Life Remains an Adventure for Seal Beach’s Well-Traveled ‘Senior Youth’

Helen M. Brown is on the move again, and that’s not bad for a 67-year-old former Marine who has backpacked her way around the world--by herself.

“I was 64 when I left and was 65 when I came back,” said the Seal Beach woman, who took 16 months to complete the eventful trip that started in 1985.

“I was a senior youth,” Brown quipped, pointing out she sometimes rested overnight in youth hostels. “Actually, I was gratified by the way all the kids accepted me.”

Brown, a UCLA graduate, said the only serious hitch in the trip was in Bangkok, when someone slashed her purse.

With that trek behind her, the active grandmother, who has two grandchildren and one on the way, is planning to lead a two-week, 180-mile canal boating trip in England. “Did you know they have 2,500 miles of canals in England?”

Brown and about 15 others will operate three English “narrow” boats powered by small diesel motors. “We have room for a couple more (people) if someone wants to come along and have a good time,” she said.

Brown prepared for the water trip a few years ago. “I took some classes in the Orange Coast College sailing class so I could sail by myself,” she said, noting that she has taken 10 solo cruises since attending the class. “In my divorce settlement in 1980, I had to give him the powerboat, so I took up sailing.”

Sailing is just another adventure for Brown, who once worked as traveling saleswoman before becoming a city tax representative for Los Angeles. “We preferred to call ourselves manufacturer representatives, “ she said of the saleswoman job.

After that phase of her working life, Brown opened a weight-reduction salon in 1955. “They weren’t as fashionable then as they are today,” she said, adding that she wished she still had it.

“I put on a lot of weight during my (backpacking) trip,” she moaned.

She is now selling vacuum cleaners for boats, campers and recreation vehicles to pay for her trip to England.

“I sold pressure cookers to finance my world trip,” said Brown, who keeps fit by bicycling, walking and swimming.

“Actually, I’ve done a lot of different things in my life, and I’ve always worked.”

And she said she has enjoyed it all. “I had fun in the Marines, because I was a kid when I joined (at age 21) and didn’t have a care in the world,” said Brown, who added that she was among the first group of women Marines to be sent to Hawaii in 1944.

She spent her service time deciphering codes. “I made intelligible English out of unintelligible gibberish,” she said.

“I think we had 555 3/4 men to every woman,” she joshed. “Unfortunately we didn’t get any liberty, and we were inside of a 10-foot-high, barbed-wire fence.”

First of all, Marilyn Monroe wasn’t born with that name. “I married into it,” said Monroe, a Mission Viejo woman who supervises the criminal clerk’s office at the South Municipal Court in Laguna Niguel. “Besides, my parents wouldn’t do that to me.”

Her husband is David Monroe, a private investigator.

Although she has the late actress’s name, “I don’t have her breathy talk, her blond hair, her shape or her money,” she said.

“The name is just one of those conversation items,” Monroe said. “People just don’t believe that’s my name.”

Teachers Sue Semegran and Mike Moore spent the weekend in Arizona, the main benefit of being named Teachers of the Year at Esperanza High school in Anaheim, by a vote of students, teachers and administrators.

The weekend was provided by Martin Aviation at John Wayne Airport and included a private plane trip to their destinations, as well as a hotel room.

Moore, a sociology teacher, went to Phoenix, and Semegran, a drama teacher, flew to Scottsdale.

The awards program was created this year by Asst. Principal Marc Jackson. “This school-and-business partnership shares resources with the idea of recognizing the work of educators,” he said.

Acknowledgments--Peter Tseng, an El Toro High School senior who is an avid skateboarder, won a $600 scholarship in Citicorp Savings calendar art scholarship program with his drawing of a skateboard pro in action in an empty swimming pool. He titled it: “Day at the Community Pool.”