What's your sign, babee?
Born with Sun in Pisces, Moon in Scorpio, Scorpio ascendant. (Taught myself how to cast Astrological charts when I was a teenager because my mom's math sucked and she needed it done.) I was also over ten pounds when I was born (02/19/1957) at Good Samaritan Hospital and had to be C-sectioned out. Trivia point: my mom's regular gynecologist was too drunk to handle it, and his partner did the job. Baptised about a month later as an Episcopalian.
Your age, weight and marital status, pliz.
Forty-eight, too damn much and very married with child. Cute child, nice wife. Brown fur, beard with a slight pepper/salt of grey. Six foot five. Big. Bearlike.
What's your ethnic background?
Mostly German/Dutch, with dollops of English, Scottish, French and some Cherokee. The Cherokee was a recent discovery, and the percentage is very small. So I don't seriously claim it. It makes me a closer relation to my Chinese daughter than my wife - who is 100% Northern European. That is, if you want to go back 30,000 years or so...
If you catch me back in my home territory, I may have a mild accent that sounds twangy and southern countrified. It's the native accent around Dayton, or was when I was growing up. I got rid of it in college, but it sometimes re-shows when I hear similar accents.
Do you know So-and-so Rittenhouse?
No. The family name is anglicized from the Dutch, and the Rittenhouses have been over here for over three hundred years and have scattered. Outside of my dad and uncle (both long dead), I have never met a adult male Rittenhouse; I'm the last male of a long line that had a lot of girls. I have a few cousins, a half-sister and two nephews and niece that are still around, but I've heard nothing from them after my Dad died in 1977. None of them are named Rittenhouse. So whoever you knew, I don't know them, and they're probably only distantly related to me. Richard Nixon was a sixth cousin, for what that's worth. But I get asked this all the time.
People usually don't note the name unless it's to (1) murder the spelling or pronunciation (common), (2) remark on someone they knew who had it, or (3) (if they're from Philadelphia) think I'm some kind of blueblood. The pronunciation of it is Rih-ten-house, and as both sides of my family are not far from the farm, there's no bluebloodness here. My part of the family has been in Ohio since around 1800.
Where do you call home?
I have moved on an average once every two years in my life, and am thoroughly sick of the process. No, I'm not a military brat or a rover by nature. It just happened that way. My birthplace is Dayton, Ohio, and I spent my first 21 years in and around there. It's comfortable, and I could go back in that direction without a lot of prompting.
Dayton has, however, almost changed beyond recognition since I left in 1977, and would take some getting re-used to. To my mind, it's been turned inside out and homogenized - the downtown is almost unrecognizable, and is a ghost town. The suburbs grew fantastically, and simply weren't there or were there in much simpler, smaller form. And a lot of the fun local peculiarities have been homogenized out of it.
I left Dayton after my Dad died, moving in with my Mom in a small town in northwest Ohio and going to law school nearby. The territory around there was too removed from the city for me, and the land too flat. When I married a girl from Chicago, I ended up going there (in 1983) because there were jobs in Chicago, and not in small-town Ohio. And aside of a two-year disastrous move to Milwaukee, I've been in the Chicago area ever since. Yech. Until Susan showed up, I lived in the Rogers Park area of Chicago, which used to be a big fannish neighborhood. A year before we married, she moved in with me and we ended up moving out to Lisle, in the western suburbs of Chicago. That's over a decade now, and we've been happy here, and we've bought a house here a few years ago. However...
I most emphatically do not consider the Chicago area *home*, it's simply where I live. I would far rather be living out in the country in southwest Ohio, or in the upper Missisippi Valley (Iowa, Minnesota,Wisconsin) than here. Susan considers Sioux Falls, South Dakota as home. We live in an nice 40-year-old house in Lisle, in the western Chicago suburbs, after fighting off the idea for years (due to high housing prices here). We do have a number of friends here we would miss if we moved out of town, however. Lisle is also pretty livable as the Chicago area goes, too.
