Again, for the sake of sanity (yours), I’ll just hit the high points of the next 40 years.

For two years (1976-78) I lived just across the street from work at Sperry Univac.  The plant was in Eagan, MN, a suburb of St. Paul.  I worked a lot of overtime.  But, when I wasn’t working, I was home writing songs.  And smoking a ton of cigarettes. I didn’t get out much, since I was back into my walking everywhere mode.  But, I did get around a little.

After two years, my rent was getting high enough that I was worried about where to stay in the coming future.  A co-worker owned two houses and rented one of them to people.  He had the first level on that one available, so I took him up on the offer.  It was on Alice Court in St. Paul, on a quiet circle behind an apartment complex built on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi.  And, again, I wrote a lot of songs there.

Soon after, I met a beautiful woman at work, Judy.  She was a single parent with two young boys and a dog.  We all got along very well together.  So, after a getting-to-know-you period of about 4 years, we were married.  My whole family came out from New York to Minnesota for the wedding and my brother was my Best Man.

Again, there’s potential for a whole chapter every decade after that.  But, I’ll just hit the main points so that you know a little about the rest of my life.

I worked for Sperry Semiconductor for about 12 years, taking on different roles.  During the last few years I went into programming, working on Process and Manufacturing Control software.  Then, in 1986 (or thereabouts), Burroughs and Sperry merged to form what was later called Unisys.  The Semiconductor Division became redundant in the new company and was closed down in 1988.  I managed to fill an opening in their Airlines Division writing code for their Cargo group.  That was good for about 4 years.  But, an economic down-turn forced a number of us onto the street.  Yep, that career was done.

I worked as a software contractor for about a year and a half.  I had about three good customers.  But, the support they needed was just bleeding me.  I couldn’t keep it up for much longer. Fortunately, my favorite customer (where I actually had 2 projects going) had a job opening for a person of my expertise and caliber.  The Dakota County TVI was looking for a person to install and maintain a student database system, in conjunction with the State of Minnesota.  I interviewed and got the job.

Here, again, I could go on and on about the challenges.  But, I won’t.  I’ll just say that for the next 20 years and two months I did whatever it took to support the staff and students at DCTC.  [Oh, yah … a few years after I started, the State of Minnesota merged all Community and Technical Colleges plus the 4 year campuses into one entity that most of us called MnSCU (Minnesota State Colleges and Universities).]  I did database stuff, web stuff, web applications stuff … all kinds of stuff.  But, I didn’t fix computers: not my kind of stuff.

I retired from that job in 2014.  It was a good time to leave.  Change was coming, I was getting tired of keeping up with all the technology, and I really wanted to work more on my music.  But, I really miss the people I worked with.

Meanwhile, on the family side, the boys grew up and each went off to college.  The oldest went on for advanced degrees and has done quite well in both industry and as a professor at Duke University. He married a wonderfully talented and smart young lady. And they now have two beautiful and smart children. Being as they are in North Carolina, they come out here almost annually, and Judy and I get to go visit them almost annually, too.

The younger went to college in Wisconsin and came back to work at G&K Services.  He married a beautiful young Wisconsin woman. Together they’ve had four beautiful and smart kids (really, now … aren’t all grandchildren beautiful and smart), plus two dogs (at separate times).  They don’t live too far from us at the moment, though they did spend some time in Iowa while he managed a plant down there.  He, too, has done well for himself, working his way up the ranks.

I left out a lot in this story.  That’s because I do write songs about them, more or less.  A few side items to mention would be:

• Judy has a sister in Phoenix and it is fun to go visit every so often. I’ve had a few song ideas (that need finishing) on several of those trips.
• We have two great friends, Norm and Diane, who have shared so much with us that we are almost family. In fact, I’ve written at least two songs while up at their lake home in Wisconsin.
• I love visiting the North Shore of Lake Superior.
• We both love to travel.

That’s the nitty of it all.  Like I say, the gritty will have to wait for the book (ha-ha) or songs.

Well, I’ve just got out of the Service and I’m looking for my fun … no, no … that’s the song.  I was just looking for a job.  I began living with my parents and dating Sue.  I played my songs at a special meeting with her senior class (at the High School).  I helped her parents with the animals on their small farm.  And I worked several jobs in the area.

The most significant job was the last one with Cambridge Memories in Poughkeepsie, making semiconductor memory chips.  This was the job that launched my future.  But, I’ll say more on that later.

I lived with my parents for three and a half years.  During that time, I spent some time with Bob (from college … I bet I forgot to mention that he grew-up in that area of New York where my family was originally from).  He got me out-and-about and half (or sometimes fully) smashed many a night.  And, Sue was a big factor in getting me out, too.

