
