I Could Always Be A Waitress

This is the comic story of Joan Baldwin as a young mother in E.R.A. 1977 life and then as an older woman living in a small Atlantic coast town in Florida, struggling all her life to find her voice and her place in the midst of her overbearing and controlling husband, self-centered daughter, withdrawing son and a baby grandson named Excelsior (dumped into her life by their ever- running-away daughter Susan). Joan, now in 2011 a mental health counselor, tries to keep her granddaughter Emily from attaching herself one of Joan's clients--a sociopathic charmer named Derreck, who belongs to an organization so secret "that the C.I.A. doesn't even know of its existence". Everpresent at the edges is Banana Bay, Florida, a tropical paradise kept in check by asphalt and concrete, just waiting its chance with its alligators and snakes to revert back into jungle. Then there's Annabella, the Marilyn Monroe lookalike; Fr. Wolfe, the Episcopalian ex-football star who "punts for the Lord"; his wife Margaret who bakes a coconut cake which Banana Bay's oldest inhabitant accidentally chokes to death on, the town dentist who yearns to go west and ride a horse; his gossipy wife; and at the center Joan, who must hide her shameful secret that as a mental health counselor she only has one client. Add a hurricane, a smelly dog, a murderous Key lime pie and Joan's agorophobia, and enjoy this taste of Florida life.

Barbara J. Radcliffe has lived in Melbourne, Florida since 1963. She is a retired mental health counselor. Her five grown children are Liz, Caroline, Diana, Jonathan and Christopher. She also has eight grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, and an overweight cat. As well as having been a waitress, she continues to teach Myers-Briggs personality courses locally. She also works as a choir director and organist. She played keyboard in a dance band called "The Has-Beens", was onstage and backstage at local community theaters for decades (she appeared briefly with Richard Chamberlain as the Best Peasant in Monty Python's "Spamalot", and spent ten years managing a dental office. The only autographed letters she owns are from Jack Lemmon and Erma Bombeck. She is a prize-winning playwright. Her next play, based on the recent much-televised trial in Orlando and titled "Sunshine", will be presented locally through the Playwrights Workshop in February, 2010. She could fill a page with the women who have been her friends along her path: Charlotte, Tessa, Sue, Suellen, Cynthia, Marilyn, Darci, Peggy, Sally, Maureen, Sylvia, and many more--heartfelt thanks for so much encouragement. "I Could Always Be a Waitress" is her first novel.