So I'd consider southwestern Ohio as home. My favorite area there is around Yellow Springs or Clifton (two small towns northeast of Dayton). Were I to pick a place to live with no concern for anything else, like money or job, I'd go there.
Susan would like to move north and west towards her family, and would really like to move to the Sioux Falls area. While it's OK, I'm far more interested in living in a more geographically interesting area. The Upper Mississippi area (south of Minneapolis and north of Hannibal, Mo) would be acceptable. Prairies are not my bag.
In any event, the trick is to find a job in these areas. As I have been working for the Feds since 1983, and am vested in a very nice and special type of Federal pension, I have no desire to leave government work. Finding a job that I like in the area that I want is tough. We also have been doing some considerable remodelling of our house, so it would take some doing for me to move. Due to the recent advent of Meredith's sister, we would be open to the idea of moving south to, say, Birmingham, to have the girls raised near each other.
Where do you work?
The United States Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5 (the US midwest zone), as the Superfund Division's webmaster. I also do database stuff on the side at work. And there's the parenting thing...
You some kind of a smart guy?
Yeah. Well, if you say so. I was considered very bright, and tested in the genius IQ range as a kid. FWIW, I haven't bothered with such tests since. (I don't know that they prove anything, aside of some weird bragging rights, and that sort of thing tends to piss people off as a nyah-nyah-I'm-smart-and-you're-dumb move.) I started reading when I was three, and did erratically in grade school and high school. Basically, I was bored and unchallenged. Voted Most Intelligent in my high school class, but I came out of high school with a 2.9 average.
My intelligence is of an odd sort. I memorize in an odd associative way; this is great for trivia but crappy for essay tests. I'm a fantastic geographer and navigator, but crap at spatial relationships (like Rubik's Cubes and solid puzzles). My skills level is highest in Seeing The Big Picture and Research. Organized stuff? Nah. I am *not* organized, but wish I were. It would help. I know better than to claim unerring brilliance.
Where are your parents?
My dad died in January, 1977, when I was 20 and about to graduate from college, lingering a few weeks after a massive heart attack. He smoked like a chimney, and it did him in, basically. My mom (a retired veterinarian) lived until recently in a small town in Ohio, and died in August 2002 of cancer. We were very close, and what we lacked in direct visits were made up for in frequent communications. I miss her terribly.
My dad and I never got along very well. He was a smart farm boy with a knack for machines that took him into building first-models for GM, and a paying hobby with a car-repair garage. White he appreciated that I was smart, he would have been far happier with a hard-partying good-old-boy, not a quiet, scholarly egghead. He kept expecting me to turn out to be some wild hippie (which he could then stomp into line). What he did was to build up a quiet passive-aggressive streak in me that was hard to eliminate later.
The older I got, the more distant we got - not helped by the fact that he was domineering, manipulative, tyrranical and had a violent temper. Cross the father in THE GREAT SANTINI with the stepfather in THIS BOY'S LIFE, and you have a general idea of what I'm talking about. I don't miss him, frankly. At All.
I wrote a lengthy series on my Dad and Mom and events in our lives up to 1977 entitled LIVING IN THE PAST; the index for this is here.
Pretty much everything I like in the fine arts and the finer side of life was heavily influenced by my mom. My smarts and stubborness and packrat qualities come from both sides. My taste in stock car racing (very limited), autos and vans (also limited), radio and some foods (oysters, sliders, pizza) were from my dad.
What about extended family?
My folks had me relatively late in life; most of the relations that I was close to as a kid were favorite aunts and uncles of my mom's. All of those are long dead. The few older relations I have still living were people I were never close to in the first place, and there's very few of them left and what are still around are in their seventies at the *youngest*.
My dad's family basically looked at me as some goofball hippie weirdo egghead, and after he died, had little to do with me. Part of that is probably that they're not keen on travelling or keeping in touch in general. Which I regret, of course, but you can't force a horse to drink.
