Ever since I studied French for two years in high school, I fell in love with languages! I majored in French and minored in Spanish in college and when I decided to go into the Navy, I'd planned on being a French linguist but all of those billets were filled. So they told me I had to pick another language. I chose Spanish, but those were filled too. They gave me a choice between Chinese Mandarin, Serbo-Croatian and Russian and since the Cold War was still in full effect, I decided on Russian because I thought it'd be more relevant. Then, they sent me to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA for a year-long immersion course taught by actual Russian-American instructors and I graduated #1 in my class a month early (the oldest son was due in June and I was supposed to graduate in July -- I met & married the husband, who was a Spanish linguist there)!! I absolutely loved it! The instructors were amazing because not only did they teach us the language, they taught us a LOT about Russian culture. My roommate (an Army Russian linguist from San Diego with whom I shared an off-base apartment along with a white, Navy Chinese linguist) and I used to go to San Francisco with a couple of them to eat borscht among other things (there was a very large Russian population there)!😆 They all sent congratulationary cards on th birth of my son that I still have to this day. Like I said before somewhere, heady times for a chocolate, Black girl from SC!

Not sure if I'm related to the Ball family, though I'm currently listening to his "Slaves in the Family" and I recognize some of the names of some mentioned. But I AM descended from the Middletons, a very, prominent planter family (one of whom signed the Declaration of Independence -- ain't that some shit??!!). They even have "REUNIONS" now for descendants of those enslaved on their plantations and the descendants of their white enslavers!! I couldn't EVER go to one of those performative pieces of bullshit, because I know I couldn't contain myself.