Okay, here's the Reader's Digest version of the story of my life:

Born on November 12, 1946 at the North Island hospital at the Naval Air Station in Coronado. I was raised as a Navy brat (a term of endearment, folks!). While under my parent's roof, I lived in Monterey, then Seaside, California. Then on to Norfolk and Falls Church, Virginia. Next we were in Rio de Janeiro for three years (while I was a young teenager). Then back to California - Piedmont this time. It was while at Piedmont that I met my first, true love. Her name was Chi. She was a beautiful Filipino girl whose father (who didn't like me at all!) was an extremely talented salad chef at a restaurant at Jack London Square. Then the Navy broke my heart by uprooting me again. This time it was to go to Annandale, VA where I was to graduate from high school.
About that time Secretary of Defense, MacNamera called for 64,000 more troops for the Vietnam "conflict". Knowing that it was only a matter of time before I would be drafted, I signed up for the Air Force - only because I couldn't get the ball rolling fast enough for the Peace Corps or Vista. My logic was that the AF generally didn't carry rifles. I really didn't want to participate in the war! This soon became evident to the powers that be. After being stationed in both Great Falls and Kalispell, Montana, I managed to get myself kicked out of the Air Force.
I went home. By now, Home had moved. My father had retired from the Navy and purchased a farm near Oldfields, West Virgina. I lived there for about three years. Then moved to Virginia again. This time I made my home in the Shenandoah Valley. For the next 15 years or so, except for a two-year stay in Arlington, VA, I lived in the Valley - Harrisonburg, Bridgewater, Waynesboro, Stuarts Draft, New Hope. For the past few years I have lived in Charlottesville, VA. It is starting to feel like home. Charlottesville, by the way, was listed as the number one city of its size in which to live in the USA.
So much for the "where's".
As a very little kid, I was always singing. I sang along with the radio - Patti Page, Hank Williams, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, whoever else was on. My parents liked to take rides in the country on weekends. Or sometimes we would drive out to a state park or national forest somewhere and camp. We would often sing songs in the car as we traveled. My brother, (three years older) was a Cub Scout and my parents were Den parents. So we often sang scouting songs, campfire songs - heck, nearly any kind of song!
In elementary school, (fourth grade, I think) a Miss Buchardt was introduced as a music teacher. I had never seen a music teacher before. Teachers were just, well, teachers! On her first day, she taught the class "Lolly Toodum". She called it a folk song. I didn't know there were such things! I liked it! Soon we were singing "Cape Cod Girls" and "Zulu Warrior" and "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" and "The Holly and the Ivy" and lots of other songs which I learned to love. I continued singing with the choir throughout elementary and high school.
When I was in seventh grade, some senior brought a guitar to the gym and played, "That'll Be the Day". I was awestruck. The following year when I had moved to Brazil, I was introduced to two girls, Marsha and Gail Robertson - the daughters of a Marine who was also stationed in Rio. These two girls played guitar. I talked them into showing me how to play a couple of chords and soon I was begging my parents to get me a guitar for my 13th birthday. They not only got me a DelVeccio, but signed me up for lessons. The woman who taught me guitar had also taught Alex Hassaloff (sp?) of the Limelighters. She showed me how to pick up songs off of records. She used no printed music. For each lesson I would transcribe some popular song lyrics and she would show me how to play the song. I learned a lot from her.
About that time, I bought the first of seventeen Kingston Trio albums. I nearly played the grooves off of them.