My mom's family were nicer people as a rule, but were not particularly outgoing beyond their nuclear family. Almost all of the ones that were somewhat friendly are dead.
I have a half-sister living in Kentucky - she's ten years older than I, and from my dad's #3 wife, my mom being #4). I was out of touch with her for 27 years after Dad's death due to a quarrel over the estate.
Reason: My dad convinced a lot of people that he had a (very mythical) ton of money stashed away (in order to impress them). After he died, the vultures circled and various things happened over his estate by various people (including family) trying to make a quick buck (or expecting the quick buck to be easily found) from the estate that were not pretty. This went from looting his possessions and essentially daring me to do something about it to hare-brained schemes to knock down the walls in our house to search for gold coin hoards.
One of these, engendered by my half-sister trying to not have to pay a realtor a commission for property she sold that she got in the will, ended up in a nasty lawsuit. I ended up in the lawsuit; when I objected to this with my half-sister, she basically told me the lawsuit she created was my problem to deal with.
Most recently, due to a third party tipping me off, I found out that she now lives in Ashland, Kentucky, and that her second husband, a high school coach, recently died. When I wrote about this in the journal, her other kids ran across it and got into contact with me, and connections started going back up again; I visited them over Easter, 2005.
In any event, the distant (very) cousins on either side that are sixty or less have very little in common with me, and haven't tried to keep up connections.
What were your high school years like?
I went to Wilbur Wright High School in Dayton, Ohio. Doesn't exist anymore. They converted it over to a 'middle school' several years later, as Dayton's school system depopulated. But in any event, high school is something I remember alternatively with horror and a smile. I greatly enjoyed the 'extra-curricular' stuff I did there - theater, the newspaper, hanging out and playing euchre in the back of the stage area with the guys. I didn't like the rest of it much - while I was voted Most Intelligent, I got beat up a lot in my early years, had a pretty miserable/nonexistant social life, and most of the classes were utter bores. There were a couple of teachers who were shining stars; I often wonder what happened to them. One (Ben Campbell) is now dead, another (Chuck Scott) is still involved in dramatics in Dayton.
I did attend my 20th reunion, the same day I got married to Susan. (We won the Most Recently Married prize - a bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry wine!) I found that the people tended to be mostly the same sorts as they had been in school. (For example, party dudes were still party dudes, just balder and greyer. Same with cheerleaders, jocks, and so on. And the nice people were still nice.)
It satisfied my curiosity about what-happened-to-so-and-so (very few deaths, aside of a couple of car crashes and at least one AIDS death), and I doubt I'll attend another one. It was pleasant to find that people remembered me fondly. The guy who was my archenemy in school was reasonably polite and nice to me and mine. And my old friends and acquaintances that were there were very nice to see again!
What was college like for you?
The University of Dayton was wonderful, academically - like opening a fancy smorgasbord for a hungry man. I enjoyed the challenges and new areas to learn about, and my grades shot up to an A- level. I finally had a social life of some sort, and in general greatly enjoyed myself. I went through in 3 1/2 years, going to school in the summer semesters - I vastly preferred that to my dad 'getting me a job' of his choosing. My majors were history and political science; the BA is actually only for the latter, even though I had the credits for both. Very long story, which deals with not wanting to be an academic.
If I consider anything my alma mater, it was UD. They're still not getting any money out of me, though.
What got you interested in law school?
Most of my other interests were things that either obviously were hard to make a buck at or break into, or were hopelessly academic-track stuff and all of the above. (I may end up teaching after I retire from the feds, but not before!) I had looked at science-engineering stuff, but my counselors in high school said I'd end up unemployed. So I went to law school as the thing most consonant with my interests that did make a buck.
Ohio Northern Law School, to me, was at best mediocre and at worst awful. The other students were not terribly social towards me (the law tends to bring out a 'what are you able to do for me' attitude), and I found the classes to be tedious. Basically, it cured me of ever wanting to go back for any further degrees - anything I wanted to learn, I could teach myself a whole hell of a lot more cheaply with books, and the cachet of further degrees wasn't an attraction. And I've never needed another degree for a job, so...
