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10 heterosexual female, could not take my eyes off the woman at the other end of the table. I wanted her to talk and I As it happened, that woman was Barbara Bartholic and she had my undying attention. I worried a little about myself but not much. I had always been so man crazy. What was it about this woman that attracted me so? I learned over the following years, that I was only one of a throng of people who felt the same way. It wasn’t a sexual thing at all. It was just that Barbara Bartholic was Big, Beautiful and Beguiling and we all wanted to hear her tinkling laughter as well as her soft, slightly off center speech. I tend to be straightforward and direct so during the meal I tried putting the woman through the third degree but she slithered right out of my clutches quite nicely, thank you. She threw out fascinating tidbits but never answered any of my pointed questions. She told me later that she was frightened to talk of her work to people she didn’t know because she was afraid they “wouldn’t understand.” In other words she didn’t want to be called crazy anymore if 1 yaad she could help it. Our journey toward this book began that night. I have spent many days, weeks, months since then without Barbara’s company because I became deeply involved in Tulsa’s writers’ community, and through my writing I’ve built myself a good life, but every once in awhile, I’d stop and wonder what was happening with my pal Barbara and when we met it was just as if we had never had those days, weeks, months of absence from each other. For a long time T tua wets tat I congratulated myself that our relationship was a rare and special thing. Then I began to notice... everyone who came under Barbara’s spell believed that very same thing about his or her relationship with the woman. She has the magic of making the worst clods among us think we are special even if we see her and speak to her for only a moment. Barbara Bartholic as told to Peggy Fielding wanted everyone else to shut up. Aue