That's my name, above. I kept my maiden name, though when I was younger, I swore that I would change it if my husband had an easier name to spell/pronounce. Of course, I marry a man with the last name Evans, and keep my own.

What finally did it for me was hearing someone else spell it for someone on the phone, and having someone in ICQ ask me what it rhymed with. The former happened when a coworker was in the office using my phone. I worked at St. Andrew's School then, and we were planning a trip with some students to England, Ireland, and Wales. The co-worker, a teacher (I was a secretary), was spelling my name for the person at the tour company, on the other end of the phone.

She said, and I won't forget because I use it all the time, that it was spelled EFF ARE EYE, two Zs as in Zebra, EEE, two ELLs. (phonetic is my addition) I went, "huh", because most of the time, people dropped an L or a Z, and listening to her spell it, it made sense. So I use that all the time.

The second came from someone I was chatting with on ICQ that I didn't know. He asked if my last name rhymed with "gazelle" or "drizzle". Well, again, I'd never thought of it that way. It rhymes with "gazelle" by the way.

I think the popularity of Ms. Frizzle and the Magic School Bus brought some renewed interest in my name for those who don't know me already -- I have had people email me asking if I knew about the books (no, I only found out from the animated show on TV), or if I was any relation to the author. No, I'm not. And Ms. Frizzle rhymes with "drizzle", anyway.

I am also no relation to Lefty Frizzell, at least not that I know of. And no relation to the score/music composer, John Frizzell, though I have a brother by that name. He's a golf pro though, and not a composer.

I come from a big family. I have three older brothers (John, George, and Jerome, aka Jerry), two older sisters (Jean and Janet), and one younger sister (Jill). Yes, I am 6 of 7, to use my Borg nomenclature. And for the record, my father's name was James (he's deceased), and my mother's name is Patricia. No, they didn't plan to name us all Js (George has a J sound) until they had Jean. They then just kept going. I'm thankful they went with less popular names ... we have no Jessicas, Justins, Jasons, or Jennifers (though I have a niece named Jenny).

My friend Anne has a unique "About Anne" page, that I may steal some of for here. I need to ask first, though.

Lastly, for now, these pages are constantly a work in progress. I am hoping to keep my weblog more recent and up to date than these pages. So look there for recent information.

This page last updated 03/05/02 by jbf.