By the way, I never studied environmental law in school. I wrote it off as something for people who wanted to starve while doing work for the Sierra Club. My tax law specialization has, of course, dropped into the weeds, as I haven't cracked a book on that stuff since 1982.
Why aren't you working as an attorney?
When I got out of law school, there were an overabundance of law school graduates and not enough jobs. As I got older, I found that I liked what I was doing, and that I had no taste for legal practice and all that entails - long working hours, high stress, very limited job security. I honestly don't miss being involved in legal practice, and usually will discourage people from getting the law school bug. It's a good way to stay unemployed or work yourself to death early.
How did you end up being a computer geek?
When I got married to my ex in 1983, we both felt strongly that we wanted to use funds that we had towards buying a computer for word processing. Since then, I've had nearly a dozen computers; we presently own a laptop and three PCs (one of which is being turned into a Linux box). When the EPA started getting into PCs about 3 years later, I knew my way around a computer pretty well. I found I had a natural aptitude towards learing how to make 'em do tricks, and I got a number of promotions and a reassignment as a computer person. So for the last fifteen years, that's what I've been doing as a living. The internet stuff came later, and my experience with layout from publications from high school on did the rest. I taught myself HTML and graphics. These day, my job is pretty much 100% web work.
People who last heard from me before, say, 1985, are universally astonished by this change to computer tech/webbie, and people who have known me since are surprised when they find that I have a law degree. So it goes. I universally surprise everyone, which ain't a bad trick.
You occasionally use the term 'Doctor' with your name, but you're not a PhD or MD. What gives?
My law degree is 'Juris Doctor', ususally abbreviated as JD. My old law school, when it addresses begging letters to me as an alumnus, will address me as 'Dr. Rittenhouse.' I don't take this at all seriously, and only use it (or an Esq. (Esquire) which is another antique lawyer-reference) as a joke. But I guess I'm entitled to it!
What I do not do is to refer to myself as an attorney. I'm not licensed anywhere to practice law, and the canons of ethics say that I'm not entitled to call myself an attorney. So I don't, and I discourage people from asking me legal questions. (My specialization, for what it's worth, was in tax law, but that was nearly 20 years ago, so I don't trust what little I remember.)
I also don't care much for lawyer jokes. I have heard any and all of them many times, starting about twenty years ago, and they're really boring to me. So don't start. Please. I've seen more two-legged lawyer jokes than you could imagine.
What's your taste in women?
Well, I used to think that petite cute-perky blondes who were smart (and wore glasses) were hot stuff. But none of 'em ever bit at the hook. As I got older, taller, bustier, more earth-motherish sorts (also blonde) hit the spot. Now, I'm queer for marmots. See picture to the left for the marmot of my dreams.
What happened with your first marriage?
Short answer is that we 'grew' disasterously far apart in seven years of marriage and divorced acrimoniously, which was a pity.
A longer one would say that my ex despised conventional morality and preferred a lifestyle with a great deal of freedom to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted with whoever, especially in the sexual department. Marriage tied her down to responsibilities she neither wanted or needed, and was just an enormous drag to her. As one friend told me during the breakup, she didn't leave me so much for other men, she left me for a lifestyle she wanted. It was not one I desired or could live with, and her selfish, me-first-the-heck-with-the-rest approach and a violent temper had worn me down for years.
When she told me it was over, I was devastated and angry and felt betrayed -and she felt that I'd been in love with some idealized version of herself that didn't exist. The period between that and the actual divorce (about fourteen months) were acrimonious, particularly because she made up stuff to her family about the breakup that wasn't true to cover up the real sexual-related reasons (which they wouldn't have accepted, being pretty Catholic) and it got back to me (because the family called me up and read me the riot act, and I told them the truth, which (a) they couldn't handle and (b)just pissed off my soon-to-be-ex no end when what I said got back to her, because she didn't want to catch hell from them about her sex life), and because the division of the personal property and debts got uglier as it slowly went along. (The longer such things drag out, the less likely that there's going to be much desire to not stick it to the other person.) We've barely spoken since the divorce was final, and points where we have (since she's still around marginally in some social circles that I am) have been sticky and uncomfortable at best. Generally, we try to ignore each other as best we can. It's all a pity, of course.