But, me and Sue … that died, too (as the song goes).  So, to console myself, I bought a used Harley Davidson 1200cc motorcycle.  My buddy, Al, from work helped me get my motorcycle endorsement on my license.  Yep, I took it on that big Harley, on a wet Fall afternoon … wet leaves all over the place where I had to do figure eights.  But, I got it done.

I loved that Harley.  Yet, I could only go about 250 miles before it turned my hands to rubber from the vibration.  Truth was, it was an AMF version … 1973.  Some would say not a true Harley. So, the engine had issues.  Ah … but the stories.  And, again, that’s gonna have to wait for the book.

One thing I will mention:  I took a few glider lessons from a school in Wurtsboro, NY.  There was an old WWI era flight field there where the lessons were given.  It was both fun and scary.  But, it was also too expensive for me.  So, I only managed a few rides.

In 1976 that all ended when Cambridge Memories closed our plant.  The Engineers all found jobs in other parts of the country and I just sat, wondering about my next step.  Well, my old boss called me from Minnesota saying he was now working for the new Semiconductor Division of Univac and would like me to interview for the job.  I said, “sure thing.”  So, I bought a ticket for St. Paul.  But, the agent gave me a ticket to Minneapolis.  I said, “but, I’m going to St. Paul.” She looked at me like I was an idiot and said, “It’s the same place!”  OK.  Sure.  My geography was a little weak in regards to the mid-West.

I interviewed and got the job, even getting a $1000 pay raise before I actually started.  So, on September 3^th, 1976, I packed my car with my guitar and amp and as many boxes as I could (the rest and my furniture … all 5 pieces of it … would get picked up by movers later) and headed West.  But, I left my Harley behind.  After all, who rides bikes in Minnesota?  Man, was I dumb!

Well now, I drove through Hell!  Literally!  On September 5^th, a large portion of I-94 in Wisconsin was in the middle of a huge forest fire.  And here I was, driving through it, smoke and flames all around me.  But, I made it.

Now, I’m a little fuzzy on the sequence of events in these next few months. I’m not fuzzy on what happened, just when.  I had been seeing this one young lady (whom I’ll call Penny) in particular and she decided she wanted to keep in contact, even though we’d had a really rough relationship.  I think this is how it went.  But, if there is anyone out there that remembers better, go ahead and drop me a line.

I went to Abilene to do my training.  There, out in the vast openness of Northern Texas, I wrote a number of songs to express my feelings.  I also came face to face with a big, hairy spider.  Now, I don’t like regular spiders much less big and hairy ones.  But, I wasn’t gonna let it get the better of me.  So, I screamed for someone to “get it” and someone did. Taught that spider to mess with me!

Meanwhile, I’m communicating with this “Penny” who has now moved from Florida to West Virginia to live with her Granny, along with her cousin (whom I’ll call “Anne”).  I had some Leave coming before heading overseas.  So, she suggested that I stop in to Granny’s on my way home.  So, I did. I took a flight to West Virginia (not sure which airport), took a bus to the closest town from Granny’s.  In town, I stopped at a store and asked about where Granny’s place was. Well, the store owner knew her. So, he took me there, driving around between mountains on both sides of a winding country stream and ended up at Granny’s place.

Now, you have to admit, Granny (and Grandpa) were the nicest people you’d ever meet.  They had to be to take in a traveling Service man for a day or two just so their granddaughter could see him before he headed off to war.  And it was nice getting to know her cousin.  She was a few years younger and very pretty, sort of shy, but not.  I only remember a few things, like walking down country roads and such.

Then, I was off to home.  A few weeks later I was on my way to Vietnam.

Vietnam.  Wow!  I have a whole lifetime of stories to tell about that year.  Way too much for here.  But, there basics are that:

• My first few months were just like Mash, living in a Quonset Hut with 5 other guys.
• I worked on a cargo plane, C-7, de Havilland Caribou, #168
• I preferred my camera over a gun.
• It was either blazingly hot or massively wet most of the time.
• There were people trying to kill us, once in a while.
• I wrote a ton more songs.

I’d get letters from both “Penny” and “Anne” fairly regularly.  But, one day, “Penny” said she’d met someone else and so, goodbye.  But, “Anne” continued to write.

So, skipping over about 40 pages of stories, it’s now the end of my tour and the USAF is retiring our planes and flying them home.   We installed an extra fuel bladder in the cargo bays just so they could make it to Hawaii to refuel and make the next hop to the mainland.  Well, guess who’s plane didn’t quite make it, running out a fuel and ending up in one of the bays (San Francisco, maybe?). Yep, there was a clipping from the local paper of the tail sticking out of the water with 168 on it plain as day.  Dang!

