Marital Status:  I haven't been married yet (no one's ever proposed to me!); instead, I've been mostly a serial monogamist (insert lame breakfast oats joke here). But don't go thinking I have a problem committing - I've done it several times! In fact, I've been illicitly sharing stead and bed with the lovely Alice for seven years, with nuptials on the distant horizon. Our only dependent is Furgie, who seems to be half German shepherd and half kangaroo. (I may be following in the paternal footsteps of author Saul Bellow, who last year begat a child at age 84.)

Children:  none

Career information:  After leaving the hallowed halls of Heidelberg High in 1969, I had a unique seven-year bachelor's degree program (I designed it myself!) at the University of Kansas.

     "In the words of noted philosopher Willie Nelson, "Gee, ain't it funny how time slips away?" So as the class of 1969 enters the Prostate Years (well, half the class anyway), I thought I should do one of these autobiographies, especially since Brad Powell, John Vaughan and my own sistem have already done theirs. They confer a sort of e-mmortality.

     Having planned on becoming a famous disk jockey, I worked at area radio stations in Lawrence and Kansas City. With high ratings but low wages (the wild parties, groupies, drugs and free records were not enough to sustain a sensitive soul such as myself). I headed for Los Angeles in 1978 to become a famous guitar player. A little research would have revealed that the L.A. musician's union directory had 6,000 guitarists in it, of which about 10 worked regularly.

     So I put my journalism degree to work as a PR guy, first for a music school in L.A., then Yamaha International's music divisions, then Rocketdyne (makers of the space shuttle's main engines), then a series of hospitals. As a recent restructee in one of the semiannual restructurings at Children's Hospital in L.A., I am now pursuing another lifelong goal of becoming a starving waiter, doing freelance PR projects and magazine articles. Still trying to write the Great American Sentence, I recall the advice of my writing mentor at the U. of K.: "Don't forget to put some of that good kind of crap between the commas."

     At this point, I'm retroactively envious of my schoolmates who stuck it out in ROTC, the military and other orderly vocations, as they now have handy pensions to support their second careers while I have yet to identify a first. In lovely Altedena, California, a mile or so and several hundred thousand dollars north of Pasadena and the Rose Bowl, I lead a profoundly ordinary life and count myself lucky not to have yet been visited by divorce, disease, death, distinction or disaster (wait, what's that noise?). With the ticking of my biological time bomb, I've started paying more attention to health advice. For example, medical researchers have found that for some reason, cooked tomato sauces (e.g., pizza sauce) have a salutory effect on the prostate and could help prevent cancer. Apparently the cooking aspect activates some kind of antioxidant properties. So I decided to try them. Unfortunately, I've found applying them to be very uncomfortable and messy."

Hobbies:  

Fondest memory of Heidelberg:  

Anything unusual or exciting events in your life since graduation that you'd like to share with the group:  

Odds & Ends:   Though we don't have the acreage of Brad Powell, Prairie Psychologist, we do welcome visitors after thorough background checks. I miss my Heidelberg homies and hope to hear from more of them.