I spent 4 years at the University of Michigan, developing experience as a
lousy student, experience which would prove valuable when I met my former self in my later life. To get rid of me the University granted me a BA in Political Science, forming the first step in my effort to obtain degrees in disciplines which begin with the letter P.

I returned to NYC expecting to be drafted at any moment. After what I can only assume was a clerical error resulted in a 2S deferment, I high-tailed it to Aspen to become a ski-bum.

Knowing that my accidental 2S could not be renewed, after the ski season, I hid in  the New York Academy for Draft Dodgers also known as the New School for Social Research. In  a few years they also wanted to get rid of me and so gave me a MA
in Philosophy. One more P. In 1968 I decided that a better way to stay out of Vietnam would be to end the war itself.  So I became a foot soldier in Senator Eugene McCarthy’s campaign,  in whose higher management was my  class mate and high school crush Bonnie Lobel.  I could end the war and pursue Bonnie  at the same time.  Sadly, although we knocked LBJ out, Nixon won, the war went on, and Bonnie married someone else. Oh well.

At this time I began an extensive research project involving the habits of single women in NYC, and also the kinds of beer sold at watering holes like Maxwell’s Plum.  The project eventually entailed an extension to a year on my sailboat in the Caribbean.

After some years of this I met Amy, we married, moved to Eugene, and had two daughters.  I enrolled in the Physics program at the University of Oregon.  (P number 3) Physics became somewhat more sticky for me, and so when we returned East and settled in Boston, I went to Graduate School at Brandeis. They tried to get rid of me by giving me a Ph.D. but I fooled them and hung around for 5 more years as a post-doc, doing research and making some entries for my Google page.

After my divorce ( which is being made into a musical), and a fling in the single life, I decided to try to rectify the great defeat of the high school years: not being able to get anywhere with Bonnie Lobel. Apparently I am more appealing without hair  because we have been together for about 22 years.

One day, when my grant support at Brandeis, was in the OFF position, somebody came through the lab asking if anyone was interested in teaching HS physics at a semi boarding school in the neighborhood. Since I had enjoyed teaching as a Grad Student, and the salary was marginally more than the pay of a grant-less post doc,  I took it. I, for the most part, enjoyed HS teaching for 6 years in a wide spectrum of different schools, teaching math and physics until too many people realized that I had no  teaching degree or, for that matter, any ed courses.

I couldn’t find any more P disciplines which appealed to me, so I decided to take the gamble of moving slightly to the R’s and enrolled in a MS program in Radiation Science at U Mass Lowell.  While I was there I became an Adjunct ( Adjunct being a Latin word meaning drastically underpaid ) Professor of Physics. This is when I encountered occasional  versions of my former self, trying to fulfill the Physics requirement without doing the homework.  Boy was I ready for them.

The Radiation Oncology dept. at a local teaching hospital was hiring Rad. Sci students to do night-time QA work, so there I went.  I wrote some software for them, and they apparently liked because the gave me my present job, which keeps me out of trouble, and provides  smart people to work with and fun puzzles to solve.

When I am not at work,  I take long walks in the lovely country around here with my high school crush, now my wonderful wife,  and my Tennessee hound-dog. Tennis a couple times a week (singles, I’m too old for doubles), and 6 days a year on the slopes of Alta or, if my buddy invites me, the Yellow Stone Club. I’m trying to see how long I can stay out of school.