How We Met
Connections
Made
Django Heckler and
Angela Colombo Heckler
W
hen you grow up in Marin,
it’s a lot like growing up in a
small town. Especially when
you grow up with a grandfather who
was a long-time coach and teacher at
San Rafael High School. Sunday dinners
out were always a social event, as
we didn’t pass a table at a restaurant
without a “hi Ang” (my grandfather
Angelo Colombo). But truthfully, it’s
one of the things I’ve long loved about
Marin, somehow everyone who has the
good fortune to live here knows that it’s
special and so, we’re all connected.
I attended Terra Linda High School,
and at the time there were just 800
(or so) students in the whole school, so
there was a good chance you would
run into most of them at one point
or another. I knew of this guy with a
“cool name” two grades ahead of me
simply as the “track star.” Django was
named after gypsy jazz guitarist Django
Reinhart by his parents. He later said he
remembered me as “a cheerleader” but
that was the extent of our interaction
—teenage labels. Django graduated
in 1996, and went to Chico State and I
graduated in 1998 and headed to UC
Santa Barbara to later receive a BFA in
Theatre.
Fast forward to 2005. I had just moved
home to Marin County after graduating
from college and living and working
in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara for
several years. I was thrilled to be coming
back to Marin with a new job close to
my family. In the same month, Django
had moved home to Marin as well after
completing his six-year contract with
the Marine Corps. One night, as we
were out with mutual friends, we were
20 MARIN ARTS & CULTURE
reintroduced. I looked up and thought,
“Where have you been all my life?” We
didn’t see each other again until the
night before he left.
Django joined the Marine Corps Reserves
in 2000, right before 9/11. He had left
Chico State to transfer to UC Santa
Barbara. While at UCSB, he decided to
join the reserves in order to help pay
for school and to serve his country (his
family had a long history of military
service). He graduated from UCSB with
a degree in History and was activated
several times after 9/11, but always
stateside, never overseas. When he
moved home in 2005 to Marin, Django
had just signed a one-year contract as a
firefighter (his job in the Marine Corps)
on a military base in Taji, Iraq. After
arriving back in Marin in October he
would be leaving in January.
I went to the going away party for
Django, thrown by our mutual friend,
and as the evening went on, so did our
conversation. It turns out we had not
only been at UCSB at the same time, but
lived across the street from each and had
never connected.
While in Iraq, Django kept in contact
with friends and family through emails
and wrote incredibly descriptive stories
of his time there and the dichotomy of
having been in the military and now
serving on a military base as a civilian.
His primary function was crash/fire/
rescue when the military men and
women came back from being outside
the wall. We started emailing each other
and the emails went from every so often
to weekly and sometimes daily. We were
getting to know each other through
letters without much access to phones
(these were pre-iPhone and Facetime
days). That year in October, a group
of friends was going to meet Django
in Bali for one of the two R&R’s he was
able to take. I decided to tag along.
Django was home just three months
later. Six months after that we were
buying a home together, the following
year he proposed and the following
year after that we were getting married.
Two people, who went to high school
together, lived across the street from
each other in college but yet didn’t
meet until it was right— right before
he left for Iraq for a year. Connected by
not much more than our words, we feel
so lucky to have met when we did and
to have had the opportunity to get to
know each other through letters home.
Django and Angela now live in Marin
with their two children (ages 5 and
2), where they both work. Django is
celebrating ten years with the City
of San Rafael and after many years
supporting local nonprofits and causes
central to Marin and the North Bay,
Angela recently moved to the Marin
Theatre Company as the Director of
Development. She was previously the
Director of Development for the Boys &
Girls Clubs of Marin and Petaluma and
Marin Symphonies and is passionate
about supporting the arts and youth in
Marin County.