Meet Gail Cushman
Is people-watching a lost art? Gail would give a resounding “No!” She can watch an event and turn it into a story, sometimes an adventure, sometimes a mellow description, but you can be sure it will be worth reading.
Gail is an Idaho girl, a widow, but recently has moved to Montana where she enjoys sunrises, sunsets, wild animals, and quiet days with her husband, Robert, AKA Cowboy Bob, Cowboy Poet and Storyteller. She has two grown children and four teenaged grandchildren, two in Idaho and two in Alaska. Cody, the Wonder Dog, rounds out the family.
A life of adventure involves a certain amount of risk-taking, and when Cowboy asked her to marry him and move to Montana, she took a leap of faith, sold her house and said “see you later” to her family, friends, and neighbors and moved. Was it a risk? Yes and no.
Boise had outgrown her, she’s a small-town girl, and Boise had become a city, still growing, bursting at the seams. She knew she loved the Cowboy and was 95% sure he loved her, but she knew he would not move to Boise. And now, she’s become a Montana Girl.
She writes a bi-weekly blog “Wrinkly Bits” on Facebook and gailcushman.com, about nothing she says, and her readers have compared her to Erma Bombeck, Seinfeld, Paul Harvey, O’Henry, and recently Ivan Doig, another Montana writer. She writes human interest stories for the local paper, the Stillwater County News and a monthly bulletin for her church, entitled The Messenger.
Meet Helene Mitchell
You might say she has a split personality but Helene and Gail are one and the same. Gail’s middle name is Helene and her brothers, while growing up, called her Gail Helene. When she began writing books, she began writing under Gail Cushman for her Wrinkly Bits Series, romantic comedies, but for her more serious books, the Maggie Monroe Series she claimed Helene Mitchell, her middle name and Robert’s last name, Mitchell.
Age is just
a number
Small Town Girl from Idaho
Gail loves the small-town life and has lived in rural America all her life. She enjoys the quiet ambiance of living, knowing the postman, milkman, and meter reader. She was active in church and school, knowing a little bit about everything and made life-long friends in those venues.
She filled her summers with church camps and teaching kids to swim at the local pool. After-school jobs of waitressing and office tending for her father paid for college and gave her a strong work ethic that she still maintains today.
Teacher & Principal
Along her journey, she picked up a teaching certificate and taught high school in her hometown of Emmett, Idaho, followed by a move to another rural town of Gooding, Idaho. She taught composition and whatever else the administration assigned her for nineteen years, then became a high school principal for another seven years, gaining merit status in each of those schools.
Semper Fi!
She enjoyed high school, liked college, but loved the Marine Corps and spent three years as a disbursing officer, paying young Marines as they headed home. It was a dream job. What 22-year-old female wouldn’t love having a couple hundred Marines lined up to see her several times a week?
Prison-educator not resident
Gail saw a need for those who had left the public school system without completing their education and joined the Idaho Department of Correction as the Director of Education for the prison system. It was a rewarding position, handing out earned GEDs to those who had been left behind by the public schools. In the seven years she was there, about 3,500 prisoners received an education and earned their GED certificates. It was a different gig but rewarding…and had the added benefit of no dances or ball games to chaperone!
Life is still in front of you, Blaze new trails
Traveler-following her grandmother!
After retirement in 2010, Gail and her late husband Tom wanted to travel, and travel they did, with twenty cruises, visiting all seven continents and over sixty countries. She says she’ll keep going until she’s seen them all. Gail likes to tell the story of her grandmother… Grandma J, who lived with their family for a few years. Every now and then, she would appear in the kitchen with her suitcase, packed and ready to go and say, “There’s a bus leaving later today, I might as well be on it,” and off she would go to visit one of her children or grandchildren. Gail feels the same way, “There’s a country I haven’t seen. I might as well see what it’s like.”
Author
Between trips, Gail began to write and has penned eleven books, with two more in the works. She says it keeps her mind active and out of trouble. Her writings cover subjects such as the hijinks of a merry band of seniors as they adventure on the high seas to a serious murder mystery series, the Maggie Monroe Series. Her stories are easy reading and fast moving. Her past experiences of being a lady Marine during Vietnam, a high school principal in the Intermountain west, the chief educator for the Idaho prison system and her extensive travel experience gives her plenty of fodder for her colorful tales.
For the Maggie Monroe series, she is using a Pen Name, Helene Mitchell (Gail’s middle name and her husband’s last name).
She and her husband Robert Mitchell have coauthored a book about online dating, Loving Again A Guide to Online Dating for Widows and Widowers. It is humorous, yet takes a serious look at a very popular way for seniors to meet people, particularly for those widowed persons who still yearn for life and adventure! It untangles the mysteries of Online Dating.
Green Sweater Girl
Online Dating
The song “is that all there is” suggests that there is more to life than lying on my sofa with my bon bons, crossword puzzles, and blanket. When my husband of over fifty years passed away after several long years of illness, I decided to look for a little adventure, but what would it be? I decided to take a risk and look online and found interesting people who made great conversations and offered a wide range of possibilities, including my new love Robert. After a whirlwind romance, we tied the knot and spend our time laughing and loving. Our wedding vows were to: “love, honor, and laugh” and we exchanged vows in PARIS!!!! We now are husband and wife living in the Stillwater River in South-Central Montana.
MEET COWBOY BOB
We dare not forget Cowboy Bob who joined up with Gail in 2021 to have adventures, write books and blogs, and have fun. They never let a day pass without raucous laughter, viewing a Montana sunset, and planning their next adventure.
Robert Mitchell was born in San Diego, the oldest of four brothers. He and his family moved to Venezuela when he was six and lived in the jungle, climbing trees, watching for 30-footers (snakes), and black panthers. Six years later, the family returned to Texas, where he finished high school and college. He became the Texas canoe-racing champion. He and his wife Patty moved to Montana in 1977, ran aviation businesses, including building an airplane and raced in the Reno Air Races. They ranched in several locations including in Red Lodge Creek for over 15 years while he commuted to work for Gulfstream. They sold the ranch, bought a boat, retired to live aboard the Orinoco, and cruised for ten years, completing the Great Loop before retiring to the Stillwater Valley.
Widowed, he met Gail and the rest is history. Married in Paris! Wahoo!
Now, he and Gail travel, write, and have adventures, by car, plane, or boat. He recently took up writing, cowboy poetry, blogging, and is working on a book about an old cowboy who night calves and woos the widow women down the lane.
Robert has two children and seven grandchildren, all living in Montana or Wyoming.