Author Bio: First International Flight
Since I'm not traveling in December, other than a Christmas visit to grandma's house in Weiser, I thought I'd tell you the expanded version of the things listed in my author bio. That is, the bio I submitted that the publisher cut the heck out of. :) It was:
Jodi Cowles caught the travel bug when her parents took her on her first international flight at six months of age. Since then she’s been in over 30 countries. Along the way she’s gotten locked out of her cabin on an all night train to Kiev, helped deliver a baby in Indonesia, taught English in South Korea, gone spelunking in Guam, hiked the Golan Heights and laid bricks in Zimbabwe. Her interest in politics stems from hunting Easter eggs on the south lawn of the White House as a child. For her 30th birthday she ran the LA Marathon and promised to get serious about publishing. Jodi resides in Boise, Idaho and this is her first novel.
My mom was an army nurse when I was born at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina. She was one of the first, if not the first, to get pregnant and want to stay in the army. It was very common for women in that time to join up and have the Army pay for school, then get pregnant right after graduation. This gave them an early release without having to pay back their time. My mom was an anomoly -- she wanted to stay. In fact, she had to make her own maternity uniform by sewing pieces of two uniforms together!
A few months after I was born mom got shipped to Germany and had to leave me with my dad, but not long after we joined her there. My brother was born in Germany and my first memory is of my parents stopping on the steps of the hospital to let me hold him -- I hadn't been allowed to hold him inside the hospital due to some regulation or other.
Unfortunately I don't remember anything else about Germany, even though we lived there a little over two years. It's aggravated me to no end that I don't remember anything about my mom's whole family coming over for a month and touring all over Europe in an old VW bus my dad purchased for the occasion. I don't remember the Porsche my parents bought that my mom used to whip around the country on her public health assignments. It was a two-seater so they used a belt to strap me in between them while they drove the Autobahn. One of my favorite stories, though I don't remember it either, is of my mom at the commissary. Her job at the time was to teach parenting classes and when I threw a tantrum and lay screaming on the floor she went into the next aisle so no one would recognize her! :p
