My parents moved to the Central Coast when I was one year old. First settling in Shell Beach and then moving into San Luis Obispo just after my 2nd birthday. I attended schools in SLO for my entire youth and graduated from San Luis High School in 1969. We lived here until I was drafted into the Army in 1970. San Luis Obispo was a great deal different then; nothing like it is now. I ended up liking the Army and volunteered for Special Forces while at basic training at Fort Ord, CA. I blame John Wayne for that decision, his movie about the Green Berets got the better of me. A year of intense training and I was a sniper team member deploying to Vietnam for three missions. I survived all my combat tours, unlike the rest of my A Team and returned to North Carolina where the Army agreed that I should attend College at Duke University. They gave me 18 months to complete my degree and I did. I was then sent to Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, NY to be the drill sergeant for the US Army Chaplain’s Basic Training Unit. I was there for 4 years. It was not my favorite job in the Army, but it did allow me to complete my master’s degree in communication and media at Columbia University. Then it was back to the infantry for a few short years. Added Chemical, Nuclear and Biological Weapons to my training at Fort McClellan. And finally, the Army decided that I should use my training as a recruiter. Three years recruiting and then it was time to transfer to the Pentagon to do marketing and budgeting for the Recruiting Command. That’s where I stayed until retirement in 1996. Moved about after the military, tried teaching high school in Maryland, worked as a sales manager for Chesapeake Publishing and finally took my last real job as a Director of Personnel for an Internet start-up in Las Vegas, NV. When the bubble burst on the Internet, I moved back to San Luis Obispo and worked as a handyman for several years until my health issues from the Army caused me to stop working. I am married to the same girl the Army introduced me to in 1971. I have two children and 5 grandchildren. I still live in the house I grew up in and my family has owned it for the past 63 years.