I had been a diffusion tech in semiconductor manufacturing in NY. When that company closed, the engineer I had worked for went to MN to help Sperry-Univac start up it’s semiconductor operation. After a few months, he gave me a call/offer and I took it.
That was in September of 1976. I pick-up my belongings and drove to Minnesota to take on a new job there. Sperry paid for a truck to bring the rest of my stuff out later. I sold the Harley for what I paid for it, thinking I wouldn’t need it in Minnesota. Big mistake! Sperry would have shipped it out along with the rest of my stuff. Heck, people ride bikes 9 months out of the year here. You just dress for it.
Anyway, I wrote a lot of pretty good music (IMHO) at night when I wasn’t working. I even recorded a bit of it on cassettes and even sent of some demos to music companies. Turned out no one was looking for my music at the time (I was told). Which was probably true.
Several years later, I met the woman who would change my life for the better. She had two boys and a dog. I got along with them all. We married four year later. It was a challenge reorganizing my bachelor life to married life. A few things got thrown away. But, my music kept up. It was not as prolific as when I was single, being as there were a lot more things to occupy my time. But, still, I kept writing. And, since she had a piano, it renewed my interest to play it and use it to develop music.
And that’s how things went, more or less, for the next 20 years. I did join the Minnesota Association of Songwriters (MAS), which helped me further develop my talents and network.
In 2002 I bought my first computer strictly for producing music. I put together a small recording studio in one of the boy’s bedroom (after they had left for college). And, so, started working on creating recordings of my songs.
Another 20+ years have gone by and I’ve continued writing, recording and producing … at least trying to improve each of those.
One other thing to mention is that I got into the virtual world of Second life after I began getting serious about publishing my music. You can find more about that here.