Growing up it was the "Three Bs," as our mom called us – Mom, myself and my younger sister.

We were latch key kids decades before the term was invented. While mom was at work, we would walk home from elementary school and "take care of ourselves" till mom came home. One time Sarah ran ahead and came back to report she saw a ghost peering out the window at her. Going into the house, I had to put on my cowboy six shooters to assure myself I could handle that ghost.

In high school, Sarah had a way of just knowing if I was talking to someone whose name I did not remember, then she would make a point of coming up and say, "Aren’t you going to introduce me?"

Later in life we went on an adventure vacation together, to Burma and Thailand. While walking along a river in Burma I told her, "Don’t turn around but there is a guy with a gun behind us." Sisters never mind and of course she looked and the solider told us to turn back.

Sarah retired from Schwab as a stockbroker but for her spirit her career was the two years she worked in Yosemite.

Her husband Dean and her were very much in love and shared their passion for the outdoors and antique Airstream trailers.

Sarah Burkdoll: Feb. 21, 1955, to Aug. 27, 2009.

Mark Burkdoll lives in Clearlake.