OK, a little tardy, I know... ;-) Kim Hixon gave me 12 (!wtf? 12?) about a week ago! Landie Chappell gave me 7, on what? Wednesday?. so, I finally got started on this--the day before yesterday! Here goes 19 in roughly (and at times long-winded) biographic form (can you say, ego?): 1. I have a selectively dyslexic tendency to read or not read the fine print (or I probably wouldnt be writing this post ;-) ) 2. I used to know everything but I’m just not that young and good-looking, and all that, anymore. 3. Although I was a precocious child (#2) whom Mom taught to read and write while only a three-year-old in order to keep me busy while she tended to next sister Krista, when I got to my second Kindergarten—in Omaha—I had to re-learn writing because I wrote in a serif font –having learned my letters by tracing them from magazines, books, and newspapers—and my new teacher told me, “I know that’s how the letters look in books but we don’t do it like that here.” Ever since then my handwriting has been atrocious—because WTF does it matter if the whole thing is so arbitrary, anyway? In fact, much to the annoyance of Mrs Kissinger and Sister Margaret Picha in 7th & 8th Grades, I used to enjoy creating my own abstracted versions of cursive. 4. Dad was in the Air Force, so we moved quite a bit. I had attended fourteen different schools by Fourth Grade, and eighteen by the time I left Gonzaga Prep in Spokane WA. I got pretty good at being a chameleon… but (bonus fact) my best friends growing up were always the Chappell kids even though at times we went years without seeing each other… 5. During Fourth Grade at Our Lady of Lourdes, Sister Mary Dzwinnel entered three of my watercolors in a juried art show (American Child as Artist) put on as part the Smithsonian’s touring Chatauqua. They took all three (Purple Mountain Majesty, Yellow Daffodils, Electric Blue Guitar) on tour with them. Eventually they said I could have EBG back if I wanted (which I did) (consistently only Third Place or Honorable Mention in abstract) but they archived the other two because they were mostly blue ribbons for landscape and still life. Hence, two of my paintings are (or at least were) in the Smithsonian’s collection ;-) 6. I fell in love with basketball at age four, watching Dad play in Puerto Rico, and that love affair continues today… but unrequited the past ten years or so since my knee won’t take it anymore. Also, bonus fact, I had season tickets to the Sonics for two years (1978-1979, 1979-1980)... in the 1990s I began referring to the NBA as the No Basketball Allowed league. 7. After my parents bought their first house, Dad was given a choice for “overseas duty” by the Air Force: either 2-4 years in Europe or Taiwan, or a one-year stint in Vietnam followed by permanent stationing at Fairchild AFB. Dad was at Bien Hoa Air Base (northern-most permanent US Base in Vietnam) for almost all of 1969. To this day, I’m pretty sure Europe or Taiwan would’ve been more fun (#2) but Mom and Dad got six weeks R&R in Hawaii (I was jealous!). 8. My world changed even more drastically in the fall of 1972 when our house burned down and tragically –while Grandma Millie and middle sister Diana survived—Mom, Krista, and youngest sister Gina died. Dad and I weren’t caught in the fire because we’d left the house for deer hunting at about 3:30 a.m. However, after getting halfway across town, we turned back because we’d forgotten the shells for one of our rifles. We were only gone for about half an hour or so but by the time we’d returned there were two fire trucks, police, an ambulance, and most of the neighborhood around our house watching the blaze. 9. I found I had a little brother, Mac, and that still is very cool ;-) I didn’t get to play college ball—in large part, I think, because see #2, but a little bit because first-year Prep coach Ron Donavan told every school interested in me that I “definitely had an attitude problem (again with #2!) and quite possibly a drug problem” (because my best friends at Prep were stoners (I only inhaled a little but!) and he smelled pot on me once). (Thanks, Huggins—honestly!—for clueing me to that, not that it improved my attitude but I was glad to know and Donovan put me on the team after I confronted him but the only offer I got was the AF Academy and Dad said his General friendsd get it rescinded because see #2...) 10. I enrolled at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, philosophy and fine art. Thought I’d teach humanities and coach basketball at the high school level. However, I got sick of living on a shoestring. So—with only 16 credits to go for my bachelor’s in Humanities and because when I looked for a school at which to do my practicum I discovered that my summer jobs in construction paid almost three times the highest paid HS teacher’s salary in the state and #2—so I decided to work full-time for a year or so and get a truck and a motorcycle and save enough money to finish school in comfort… but then life happened. 11. Seattle, great money, spent all of it, FUN! Hawked fruit and vegetables at the Corner Fruit Stand (next door to Left Bank and below the Mint Lounge where I used to hear Robert Cray for $1 cover) on Pike Place ib the Market. I worked on the docks as a member of the International Longshore Workers Union (really big bucks! Rent was $120/month and ILWU take-hone was $187 and change per day). I framed pictures. Pioneer Square Theater before it became the Pioneer Square Theater. Bouncer/doorman at the Pioneer Square Tavern for a couple years. I was involved in a lot of fun things. The Comet Tavern was a living room full of friends and family, remember Ed says: Where else can ya go and have a beer like a regular person? Softball, pool, swimming, motorcycles, sailing... never did SCUBA. 12. I fell in love, got married, began doing electrical work, had a baby (Khira
Posted on: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 23:11:54 +0000
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