By way of introduction....

I probably should have written this on the first day but, as often happens, something got me all misdirected and I failed to get it written - so I'll write it today instead.

I was born in 1942, near Baltimore, Maryland. My father worked for Glenn L. Martin, building B-26 aircraft and preparing himself for a life dealing with airborne electronic devices. My mother stayed at home with me and, later on, my two brothers as well. Life was, I guess, good - we lived in a community inhabited largely by folks who worked at Martins, so we all had a lot in common.

When I was 7, my father decided to leave Martin's and went to work for Philco, in the Tech Rep division as (what else) a Tech Rep, working on airborne aircraft radio and radar, and the supporting ground station equipment. One of the parts of being a Tech Rep was overseas work on military bases - and my father ended up being sent to Berlin for the Airlift. He was one of the many who served anonymously, making sure the aircraft flew safely, and the Berliners got fed.

It was no picnic for my mother, at home with a 7-year-old, a 4 year-old and a 2-year-old. Granted, we lived in a very kid-oriented community, and had great neighbors, but I think my mother never quite forgave him for pursuing the bucks in those days. Because of conditions at that time, he was kept busy, and communication was not too regular. However, pictures and stories of Berlin cemented in me a desire to go to Germany some day, which desire I was to fulfill, although perhaps not in the way I might've wished.

When Dad returned, he continued to work at Philco, commuting on weekends home from Philadelphia, an arrangement that suited nobody, so we eventually bought a house in Hatboro, Pennsyvania, where we lived from until the mid 60's (I left in 1961 for the Air Force) by which time everyone was grown and the kids had all left, although it is said that one of my brothers was more pushed than the rest of us. I and my brothers were interesting kids - today we'd've been called ADD or ADHD - back then we were space cadets.

My parents were depression kids, from trades and mercantile families - not a degree anywhere in my ancestry that I can find. I went to college because I was trying to do what lots of people (father, girlfriend) thought I should do - and I was plenty bright, by desparately undirected, undisciplined and unmotivated resulting in Penn State and I parting company after the second semester. I would soon learn that Penn State slept with the draft board, and my leaving signalled a call to that august body the substance of which was "This guy has nothing to do - go get him!" Since I knew that they were coming, I resolved to do something for myself, and started checking the services for deals and promises - and the Air Force had the best offering, although it was four years long. But I had nothing better to do at the time, said girl friend having been smarter than I and dissolved the relationship - and I was sure that four years in the Air Force would be a lot more pleasant than a year and a half face-down in the mud - so in July of 1961, I joined the Air Force. It was the beginning of many very interesting years.

The first thing I learned was that although I had signed up for a technical fied, I had tested too well - so at some point we spent three days doing language screening, an interesting process deserving of an entry of its own. After three days I had not washed out, so I was sent off for Chinese screening, which I survived. I would have gone to Yale to learn Mandarin, but they filled the class before reaching the letter R, so I was schedued to go off to Syracuse University to learn Russian. I had my doubts, but I managed this one, too (possibly because the price of failure was a career change to Air Policeman or Cook), and after an extended delay in San Angelo, Texas, I ended up heading for Darmstadt, Germany in 1963.

In the main, my life from that point consisted mainly of working rotating shifts (4 days, one day off, 4 swings, one day off, four Mids, four days off and then do it some more) and when not at work or asleep, visitin various salo0ns in Darmstadt, learning German and making friends with many of the locals, all the while failing abysmally at my self-set task of draining the place of beer.

Even lousy German beer is so good that you can take a bottle to the swimming pool, open it and drink some, and forget about it for the next two days, then find it, open it and drink the rest and it still tastes good! I know this is hard to believe but I was there.

There were other alcohol-fueled adventures involving wine, strawberry wine,and various fests around the nation. For the most part I motorcycled while in Germany, and saw a good deal of the nation, playing tourist on 4 day breaks - taking in Formula 1 races at the Nurburging, visiting neighborhood places in small towns, and generally bumming around. I picked up local dialect German quickly, and passed for the someone from some small town over the hill, rather than a GI, so my of-duty time was most pleasant. It was so pleasant, as a matter of fact, that I took an overseas discharge and stayed an extra year there. I don't recall exactly why, but it is not unlikely that some German girl had something to do with it. Eventually, however, it was time to come home, dry out, get my life in order and Do Something - so I returned to the US to find that my parents had returned to Baltimore and, needing somewhere to be, I went there with them.

Always a choirboy, I joined the choir at my parents' church, which was where I was to meet Phyllis, who eventually became my wife. When I started back to work, I BS'ed my way into a field engineering job, learned fast, and moved into software in the early 70's never to return to hardware. I've been in IT ever since, and it sure has been interesting.

Along the way, Phyllis and I acquired AA degrees, adopted a couple of kids and then much to everyone's surprise, had one more by the more normal method. She, meanwhile, directs choirs and teaches piano and voice, and I continue to work, moorcycle, and sing in the choir.

Probably enough for now - another time I'll deal with what I actually did those four years in the Air Force for the Air Force itself, and not my own amusement. This has been an overview. If you're still reading, it is time to stop, and thank you for not having been too bored to get to the end