Garda Parker
author

Life is like a book or a play. Did you ever notice that? There’s an opening hook, a series of plot twists, celebratory moments, black moments, and finally (we hope) a neatly wrapped up resolution. Each life/book is created through a series of actions and reactions, and even within sameness or shared experiences with countless others is still, in the final analysis, purely personal to the experiencer and reader.

I was born and grew up (some people might question the truth in that statement!) in Rochester, New York. My early childhood was spent during a time when men worked at the same place for 30 or 40 years, retired at 65, and sorry to say tended to die a couple of years after that. It was a time when smoking was a sophisticated activity, glorified in movies (the great American pastime after baseball), an unrealized killer. Both my parents died at age 67 after smoking unfiltered cigarettes since they were young teen-agers. They were long gone before my first book came out in 1992.

It was also a time of fun summers; of Roy Rogers, the King of the Cowboys, on the silver screen for twenty-five cents; of real Five and Ten Cent stores like Neisner’s and Woolworth’s; of fudgecicles and creamcicles and Necco wafers; of glamorous movie stars wearing real furs and diamonds and living made-up private lives.

Most of our fathers had served in The War and, in my case, my mother worked in a factory making bomber parts. She was a survivor of an early polio (Infantile Paralysis in those days) epidemic that left her handicapped (crippled, the word in those days), and poverty (before welfare and Social Security). My mother loved the movies and often took me with her.
In fact, it was from movies that my mother took my name. It was the time of the hugely successful Nick and Nora Charles mystery movie series, so naturally the wise people in charge figured another series would be as successful. Three movies based on Marco Page’s (a.k.a. Harry Kurnitz) rare book murder stories were produced featuring husband and wife antiquarian book shop owners, Joel and Garda Sloane! Rosalind Russell, Ann Sothern and Florence Rice played the role of Garda.
Movies drew us away into other lives, other times, other dreams beyond our reach where women got what they wanted on their own terms. Reel life then always seemed better than real life, at least our real lives.
Movies were a big part of my education. They showed me how to make up stories in which people live real lives, but the great difference was that as in reel life they always triumph and live happily ever after.

I came of age in the time of Elvis, Marilyn, James Dean, Buddy Holly, Marlon Brando, Dwight Eisenhower, Roy Rogers, Joe McCarthy, Katharine Hepburn, Technicolor movie musicals, black and white television with Howdy Doody, Uncle Miltie, and Lucy. They were some of my best teachers and, while my parents didn’t approve of most of them (except for Ike, of course), I know how much they’ve all given to me that I call upon today.

I wasn’t privileged enough to have a college education to brag about, but I can tell you I received a strong academic education at Rochester’s Charlotte High School that has served very well in my life. Class of 1957 -- now you can figure out my age!
Including movies and early television, other contributions to my education can be weighed on a scale of negatives and positives -- part of my early life was spent in a foster home as one of eight children; in high school I worked in the meat department of grocery chain, the youngest worker there for the whopping wage of sixty-five cents and hour; married too young and lived in a haunted house on a dairy farm; worked as secretary and Theater Manager for Colgate University for the best part of my 34 years on the college staff; took flying lessons; co-founded and performed in a local music theater organization; met many fascinating and not-so-fascinating people, well-known and unknown; and raised a beautiful daughter who became the first one in my family to go to college (Colgate ‘83), who is now president of her own production company, Soaring Pictures, and is raising two children of her own.

I appeared on the stage at Carnegie Hall (only the guard saw me, the place was empty!); danced on Broadway (on the sidewalk in the middle of the day, throngs saw me and probably figured I was just another Bozo from out of town!), was once a national champion 5k champion runner in the women over 50 category; and...well, most of the rest I can’t share here!
Oh yes, my first book was published in 1992 followed by eight more novels, two novellas, two short plays and numerous trade articles, taught writing courses for continuing education groups; and presented workshops online, in local schools, and at national and regional writers conferences.

Every experience is grist for the writer’s mill and I’ve been given countless opportunities for experiential grist!

My life experiences have been varied to say the least. There have been some terrific highs, some horrific lows. I’ve cried a lot, but I laughed more. I have lifelong friends from those days in Rochester, some friends who came into my life during those experiences and never left, and a few family members who are dear to me. Just as in real and reel life I’ve loved and won and loved and lost, and started all over again. I’ve experienced loss, illness, awards and rewards, hits and misses. I’ve worked all my life and still have great adventures and fabulous fun -- just the life a writer needs!

Personal re-invention is part of who I am. I dreamed of a home by a lake and I have it in glorious Central New York State.

I’m part Irish and a Scorpio. Luck figures prominently in my life. Did you know Garda is written on the sides of police cars in Ireland? And there’s a lake in Italy, Lago di Garda.

Perfect life, perfect name for a writer.

How lucky can one person be?