Well, I made it home, and on to my next duty station of Andrews AFB, outside Washington, DC.  Now that I was “home,” I was hoping that I could get to see “Anne” again.  But, she had moved to Louisville by that time and it was just too far for me to travel.  After a while, I gave up on the idea and told her so in my last letter.  I never heard from her again.

While at Andrews, I finally decided to buy a car.  Well, I made several weekend trips back to New York now that I had wheels.  But, that didn’t last long.  On one trip, someone ran a red light in Baltimore (outside the airport) and smashed up my whole front passenger side: bent the frame and everything. Left the car there to get fixed and was without wheels for over a month.  Got it back in time to drive it home after getting my final discharge from Active Duty.

Also, while at Andrews I wrote a number of songs that I still play.  But, that’s mostly covered in the other section.

Another notable event: on one of my trips home before my car got wrecked, I met one of my sister’s girlfriends.  She and I got along quite well, which escalated after I got out of the Air Force.

Post Syracuse with Uncle Sam.

I can’t begin to tell you everything here, and do you really want to know?  But, here’s the short of it, anyway.

During my last year at Syracuse, my father left the ministry and the family moved from Stittville back to Pleasant Valley.  So, when I left school, I moved back there, too.

After dropping out of college, I decided to join the USAF before the Army got me in the draft.  I’d always loved the Air Force, ever since my Uncle Hap (Dad’s brother) would give me his leftover Aviation Weekly magazines.  But, I had a deferred start date of January (1969) and it was only September.

So, in the meantime, I picked up some work at the IBM plant in Poughkeepsie working in the data center handling the output from the printers and mounting tapes as requested.  It’s where I learned how to curse.  And I got really good at it.  I could curse out two full sentences in one continuous burst of profanity.  And, since I now *had* to drive, I finally got my driver’s license.

So, now I was completely ready for military life.  Sure thing.  Except for my “learning disability,” which proved to be an issue there, too.  Lots of things happened in those four years of service: far too many to detail here.  So, here are the highlights.

First and foremost of all my experiences is that I picked up the guitar in earnest and started writing songs.  That I’ll cover in the other section.  So, here are the specifics.

Basic training (Lackland AFB) was a near bust.  They almost forced me to go through it twice … that’s the learning thing getting in the way.  But, I made it through.  Then, I had wanted either missiles or jets to work on and I got reciprocating engine aircraft (prop planes) as my MOS.  But, that was good.

At training school (Sheppard AFB, Wichita Falls, TX) I found out I was pretty good with tools and figuring out what was wrong with things (I had always loved taking things apart and putting them back together). Plus, I had the free time to start writing songs (other section).

Then it was down to Florida (Hurlbert Fld in Ft. Walton Beach) for a year and a half of working on planes older than I was: the A-26 in particular.  I also worked on the O-2.  Lots of stories there, but I’ll spare you.

A few of us got together to rent a place off base to hang out on weekends.  That’s where most of the juicy stories (that I’ll spare you from, also) happened.  But. The short list is …

• bought a 250cc Yamaha street bike and tooled around on that for quite a while.
• Met three young women who each taught me something different about … well, women.
• Upgraded my bike to a 650cc which taught me a little about speed (it’s OK … I survivied).
• Gave up my last Silver Certificate (remember them?) as a tip to a waitress because, well, it was all I had left in my wallet after I paid for my coffee and roll.
• Enjoyed taking the same (above) waitress on rides on my 650. Just rides.  We were friends. And, yes, she was one of the three.
• Wrote about 50 songs down there. I think only about 5 survive to the present.

Soon, the USAF decided they needed me over in Vietnam.  I tried to tell them I was a pansy when it came to war things.  But, they didn’t want to hear it.  Besides, they needed to send me for training on my new bird.  So, it was off to Abilene, TX, and Dyess AFB.

[I’ll finish the story in the next Post.]

So, let’s see … Syracuse University, Smith College of Engineering.  The College isn’t really important other than I thought I should become an Aerospace Engineer.  Well, that proved difficult for a person who doesn’t study his butt off.  So, we will skip the few details of my scholastic lack of achievement.

There were several people that I was close to during my first foray into higher education.  But, the closest was my buddy Bob.  He was studying Archeology and was a philosopher of the best kind.  We would “discuss” ideas for hours, both he and I at opposite poles of the concept under discussion.  Plus, he would accompany me on some of my attempts to play pianos that many of the women’s dorms had in their reception areas.  But, I’ll cover that in the “Music History” section.

Now, remember, I still didn’t have my driver’s license.  So, I (we) walked everywhere.  I’d even walk to downtown to buy sheet music.  But, my most notable walks were at night.  Instead of studying, I’d leave the dorm and start walking into the outlying town:  the residential parts … they felt safer.  And, as I walked, I’d sing songs to the trees, starts and dark houses along the way.  It’s surprising, thinking back now, that I was never picked up for suspicious behavior.

