from Judy

I first met Ana in fourth grade at Alta Heights Elementary School in Napa.  We were close friends.  She was so smart and so interesting.  There weren’t many of those kinds of kids out there!  Every day she had a Hershey’s chocolate bar in her lunch; lucky girl, I thought.  I don’t remember when she moved, but I saw her again at Silverado Middle School where we picked up our friendship and continued with it more intensely at Napa High School.  She always looked the same; she never changed.  We used to follow John because he was the smartest boy in the school.  She was the only girl who could understand his questions in math or science class, and wasn’t afraid to challenge or questions any of his thoughts or of the thoughts of our teachers.  Every day at the end of science class, she would hang back and ask Mr. Schroeder, our biology teacher lots of questions.  John would be there too, as well as the other two or three “smartest boys in the school.”  Our teachers probably hungered for students like Ana to ask intelligent questions.  She truly wanted to KNOW.

I was always shy, and Ana challenged me with, “Let’s do this!” for things I would NEVER have done.  She wasn’t afraid to be social.  I needed that.

In college, she came to my dorm freshman year, all the way from Cal Poly and she convinced me to get a pack of cigarettes from the machine in the dining hall.  We tried them in my dorm room.  I never tried it again, but I’m grateful that Ana got me to experience things I would never have done.  Really.  It’s a funny memory.