Shanda McGrew

I'm hesitant to say it, but I hated high school. Not the people, mind you, but I was a free spirit who bristled at all the regulations dictating skirt and hair lengths. Some may remember me as a Beatlemaniac, and I feel lucky to have seen them in concert six times. Music is still an integral part of my life as I struggle to learn the mandolin.

In 1967 my mother remarried and we moved to Vermont before the start of senior year. It was quite a change from West Covina! I had never seen it snow before, but in Vermont it was piled four feet deep, and I had to walk a mile to school in temperatures that dipped to twenty below. We girls were forced to wear skirts (which were fashionably short in those days), even in that frigid weather.

After graduation I stayed in Vermont, then attended Woodstock (I was destined to become a hippie), and started spending summers in Boothbay Harbor, Maine and winters in the Bay Area. I drove back and forth every summer, by myself, taking a different route each time and exploring the national parks along the way. I slept in my clunky old Falcon station wagon and traveled through 43 states in five trips across the country.

By 1973 I'd come to appreciate rural living, so I packed up all my belongings and headed for the Sierra foothills, halfway between Yosemite and Lake Tahoe. I stayed with friends for two weeks until I found a house to rent and a job. I've been here ever since.

For 18 years I was a landscape gardener because I loved working outdoors. In 1978 I started taking fun classes at Columbia College, learning about Sierra wildlife, dendrology, ecology, wildflowers, winter backpacking, downhill and cross-country skiing, mountain medicine, and avalanche rescue (anything to do with nature and the outdoors). It took me five years and 27,000 commute miles to get my A.A. while working full time.

As part of a work study program, I spent the summer of '79 volunteering for Bear Management in Yosemite. My job was hiking solo in the backcountry, collecting data for the park. I had numerous bear encounters, but I loved being in the wilderness. I hoped it would lead to a position with the Park Service, but it didn't, so I went back to raking leaves and pruning roses.

In 1990, my mother became terminally ill with breast cancer that had metastasized throughout her body. She wanted to skip the painful lingering death, so my stepfather Bob and I accompanied her to Michigan, where assisted suicide was supposedly legal. (This was shortly after Dr. Kevorkian helped his first patient die.) Despite Mom's careful research and planning, Bob and I ended up in jail. I spent three days (including my 40th birthday) in solitary confinement, with no books, TV, radio...nothing. I wasn't even allowed to have a pen and paper.

Bob was charged with murder and I was an unindicted co-conspirator. It was big news in Sacramento and Detroit, and we ended up on talk shows like Donahue. For nine months we had the media following us everywhere we went, but our 15 minutes of fame was not a pleasant experience. Thanks to a jury that nullified the law, Bob was acquitted. It was the top story on CNN for two days. The judgment in his case was later used to acquit Dr. Kevorkian at his first murder trial.

Despite the positive outcome of Bob's trial, 1991 was my Year of Hell. My own father died unexpectedly, and I was diagnosed with cervical cancer. A biopsy my doctor had taken sat on his shelf for two years and turned out to be malignant. (If it had gone undetected one more month, I probably wouldn't be here today.)

Tired of landscaping, I worked one season as a botany tech for the U.S. Forest Service, searching for endangered plants in the High Sierra. Then I spent a couple years as a copyeditor for an advertising agency and the local arts council.

I enjoy writing but prefer working outdoors, so in 1998 I began my present job as an arborist. I work outside in ALL weather, hiking through heavy brush, poison oak, river canyons, barbed wire fences, and private property. I've been bitten by dogs twice, had a meth-tweaking woman pull a gun on me, been chased by a blind pit bull, and slid 100 feet down a steep slope, head first. If anything happens to me, it might be days before I'm missed. But I love the adventure, autonomy, and challenge of my job. It keeps me active and certainly isn't boring!

I never married, but came close once or twice. However, I don't mind living alone in a tiny house on 5 acres with my cat and a gorgeous view of the Sierras. Sometimes I wish I'd furthered my education, but I'm very content with my life. In the spring of 2006, I went trekking in Nepal.