Wow! Only 48 days until my 80th birthday and here I am, starting another brand new career! I know, that’s two exclamation points in a row, but it’s the way I’m feeling after being offered the chance to write this weekly column for the Chronicle.
It was suggested that I devote this first effort to letting everyone know who I am, and where I come from, so here goes.
I was born and raised in Tacoma and attended two and three room parochial schools (Missouri Synod Lutheran) until eventually graduating from Stadium High School in 1946. This means I grew up in the Great Depression and WW II, and much of that upbringing stays with me today.
Knowing nothing about the availability of college scholarships, I joined the Army in order to qualify for schooling under the G. I. Bill. With a German heritage and with some knowledge of the language I wanted to be sent to Europe, so naturally I ended up in the far east. In Japan I volunteered for the paratroopers because the extra $50 per month jump pay sure supplemented the $75 per month that a private earned in those days.
I applied for an opening in an Armed Forces Radio Station in Sapporo on the island of Hokkaido and that was the start of a near life-long vocation. When the Korean war broke out, all so-called non essential personnel were transferred to the 187th Airborne Infantry regiment, and we found ourselves in the middle of a shooting war. After a brief hospital stay I was eventually sent home and discharged.
I met, dated and married the late Frances Nugent almost immediately, and we started a family, after the suitable gestation period, of course. The result was two wonderful children: Lisa, who lives with her husband, Karl in Georgia, and Matthew, who lives with his wife, Lanita, on a funky old cabin cruiser underneath the Fremont Bridge in Seattle.
Moving from one small town radio station to another, we ended up in Wenatchee, and eventually, along with two partners, started a station of our own from scratch. The partnership dissolved and we came to Centralia where Frances had been born.
At KELA I worked as the afternoon and night DJ for twelve years, and as program director for six more years. While working nights I attended Centralia College during the day and graduated--at the top of my class, by the way--in 1969. In 1978 I left radio and began touring the Northwest states with a one-man show as Mark Twain. In 1980 I was elected mayor of Centralia by 4 votes and lost a bid for re-election four years later by 15 votes. After that I was, variously, a handyman, a bicycle repairman, a ski salesman, a traveling actor once again, an ordained minister, and, eventually, the owner of a used book store, Huckleberry Books.
In 1996 I began a 12-year stint on the Centralia City Council. In 2000 I began a lifetime marriage with Corine Aiken, the current Chehalis Timberland librarian.
My interests are simple. I read and collect mysteries set in the Northwest, enjoy landscape gardening, as well as building things such as a 23-foot cabin cruiser with which we cruise southern Puget Sound, and even an ultralight airplane which crashed on its first landing. Oh, yes, I received my pilot’s license just four months shy of my 70th birthday, but lost my medical qualification two years later.
It’s been a full life thus far, and I hope to share my thoughts and opinions with you for at least the next few years as well.
