So, I’m retired and figured, hey, why not write down some of the more colorful chapters of my past?

Tales from the Tracks and Beyond

I showed up on May 17, 1959, and spent the next eighteen years marooned in a beat-up little house on the Southside of St. Louis. Five of us squeezed into two bedrooms and a single, overworked bathroom, where privacy was as mythical as Bigfoot. Every cough, every shout, every suspicious noise carried through the thin walls like we were living inside a giant bullhorn. And if my old man let one rip in the back room, you might as well call FEMA — the whole house needed evacuating. ➡️ click for more

Summer of '82

In the scorching summer of 1982, I once again found myself jobless, ousted from my MoPac trainman job in St. Louis. Getting laid off had become a frustratingly familiar routine since I joined this freak show of a company at the tender young age of eighteen. For five long years, I tried to find my place as a brakeman and switchman, working across St. Louis, Jefferson City, and Kansas City. I must have spent half my time being forced to move or getting laid off. Why? Because that’s the way they railroad.   ➡️ click for more

The Dark Side of Television Production:
My Most Unethical Shoot Ever

I worked in television production for thirty long years, schlepping around audio equipment and hoisting camera gear as a lowly location audio mixer and cameraman. My knees had taken a beating over the years, and I finally decided to call it quits and retire from the game.

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