Hello. My name is Cathy Williams. I live in central Alabama, and have lived in the same town nearly all my life. Prattville is a rapidly growing town, and a bedroom community to the state's capitol, Montgomery.

I am a divorced mother of three children, and have six grandsons, who all live some distance from me with their parents.

I graduated from Autauga County High School, then attended the University of Alabama for awhile. I worked for most of my life, and usually attended night school. I attended night school at Auburn University in Montgomery for awhile, then began attending Troy State University in Montgomery at night. I graduated from Troy in 1996 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science and double minors in Psychology and History. In 2000 I attended Jones School of Law for one year. My biggest problem with law school is that I cannot think like a lawyer--I cannot think in terms of how I can change the laws to fit my views. I think in terms of what the Constitution actually says, and how people MUST learn to live with all the freedom that entails!

I discovered the Libertarian Party when I started listening to Neal Boortz on talk radio. I read some of their literature, and knew this was the political party for me! The Libertarians are the reason I was able to press on with night school and get my degree in Political Science. I wanted to know how and why this country has become so screwed up, and so very Socialist-leaning as to barely resemble a Democratic Republic. I figured that out at law school. Unfortunately, the Libertarian Party has the wrong opinion about the U.S. military and the war in Iraq, to me. But that is only one facet of the Libertarians I disagree with. The Party is right-on about the Constitution, and our loss of freedom!

My working years were a lot of fun, really. I was something of a Jill-of-all-trades. My first job was a summer job, working in a drug store in Fairfax, VA, as a waitress at the food counter. Later, I became an eligibility technician in the Welfare Dept. of the State of Alabama. After being an eligibility technician, I became a location specialist with the Welfare Dept., helping families find the absent parent and gain child support.

In the mid-1980s I went to school to learn court reporting. I trained with the steno machine, and learned shorthand for that. That was really a lot of fun, but I couldn't quite make it to graduate! We had to write 225 words per minute in order to graduate! I was writing at 160-180 words per minute when the money ran out.

I became a secretary, and eventually found my way back into State service, working at the ABC Board Central Office in Montgomery. I worked first in the Stores Division, then the Information Systems Division, where I learned to use the computer without fear! That is what I was doing when I was finally forced to admit that I could no longer work full-time, and I could no longer tolerate the 30-minute drive to the office due to the pain in my back and legs. (That was because of a car wreck I had been in, back in 1979, and injuries I suffered.)

I retired in October, 2002. Since then, I fell and rebroke my pelvis. The doctors say they cannot repair my pelvis, and I live with lots of pain. I welcome the duty of answering as many of these questions as I am able, to try and take my mind off unpleasantness.