Norma

As Sarah’s mom, I have many memories of Sarah as she grew up. Sarah’s father was a great punster and most of the children were quite capable of punning on their own. One day when Sarah was about three years old, I found her sitting on the stairs, talking and laughing to herself. She kept repeating:” Velvet (the name of our black cat) and Velveeda (our favorite brand of cheese.) Velveeda / Velvet chuckle chuckle. She made her first pun.

Sarah was extremely intelligent but she just could not figure out spelling. When she was in the third grade, I went to the usual end of year teacher conference when they would discuss the Standardized California test results. Sarah scored in the 99th percentile in mathematics, computation and concepts but she only scored in the 94th percentile in the language arts section. Although she had scored in the 99th or 98th percentile in reading comprehension, vocabulary and grammar, she scored a 32nd percentile in spelling! This inability to spell correctly continued past her college years. Sometimes, when she would write to me, I just couldn’t figure out some of her words because the spelling was nowhere near phonetic.

Sarah discovered she loved rats when she bought a baby rat to feed to the ball python named Monte, she had rescued from the biology lab at William Paterson College. However, either Monte wasn’t hungry or the rat was very clever at not being caught. She couldn’t let the rat starve to death, so she kept feeding it and eventually the rat was simply too big to be a meal for Monte.However, Sarah found the rat to be a fun companion and she could entertain you for quite some time with stories of the rat’s adventures. A friend of her’s suggested she name the rat Tabby Rat which fit perfectly with Sarah’s sense of humor so Tabby she became. You realize the snake was “Monte Python” of course.

Sarah, you were a wonderful, patient, and loving person who was also a font of information. You are missed very much.