Maria grew up in the Grand Island/Buffalo area of New York. She's one of nine siblings - five sisters and four brothers. Maria has always loved to dance; she was a football and basketball cheerleader for years.
Below - and she's still dancing. Maria in the pink hat with her "zumba crew" hamming it up with Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski at the fourth of July parade.
Maria teaches Zumba classes several times a week in Homer - for people of all ages. She teaches in various environments - the bay club, the community school, and the homer senior center - where she does zumba gold for the elderly and aqua zumba too. Below, Maria teaching class at Stillpoint Lodge across Katchemak Bay - where 18 women came for a special 10-day wellness retreat and Maria was asked to come across and teach Zumba for a long weekend. They liked her so much, they asked her to come back!
I like Maria because she's fun. She has two Australian Puppies who are still in the chewing phase - and they had gotten ahold of her brush. When I asked her if she got a little hungry at times, she immediately got what I was after and went to chewing on her brush :-)
Maria came to Homer Alaska with a group of classmates from her high school right after she graduated at the age of 18. They all came up here to "live the dream" and work in the canneries and fishing industry out on the homer spit. Back then, people called them "Spit Rats." They worked hard and lived in tents out on the spit - which can be a pretty harsh environment. In 1984, she went home to New York to marry her sweetheart from across the street - then moved back to Homer and stayed here forever.
I like Maria cuz she knows how to fish, and enjoys catching them...
She had many jobs working in the fishing industry - but her first job was on an assembly line butchering fish - gutting them, and removing the eggs. So, cleaning fish is something she can also do - but I'm pretty sure she prefers to leave that to me. I catch the fish. Clean them. Package them up, and freeze them. I cook the fish, and clean up afterwards too. Maria says she has never seen a guy that does all of this (her hub used to catch it and drop it in her lap and the rest was up to her) - so she likes that about me. Mom, I guess you taught me well :-)
Below - Maria and I with Alaskan Pollock we caught right off the spit Minnesota style - with jigs and plastics, and rapalas. Considered undesirable by many of the locals, we thought we'd give them a whirl - and they weren't bad. Most people are turned off by the worms - so a good job of cleaning is required - but other than that, they taste fine.
Maria and I off her dock before going out for some food, a beer, and a little dancing. I think Maria cleans up pretty well...
Maria with gal-pal Myra - who always meets us for a beer and some dancing when we go out to listen to the local talent on weekends.
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