I played my first gig at an eighth grade dance with my friend, Keith Behner. Then, in tenth grade, (Piedmont, CA) I paired up with a wonderful soprano named Susan and won a talent show. Won another the next year in Annandale, VA with my friend, Lynn Sparks. At that time The Cellar Door, in Washington, D.C. had a Sunday night "hootenanny". Lynn and I performed there a couple of times. The following year, a trio of girls (all three were also cheerleaders) asked me to create an arrangement for them and to play guitar for them in that year's contest. They won. Well, actually, they tied for first place with Marge and me. (Marge had teamed up with me during the previous summer.) The trio and I also did a performance at the Cellar Door. That year there were a lot of paying gigs at small parties and a series of freebies at a local church coffehouse which featured a concoction called a "Jim Truxell" - a sort of mocha latte named for the assistant minister there - delicious!. At the coffeehouse a woman painted a remarkable watercolor of Marge and me and one of me alone. I still have them.About this time, 1969, I met a guy named Dave. He had been playing guitar for about a year or so. I don't remember hearing him play until nearly two years later when he split the rent with me in a mobile home park in Harrisonburg, VA. Not long after that we were playing a few gigs together. Then one day he told me that he had booked our band to play at a ski lodge. The problem was - we didn't have a band! In the next two weeks we gathered up a keyboard player and a drummer and suddenly we were a band! We called ourselves "Friends" and were the first band to ever play at Bryce Mountain Ski Resort. When the night of our booking came, we performed the same 17 songs for each of two sets and dragged them out as best we could to fill the time. We did songs like, "Four Dead In Ohio" and "Happy Together". I performed a set of folk music to stretch out the evening a bit. Surprisingly enough, they seemed to really like us and it became a regular gig for a while. A virus attacked my throat a few weeks later and it soon became apparent that we needed another vocalist to fill in until I got better. We recruited a flute player who could also sing pretty well. Her name was Leslie.
The band soon broke up. But I eventually married Leslie. A couple of years later, Dave also got married and we soon lost track of each other. I suppose I might have played a few gigs during that time. Mostly I was caught up with the business of making enough money to pay the bills. We had a daughter, Kelly. And then we divorced a couple of years later. It was a fairly amicable divorce as such things go. I even babysat Kelly so that Leslie could go out on a date with a guy she ultimately married. I, too, later remarried. Mary and I had a baby girl whom we named Lacy. That marriage ended a couple of years later. However, we stayed in it for much longer. I think Lacy was nearly eight when I announced to Mary that I didn't want to be treated the way she had been treating me anymore. Soon after, I left.
I moved to Charlottesville and started over. I have been here since then. Not long after I came here, I met Kathy. Kathy and I have been seeing each other for the better part of six years. She is the best thing that has happened to me in my whole life.
I have played only one gig (free!) in the past twenty years and that was about five years ago.
The incredibly long list of jobs I have held over the years includes but is not at all limited to: gas station attendant, movie theater usher, personnel clerk (USAF), apple picker, photographer's assistant (it was also a florist shop), junior executive trainee at a poultry plant, electronics salesman (remember Lafayette stores and catalogs?), furniture salesman, sporting goods salesman, beertender, bouncer, waiter, donut baker, construction gopher, concrete pump operator, surveyor's helper, water treatment plant operator, gardener, carpenter, youth employment program supervisor, hospital aide or geriatric aide or CNA or nursing assistant (depending upon the hospital nomenclature and the level of training I had at the time), highschool custodian, nightwatchman, 7-Eleven clerk, dishwasher, baker, office services aide, photocopy technician, and at present I am called a photocopy supervisor. I have been running a copy center at a community college for nearly ten years. I also do some graphic design work there as well. In addition, I am a landlord for a small duplex.
Last January my father died. One of the baskets of flowers that arrived at the funeral home was from my old friend, Dave. He had moved back to the area near my parents' farm and had seen the obituary in the paper. He had put his phone number on the back of the card. I immediately called. Although he lives about 2 hours away from Charlottesville, I now visit him often - on my way to see Mom at the farm. We play a few songs together from time to time at the dome. See the thread, "Singing in a dome." Dave now plays dobro and banjo in a bluegrass band. Those of you who are going to annap's July gathering will meet him. He is a Mudcatter in spirit only because he lacks a computer.
The stimulus of the Mudcat, together with having hooked up with Dave again has awakened something within me which has been somewhat dormant for a while. I am starting to think that maybe I will get out and do a coffeehouse gig or something soon. We shall see.