I was born in Detroit in 1948 and moved to southeastern Wisconsin when I was ten. I claim to be a Wisconsinite, but I guess it really isn't so, since the locals think your parents have to be born there for you to be considered a real Wisconsinite. I guess I have to admit that I was part of the first wave of yuppies to hit Wisconsin, way back in 1958. Everybody on the block came from some other state, and nobody on the block was cousin to anybody else in the neighborhood. So, I call Wisconsin home, but maybe I'm not a real Wisconsinite. I certainly am a genuine Midwesterner, though. There are lots of us displaced Midwesterners in the Central Valley of California.
At the age of 14, I went away to the seminary to study to become a Catholic priest, and ended up with a bachelor's degree in Theology and I had a wonderful time in my eight years in the seminary. I was a camp counselor every summer during college, and learned lots of camp songs. We sang all the time in the seminary, too. At the age of 21, I discovered the opposite sex, proposed to a girl from California who had a terrific suntan, and left the seminary and lost my draft exemption.
Since I didn't want to go to Vietnam, I enlisted in the Army and got trained as a German linguist in Monterey, California, and I got married to the girl from California while I was there. I then spent two years as a spy in Berlin. I'm scared of guns and dangerous stuff, but it was radio intelligence, so it was quite safe.
Since I got out of the service, I've worked in California, doing background investigations on people who apply for government jobs and security clearances. I'm still scared of guns, so it's a good thing my weapon is a ballpoint pen. It's also good that the people I investigate are mostly good people, so I get to travel and talk to nice people and see interesting things. Nasty Bill Clinton "privatized" my job three years ago, so now I'm not much better than a temp, so I'm going to retire in a few months.
I have been gloriously single for the last seven years, and my three children are no longer teenagers, so I've had a great time traveling North America ever since I paid the last child support payment. I'm off on a trip to Italy and Israel soon after I retire, and who knows what adventures await me after that. I'll probably keep doing investigations when there's work in interesting places, and I expect to continue to do volunteer work involving church, music, and kids.
-Joe Offer®-