As time has gone on, I basically let the resentment go, and just feel that it was a big mistake to have actually married her. There are some people that you can be friends with, but you'd be stupid to work with them or get really involved with them, because it would end up being a mess, and that was the basic problem with our relationship. I think towards the end she realized that she wasn't happy and wanted me to make the first move out (and it would have been easier for her to explain that He Wanted Out It's His Fault to others and her family), but my steadfast nature would not let me think of giving up on our marriage. So she ended up forcing the issue because she wanted to do what she wanted to do.
I think on reflection that the thing I missed the most long-term was my relationship with her family, which quickly ended when we split up, blood being thicker than water and all that. I still miss them.
How did you meet your wife Susan?
Very involved story. Short version is that after I broke up with my ex, I was walking wounded for a long time. One particularly dumb rebound relationship (short-term) blew up nastily on me, and I despaired of ever meeting someone worthwhile. My mother, who was concerned about me, ended up conspiring with a best buddy of hers who had moved out to South Dakota, who was (in turn) friends in her new home with a woman who had a workaholic daughter (Susan) in the Chicago area who hadn't had a social life since high school. Work, work, nose to grindstone. Said daughter was single, worked in the 'environmental' field, and had some of the same tastes and interests that I had. So the two of us got pestered to death by our mothers to go out on a blind date in early December, 1991.
Neither of us expected the date to go anywhere. We were both wrong. We had a great time, and ended up (after some early bumps) getting serious about each other. My singed tailfeathers (from the divorce) grew back, and about a year later, my mom was offering me money 'in case I couldn't afford an engagement ring'. (rolls eyes) We got engaged about fourteen months after we met, and married in August, 1994.
Contrary to popular opinion, I didn't meet her at work. (Susan presently works at the EPA, in the Pesticides area, and has been there for over 10 years.) She was unhappy with the job she had when I first met her, and ended up sending out blind applications to EPA managers. One of those ended up going to a person who needed a new staffer with Susan's qualifications, and that's how she got hired (before we got married, but after we started living together).
By the way, I never did buy her an engagement ring. The token was a pin of a marmot.
What's with all this marmot stuff?
Susan's birthday is Groundhog Day, and she has many traits of that critter. A groundhog is therefore her official totem critter. And groundhog = woodchuck = marmot.
Why did you adopt?
Because both of us wanted a child, and the doctors told us that we both had serious fertility problems that precluded us having a biological child. I suspected a problem towards the end of my first marriage, and tried to raise the issue then, but my ex wasn't interested in going to the doctor about it. After the divorce, I had myself checked out by a urologist and found wanting. Susan knew this, but was surprised to find that she was also problematic from her end. After some lengthy and heroic efforts, we were forced to give up trying to have a biological child, and looked into adoption.
The process took over two years, and cost around $17,000. The vast majority of that was in travel to China and a myriad of fees. Susan has turned out to be a wonderful mom and is devoted to her family. As am I. And Meredith Grace Ann Rittenhouse is a great kid.
The whole story of the details as to why we chose to adopt from China is elsewhere. My daughter is the absolute center of our existance; we recently found out that she has a probably-fraternal-twin sister, adopted by another couple in Alabama. The story behind that discovery is here. We have discussed getting Meredith a baby sister, but it's increasingly looking doubtful. The main sticking point is that Meredith is as bright as I was as a kid, and so we will have to keep her in private school at least until she gets through 1st grade, and probably longer.
Have you travelled much?
More than most, not as much as some. I've been all over the US and Canada, and have been in every state but Hawaii and Arizona. Recently, I flew over Russia and Japan on my way to and from China. I am only truly fluent in English, but can do reasonably well in German, and know bits and pieces of a dozen other languages, including Mandarin Chinese.