[Side note:  I lately I’ve tried to retrace those walks using Google Street View.  But, not only has the campus changed significantly, but so have the neighborhoods. I guess 50 years can make a big difference in things, not just people.]

I did go out on a few dates during this time.  But, the most memorable event was one where my date kept singing “shades of mediocrity” to herself and eventually went home with another guy.  Oh well, such is life in the big city.

I barely squeaked out a 2.0 GPA out of my first year.  But, the second year was a disaster: 0.38 GPA.  That was all F’s and one D.  Some might say I simply didn’t show up for school that year.  But, actually, I did.  A lot happened … just not scholastically.  I discovered wonderful books at the library that were not related to anything I was (supposed to be) studying.  I discovered fascinating experiments going on in the labs areas under the Stadium.  But, the problem was that I couldn’t calculate a three dimensional field vector to save my soul.

Now, that Spring, Bob said one of the most memorable things to me on one of our walks.  I had told him about a dream I’d had, and he replied, “you know, you are the little Dutchman with his finger in the dike holding back the waters that are the real you.  Some day that dike is going to break.  But, I doubt you will remember I told you this.”  Or something like that.  I remember.  And, I managed to hold back the water for a long, long time.

I was also in the Air Force ROTC program.  On the day during my second year that I knew life on campus was done for me, I went to the ROTC Commander and told him I was resigning and going Active.  He said, “Why would you do THAT, airman?” To, which I answered, “I’m flunking out, Sir.” Guess that was good enough for him.

I tried Summer Semester that year to try to retake some of the classes I needed.  But, it was no use.  Vietnam was escalating, the draft was in full swing, and my college deferment was in doubt. It was time to move on.

Oh, I nearly forgot.  I obtained two vices during those two years: drinking and smoking.  In truth, I gained the first vice the summer before college at Summer Camp.  I just expanded on it at school.  The second vice started with smoking a pipe.  I loved the smell of the tobacco.  But, the pipe was a messy thing to carry around and clean.  So, by my second year, I moved to cigarettes, which were much more manageable.  It would be decades before I quit both.

Now, where did I leave off?  Ahhhh .. Utica!  Now, that was a whole new story.  A completely new set of discoveries and friends.  It was where I (and some friends) discovered rockets from Estes, and that leads to all sorts of stories.  🙂  Trips to the Park.  Trips to the Library.  And not to mention having to walk to school uphill both ways. LOL

Utica was also a time of learning.  Science projects were fun, and my friends were very creative.  they obtained parts from NASA and created a fuel cell that they improved every year.  By the third year, their fuel cell was amazing (at least to me).

But, in three years, Dad was transfered to Stittville.  Sounds like a small town and it was!  Two streets through town.  But, the house was nice and I was beginning to really come into my own.

I remember walking railroad tracks to rivers and pastures I’d never see from the road.  I remember nights playing crazy games with the neighbor’s kids.  I remember two Proms where I learned what an idiot I really was.  And, I began to learn about love.  Not “Love” … that would be a few more years away.  But, I learned about the heart and touching and longing and other things much more precious than “Love.”

This was also where I learned to drive.  Haha.  I obtained my driving permit and drove with my Mom many times into Utica to get groceries.  I never got around to taking my driver’s test.  I was in no hurry to drive alone.  I think I renewed my permit three time before running off to college.  And, there, I walked everywhere.  but, I get ahead of things.

That two years in Stittville was almost magical.  In Winter the snow was perfect for building.  And there was plenty of it.  I remember walking though a field one winter, crossing a fence and stepping off into a snow drift and was up to my chest in it.  It was so fun!

Springs brought new life and everything seemed to glow.  The days got longer.  It, too, was just plain fun.  And, the sap was running on the sugar maples, which meant the smell of boiling sap would soon fill the air.

Summer was just too busy with exploring, now that there was no school.  It’s amazing how my brother and I would wander the countryside.  You wouldn’t do that now a-days.

Fall was the most magical of all.  All the sugar maples turned bright red.  And the smell of burning leaves would fill the air.  The days started getting shorter. We were back to school.  but, that was good: good to see our friends again.

Graduation was fun but sad.  We were separating, spreading out across the state.  Some stayed to help on their parent’s farm.

I tried working that summer.  Got one job mixing “mud” for some bricklayers.  That was good.  I received many compliments on my “mud.”  When that job ended (yah .. just one foundation that summer), I took a waiter job at a resort area.  Never again.  I was never meant to be a waiter. LOL.

From this point, I jump to school at Syracuse University.  But, that’s my next installment.  See you back here then.