Jeanne Daoust

My name is Jeanne or 512jellybeans. 5/12 is my birth date and jellybeans was a childhood nickname.

I am a 44 year old single mom who is extremely proud of her 19 year old Eagle Scout son, my only child. I still can’t figure out how he turned out so good. He and I have been involved in Scouting since he was 7 and for the last four years, I was Scoutmaster of his Troop; the single female Scoutmaster out of 48 Troops in our district (there are 7 districts in our Council.) Cory’s father passed away from an inoperable brain aneurysm in 1996 but he always wanted his son to reach Eagle – a rank he never attained when he himself was a Scout. Whatever political stance you have on the BSA, believe me – I struggled with it too. I also had many discussions with our mutual friend, JD, who had also been a Boy Scout. I felt I could be a catalyst for change in my little corner of the world and we had gay Scouts and parents in our Troop; we just kept it to ourselves. I firmly believe that the benefits of the program far outweigh the negatives and the boys were never touched by the negative while I was in charge.

I have a great love of the outdoors in all seasons and in all weathers having slept outside during most of them (exception: hail.) My coldest night spent outdoors was -23 and my hottest was 99. Camping, hiking and fishing were all great passions of mine as well as teaching young boys how to become good young men. In the 24 year history of our Troop, there have been 36 Eagle Scouts and I had a direct hand in guiding 10 of those 36 to Eagle rank during my four-year tenure as Scoutmaster, a feat of which I am most proud.

I was also an American Red Cross volunteer since 9/12/01 who was on call 24/7 to respond to local disasters such as house fires, floods, gas leaks and so on; pretty much anything that would cause people to be displaced from their homes. My job was to provide them shelter (in hotels) or in shelters if the need was great enough and to provide them with the means to buy food, emergency clothing, medications and prescription eyewear that may have been lost. I also responded for three weeks to Hurricanes Katrina & Rita (or “Kat-Rita” as we called them on the inside.)

My son’s high school was a brand new high school and as such, needed a PTA. I was a member of the steering committee that got that off the ground and then remained as Treasurer for all his four years at the school (2004 – 2008).

When he reached 18, then graduated from high school, I began looking for other interests to fill my time as we were moving past Scouting (although I’d planned to remain active in a much quieter role.) We decided to become active in our local chapter of the Sierra Club.

However, that was all cut short on 10/15/08 when I suffered a “surgical accident” that left me paralyzed from the armpits down. (Yes, there is a lawsuit and it is well underway.) At first, I was deemed to be a paraplegic because I have thankfully retained the use of my arms and hands although it has come to light recently that I am more appropriately classified as a quadriplegic due to the extensive damage to my arms. I can only type with one finger and this “bio” has taken me several hours.

Did I forget to mention that I also worked two (and for a short time, three) jobs at the same time as all the above? My “real” job as I called it, was for New York Life Insurance Co (“the Company you keep”) who thankfully during the greedy times of the 80s, 90s and 2000s has remained a mutual company, which means it answers to its policyholders and not stockholders. It has remained out of the scandal of the Wall St debacle because you can’t buy a share of New York Life on the stock exchange. In fact, it reported last September, when the the house of cards began to fall, a surplus of over $1 billion. (Yes, that’s a ‘b’.) It has also continued to be a source of employment in NYC for those who suddenly didn’t have a job at Bear Stearns, AIG or Merrill Lynch anymore.

My job has been fabulous to me which is why I mention and speak so glowingly of them.

I have worked for them for 12 years as a customer service trainer (and proud to say our call center has won top awards both within and without the Company for the last 10 consecutive years…). My father worked for them for 37 years and personally knows the CEO of NYL, Ted Mathas. NYL has raised approximately $10K to help with my immediate medical expenses; they pay my COBRA health insurance premiums (about $800/mo) and I just learned yesterday, they will pay my life insurance premiums as well (about $900/mo.) I carry a lot of whole life insurance because I don’t own any property and as a single parent, I wanted to leave my son a substantial inheritance.

My other jobs have been part-time in retail – for Blockbuster for 6 years and then later, a friend’s liquor store to help him out. Oh and I worked for Princeton Review for awhile and though the pay was good, it was for 6-week clips and I really didn’t like the snooty (“SNOOTY? Snotty. SNOTTY?”- Ferris Bueller reference there….) kids and their parents so that didn’t last long.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE good movies – indies and documentaries as well as the good meaty dramatic stuff (hence the Blockbuster job – five free rentals a week. plus stuff not released to video yet!!).I have one of the early Blockbuster mail-in plans with unlimited online and in-store rentals that you can’t get anymore. I also love to read although in the past year it, like smoking, has been given up because medications I’m on make it extremely hard for me to read for any period longer than 15 minutes. I loved sci/fi fantasy and historical fiction especially anything about King Arthur, Avalon, the Tudors and the Plantagenets. I’m sorry but audiobooks just don’t cut it. I miss the smell of the paper and ink and a book you can’t put down because it’s such a page-turner. I’ve been known to go 30 hours straight on a book that I couldn’t put down… God, I miss reading, but I take 33 pills a day to manage my condition. I was going to donate my liver and kidneys but by the time I’m done with them, they’ll probably be of no use to anyone anyway, lol.

Oh and (this is probably TMI but if I get it out to as many people as I can, my parents can’t deny my wishes, lol) when I die, I want to donate any and all usable organs and then have the remains cremated, mixed with concrete into the form of a conch shell and placed in the Neptune Memorial Reef (nmreef.com)

So that’s who I was and who I am now. I am looking forward to the Frapto project from my new perspective of 4′8″ in my chair rather than 5′8″ when I stood. :) And I truly look forward to the rest of the group’s contributions too. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for 11/1!