* born in Boston, moving to
bunches of Naval bases while an infant and toddler;
* grew up in Jackson, MS, where
i did bunches of amateur theatre, was student
class president in my senior year,
and a three-year letterman as a 135 lb defensive
end for the St. Joseph High School
Rebels (now Bruins,being politically correct)--a
"Rebel" i'll always be;
* undergraduately schooled in BS
at Xavier University in Cincy, where i was super
active in student politics, the
newspaper and ran the college theatre -- flunked out
of first grad school there;
* did a three year stint as an ROTC
officer in the U.S.Army to include surviving,
despite myself, 366 mostly sunny
days and dark--but the full moon through
moving clouds was incredible--nights
in Vietnam;
* fathered two lovely daughters,
Rebecca and Jennifer, from whose mother, Kathy,
i was gainfully divorced in 1971;
* a drunk/druggie flunked out of
2nd grad school in theatre at C.U. in D.C., where
i helped organize the Mayday, 1971
student boycott;
* moved to nyc with 2nd wife, Debbie,
where i was blessed to receive recovery
through AA beginning a day at a
time on October 13, 1972, although our
relationship crashed on the rocks
of "love the one you're with" in 1974;
* ran an off-off Broadway theatre,
became an alcoholism counselor and finished,
sober, a Masters (finally!) program
in Social Work at Columbia University in '79;
* worked in Albany NYS bureaucracy
for a number of years, becoming very active
in Chapter 8 of Vietnam Veterans
of America and somewhat of a national expert
on the correlation of Combat PTSD
& Chemical Dependency;
* ran alcohol/drug programs in nyc & on L.I. for a half decade space of time;
* successfully married for third
time to Sara with whom we share an 18 y/o son,
Thomas, who is clean & sober
again after an awful year's relapse and two arrests --
we live in a quasi-victorian home
with two lady coon cats, Chelsea and Luci, an
alley-cat, Abbey, and a dumb, but
lovable old english sheepdog on the sunny
south shore of L.I.;
* been a psychE-therapist (not psychO-),
a self-healer of despirited souls,
exclusively in private practice
since 1987, but i may be getting another job soon;
* a poet since '66, having written
and performed thousands of poems, but i've
published only a few-- been too
busy writing, rewriting and performing to play the
submit/rejection slip game;
* an outdoor and indoor inline speed-skater
for past number of years, usually last
overall in my class but that don't
matter;
* several years ago bought a Mac
& self-taught meSelf to have become a virtual,
cyberly committable net-ict, now
on a pc white box;
* to sum up . . .
mostly an enthusiastic observer
of the always Divine playing hide &seek with each
of us in continually surprising
ways as moment by moment we learn to delight in
ITS presence...
nuff for now . . . .
opps, I forgot: one more thing--having
surrendered to the reality that i am fully
testosterone-challenged, i am a
tie-dyed in the blue wool, big Blue, NY Giants fan.
GO BIG BLUE ! ! !