About the Author
 

Born in Asheville, North Carolina in 1942, Annette knows so little of her birthplace that she has always claimed to be from Detroit, Michigan. She has lived in Miami, Florida so long that it has become home. While attending George Washington Carver High School in Coconut Grove, Florida, she met and married Amos Larkins, Jr., with whom she will soon celebrate their forty-seventh anniversary. The year was 1958, and she was sixteen years old. Two years later she gave birth to their first son Amos II; their second son Anthony was born ten months and eighteen days later, a little over a month after her nineteenth birthday. Annette announced that she had contributed to the perpetuation of the species and was finished with childbearing. "They were so close together; it was like having twins." she says.

 

When the boys were ten and eleven years old, Annette began singing at a local nightclub on Miami Beach, where she remained for two and a half years. Choosing not to pursue stardom, Annette enrolled at Miami-Dade Community College, majoring in liberal arts. She graduated with high honors, receiving the highest achievement award for foreign languages with Spanish as her second language.  She taught Spanish as a substitute teacher. Annette also worked as a reservations clerk for an airline which afforded extensive travel benefits. The company published an article Annette wrote In their in-flight magazine.

 

Annette created The Little Chef's salad dressing which was a popular item in health food stores and customers were disappointed when it was no longer available. One day while shopping in one of the stores where the dressing had been sold, Annette encountered a lady who asked, "You're The Little Chef aren't you?" "Yes, well, I was." replied Annette. "They told me that you stopped making the dressing, and I am, now, looking for something comparable to it. My son says that if he can't have The Little Chef's, then he just won't eat salads." "What a commercial!" thought Annette. However, she would not be swayed by such remarks. The reason she had produced the dressing in the first place was because people said she should market it. So she did, but she lacked the passion to see it though to its greatest potential.

 

At the request of her husband, a diversified businessman, Annette obtained a Property and Casually Insurance License to complement his Life and Health License. Her perpetual quest for knowledge and new experiences eventually landed Annette into the computer age. In this world of motherboards, CPU's, and unknown peripheral devices, she found fascination and challenge. Annette has built about 15 personal computers. After learning so much about computers, she wondered, "What now?"

 

She preceded by combining acquired technical knowledge with innate creatively to compose personal greeting cards, using poetry to accommodate the occasion, along with clipart, photographs, and a protective plastic cover. She also wrote a textbook for her grandson that taught him how to read and helped with his first grade studies. "I have always been passionate about motivating individuals to make changes that will enrich their lives; I like stimulating the psyche of others and helping them to discover the power within themselves," she expresses. Via her recent booklet, Journey To Health, Annette discusses her lifestyle and looks forward to the next writing project.