Most of the US travelling was over twenty years ago, however. I fly rather than drive on long trips, with the exception of trips to my mom or Susan's family. And I usually make at least two-four long trips a year on government business, usually to Washington DC or one of the other regional offices of EPA.
What are your musical tastes?
Very diverse. The stuff I like best are the Romantic classical composers, folk and rock. I tend to listen to different things, given my mood. Some days Eric Satie and Debussy piano stuff would calm me, others it would put me to sleep. (Right now, I'm listening to David Bowie.) Punk, rap and country music are probably what I like *least*, though there's stuff in all three that I do like. Just not much of it. I can sing OK, and can't play a single instrument.My mom tried forcing piano on me as a kid, and it didn't take.
What are your tastes in literature?
Again, very diverse. Much of my library is Science Fiction, Altenate History and Mysteries. General pop fiction doesn't do much for me, nor does fantasy. Overwrought plotless 'art' stuff gets recycled. My fiction has to have a good story, good plot, good characterization, and be plausible. If you can't pull that off, I'm not interested. In the last couple of years, history has gone up considerably in my reading lists.
What are your politics?
Can't define them easily. Socially moderate, fiscally conservative, centrist reformer. My political heroes of recent times are Paul Tsongas, John McCain, and Joe Lieberman. I used to be a moderate Republican, and am now a non-party sort who uses Democrats (locally - I'm in a very Republican area) as protest votes. I held my nose and voted for Gore in the US Presidential election in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. I would have happily voted for McCain and still would - or Joe Lieberman. I can't stand Shrub.
What's your opinion of the EPA?
A lot of good, conciencious people, by and large, trying to do a tough job the best way they know how. This is hurt by an overlay of stone bureaucrats/managers who are more interested in personal job-ladder progress or not rocking the boat, and less in getting anything truly significant done. And there are a few managers who are just downright evil; not only do they screw over their staff, they enjoy doing it. On the other hand, the hours and the benefits are good and you are trying to do something for people, rather than to them. Just don't have too-high goals on actually getting heaps of bad guys nailed.
What's with the beard?
I've worn a beard pretty continuously since college. Once every so great often, I'll shave it off. I always grow it right back. Why? Because my skin is very sensitive, and shaving really turns my face into a bloody mess when repeated. The sensitive skin is also why I don't wear a watch or other jewelry - it would drive me nuts. I do have a wedding ring and a high school ring, but I don't wear either. Same reason. (Last time I shaved my beard off was over the winter holidays in 2000 - to see if it would help Meredith's opinion of me.) In general, I'm told I look much better with the beard, anyway. Actually, I agree.
Are you religious?
To the surprise of some people, I actually am a very religious person, very much into mysticism. I just don't feel that I need to be a cheerleader about it. Part of that is because I think that flashing your religion around is to be a showoff and in severely bad taste; part is because my experience has been is that this topic is one where people can be endlessly dogmatic and loudly argumentative without visible proofs.
I was baptised an Episcopalian, and I suppose that was the heaviest influence in my life. However, I've never been confirmed; when I was of age to do so, my mom (the Episcopalian) was not around, and the local church I had been baptised in had gone loony liberal. (My dad was a weak agnostic at best.) During the 1960s, in the Episcopal Church in the USA, a number of dioceses became controlled by a strongly liberal influence that tended to deny a spiritual and religious orientation in favor of a watered-down 'liberation theology' of social activism.
For a church that has accomodated High and Low factions (near-Catholic to near-Methodist) in the past, the new left organization actively sought to work a rapid revolution in the church. The prayer book and hymnal were dumped in favor of more nebulous PC constructs that lost a lot of the traditions and values of the older versions. My mother and I stopped attending the liberal churches in Dayton, and drifted away from active contact. When I looked into confirmation classes elsewhere when I was in law school, I was basically told that 'oh, that stuff is dumb but we go through the motions because we're supposed to' by the minister. Basically, after five loony left ministers, I gave up on the mainline Episcopalian church.
