(Ya’know they’re waiting, and they’re coming)
We goad them into retirement age and when they kick their hectic pace a bit and even find a sliver of leisure, we drag them out. So they’re right here at this very place.
Karen Hudson
Wait, I never knew Karen Hudson really existed. But then, in retrospect, that’s what they did. It’s like the best of the old “Have You Heard the One About the …?
OK, these stories made you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Why didn’t her dad stop hanging out with Grandpa Clyde?
The picture of Wendy in Middle School is far from the life she has led. She moved on and went to Cornell, and turned down a career in mechanical engineering, to work as a nurse.
She’d always wanted to be a nurse, and admits that, as a very young kid, she wasn’t very good at that. She didn’t hate it, just knew that she was good at nursing. “It’s a little thing, but it was always important to me.”
Katie Salmon has an A grade. Nowadays, maybe she has an A. But back then, at 17, she felt pretty kicked ass. She had a one-in-eight chance of getting into Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania in a perfect world.
A ballsy move, she says.
She tried out for the basketball team, but didn’t make it. Was hoping to get a few scholarships, but never found any. So for a while she worked, figuring her big break was coming, which never happened. And then she started looking for help with college applications, and looking for a job.
What she didn’t know, at the time, was that graduate school in nursing would become the goal. She got accepted to 30 schools.
It felt really important at the time.
And you know what?
Nancy Kaye Smith’s funny. And iconic. But she never looked the way she looked — all at once, on a late-night infomercial, 26 years ago, doing “Let’s Talk.”
She’s so much more — quirky, smart, pretty and uniquely original. She didn’t always want to be a mom, but, eventually, “I knew I had to look after him.”
Barbara Chastain is one of our favorite comics, and there’s a long line of people — Lisa Lampanelli, Howie Mandel, Jason Sudeikis — who would’ve been regulars on “The Tonight Show” if Chastain had been around.
The definition of balance. When you compare her to other experts in balance, you’ll understand.