Bio
 Linda Watkins was born and raised in Oklahoma. She originally thought she wanted to be an artist and a teacher. She received a BFA in Art from the University of Oklahoma and worked as a starving artist and a teacher of art for four years. While teaching she received a Masters degree in Literature and started work on a Doctorate. She had the dubious honor of teaching in the first public school in Oklahoma to have off duty police officers on duty in the facility at all times for the safety of the teachers and the majority of the students. After four years of that she and her husband said, “Enough already!” and went to work for the US Army. They decided to let the Army be their Travel Agent.
 Linda’s husband went to work as a linguist and she as a Recreation Services Arts and Crafts Director. They spent two one year tours in Monterey, CA, three years in Thailand and five years in Berlin, then, West Germany.
When they got orders for Thailand they had to get a map to see where it was, having never heard of it. It was an old map. (This was waaay before the internet, before personal computers actually. It was nearly way back in the Dark Ages.) After a few calls to see if they were going to Taiwan since they had found that on the map, one individual said, “Find Siam. That’s it. You have an old map.” By the time they went to Berlin, they could find it on a map, having become acquainted with the wider world outside Oklahoma. Linda swears the best French bread in the world is baked and sold in Ventiene, Laos, not France. Rice flour and clay ovens are the secret.
 Just before leaving Thailand, Linda and her husband were given the opportunity and took it to adopt a daughter.
When it was time to leave Berlin the Army said, Somewhere Else in West Germany or Bolivia? Linda said, “Enough already!” and went back to Oklahoma. To this day she wonders what she was thinking, but at the time it seemed like the thing to do… But think about it. An all expense three year paid trip to Bolivia! She had to be nuts to pass that up…
 Oklahoma - a failed fitness center, the end of a marriage, a new marriage, became an interior decorator, raised llamas and wallabies, learned to skydive and fly fixed wing airplanes, broke a leg (skydiving – it isn’t the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop), fostered a son, bought Huffy bikes at Wal-Mart with a tax return check, gave the Huffy bikes away, bought real bikes,
started riding multi miles every weekend, bought a tandem bike and rode more miles every weekend, became an importer/exporter of exotic pet animals and then, once again said, “Enough already!” Went to Utah and became a massage therapist, spent hours and hours and hours in advanced seminars and now is specializing in Deep Tissue and Structural Work, Craniosacral Work, Jin Shin Jyutsu and Biodynamic Work and so far has not said, “Enough already…”
|