I made a few fits and starts about going after the more conservative Anglican churches, and finally came to the realization that I didn't really fit in the Anglican churches at all, because one of the main pillars of being an Episcopalian/Anglican was adherence to the Articles of Faith. As I found that I wasn't really an Episcopalian in theology, I quit going to any church for a while.
At present, I attend (on an infrequent basis) the Unity church in Oak Park, Illinois, with my wife Susan - it was her church and the church we were married in. I like the mysticism, but not the informality or the verging on sacchariness in re affirmations that bubbles up in it. Unity is an odd mixture of Christian Science and New Age phiosophy; CS without the harder-line thou-shat-not-see-a-sawbones in it. Theologically, it fits me a lot better.
Do you get bored easily?
Yes. Next?
Is there something wrong with you?
Depends. If you mean 'am I weird', then yes, of course I am. I've also been called arrogant, smarty-pants and opinionated. Medically, I have a chronic sleep / muscle fatigue problem that is somewhat alleviated by medication and a CPAP, am way overweight, and am always worried about a possible recurrance of a case of kidney cancer I was operated on for in 2000. No evidence of same recurring yet, just nervous.
Favorite color?
Blue. Luckily, Susan and I have very similar clothing and color and decorating tastes. Celestial themes show up a lot.
Favorite author?
I can't think of one book that glows that much in the dark. Prolific authors generally will turn out a couple of good ones, and a couple of stinkers, and you can't always say they'll walk on water. Colleen McCullough, Lindsey Davis - there's a couple for you to stew over.
Dogs or cats?
Dogs. Wire Fox Terriers or Welsh Terriers, thanks. We got a WFT puppy in the fall of 2004 named Dot. Meredith (who had an animal phobia when she was a toddler) is in love with the dog, and her mom's not far behind.
Do you read all of those books? *points to walls lined with full bookcases*
I hate that question. No, it was a cheap substitute for toilet paper. Satisfied? Oh, I hate that question.
I see a lot of stuff in your site about 'fandom'; what is that?
Mostly I'm referring to Science Fiction Fandom. Most of my social life is with the people in that affinity group - and no, I'm not talking 'Star Trek' and other TV/Movie fan types. SF fandom has been around a long time and has been organized since the late 1930s. My mom was heavily into SF as a young woman, and the house was loaded with SF books and magazines in my boyhood, and I became very interested in it as a kid from that exposure.
In reading these books and magazines, I saw constant references to an organized fannish community, but I didn't check it out until 1977, after my dad's death. I soon found that it was a place where there were a lot of kindred spirits, and I dived in and never came out again.
I've been very active in a couple of areas within fandom; running conventions and in fanzine/apa fandom. Also, I'm considered one of the major experts on Alternate History literature, and I help judge an annual book competition in that subgenre. For more on this subject, see my fannish bio.
Personal Anecdotes and Stories:
- Babyhood and toddling about
- What's an Albatross?
- Northridge and Dixie Drive
- Salem and Manhattan
- Why my Yiddish is decent
- Longfellow
- Table training
- Linden and Cleveland
- The deep woods
- Flatt and Irby
- Saylor and Bullock
- Palm Reading and Black Eyes
- 1770 King Street
- Once a tenderfoot
- A log cabin in the woods
- Fire and Flame
- Crazy Joe and Brutal Joe
- They knifed the football coach
- A ham in Virginia
- The discovery of Hunan
- New York City
- Stage Wright
- Euchre all day long
- Smorgasbord of learning
- The big O
- A slut in training
- Playing games with Charlie
- And this is the library
- Sinus Friction (the early stages)
- Two Fronts
- New Years 1977
- Limbo and a Beginning
- Copperhead and the Long-Haired Hippie
- Cynthis Knight
- 'If I go crazy, just hold me'
- My first SF con and my Ogre
- Steve of many faiths