After Lecturing Others, Workshop Leader Is Ready to Take Her Own Advice

It wasn’t planned that way, but Brenda Blackman is about to take some of her own advice, the kind she dispenses to single men and women at seminars in community colleges throughout the county. Sometimes she conducts five seminars in a week.

“I’m in the process of making more time for myself because I’m taking the advice I give at the class,” said Blackman, who is twice-divorced. “I haven’t met the right person for myself, but I’m looking.”

And she adds: “Because I’ve been in their circumstances, I understand the plight of people who are single.”

For herself, she says, “I want a man with a zest for life who is honest, sincere, kind, masculine and intelligent”--but not particularly in that order.

Those feelings, which she believes touch the thoughts of other singles, are what she talks about in her seminars, which include one called “50 Ways to Meet Your Lover.” Another seminar, called “How to Treat a Woman,” is for men only.

She holds the seminars at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, Golden West College in Huntington Beach, Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana and Coastline Community College in Fountain Valley. Admission runs $20 to $25.

Her talks are not strictly for singles. For instance, she holds a seminar on voice training to help people better project themselves. It is called “Your Voice: How to Sound as Good as You Look.”

Blackman said she has experienced most of the problems she talks about, including speaking in front of an audience or to another person. That is her “How to Overcome the Fear of Public Speaking” seminar.

Other topics include “How to Make a Great First Impression,” “How to Begin and Continue a Conversation” and “Challenge of Being Single.”

“At one time, I was afraid to speak in front of people,” Blackman said, “and I kept dropping out of public-speaking classes in college because I was terrified. I also had to overcome shyness.”

As with her own fast-track life style, “I tell singles they need to take their life off of hold and do other things” to meet a prospective mate or friend.

Blackman said much of the problem stems from people who are mobile and move a lot. “In a recent seminar of 200, only 6 lived where they were born, and that makes it difficult to meet friends or a potential mate,” she said.

One of the best ways to meet people, Blackman said, is to advertise in newspaper singles columns. “The feedback I get from single people who use the newspaper is that they are meeting quality friends that way.”

And, she said, her seminars are good places to meet people. But they don’t help her. “Men like to be in a leadership role and, because I’m the speaker, I get placed in the leadership role,” she said.

For 16 years, Brea resident Barbara Moody drove a school bus for the Fullerton Elementary School District. She was a good driver and in 1981 won the California State Bus Rodeo competition.

She went to Boston to compete in the national bus rodeo but didn’t place.

Now Moody has found another challenge after retiring as a driver. She is growing orchids.

“There are just so many different varieties and so many different ways to grow them,” Moody said. “I’ve always loved flowers and I have always loved driving.”

She said there is a common challenge, whether someone grows orchids or drives a bus. “You have to be careful doing both of them.”

Moody grows the exotic orchids in her back yard. It is just chance, she said, that she happens to live on Flower Street.

Life as a first-grader is wonderful. Especially in Colleen Landheer’s class at Valencia Park School in Fullerton.

For instance, she asked all of her students to bring their teddy bears for a lunch in the park. They did and clutched them during two-legged races. Smokey the Bear gave them tips on fire prevention and the children held their own musical called “The Three Bears.”

Then they exercised with Albert, the running bear.

And then they weighed their bears on the school scale.

Life as a first-grader is wonderful.