After high school, I attended Susquehanna University in rural Pennsylvania. It is a small school which worked well for me as I needed some oversight at that time in order to stay on track. I began school as a Pre-Med major and found out quickly that I was unable to produce anything in a chemistry lab that wasn’t brown and sticky. After exploring many different fields of study, I decided on Political Science as a major. I liked the intellectual challenge and history associated with this major but soon was worried about making a living when I finished. All of the other students in this subject were focused on law school and that wasn’t an opportunity for me.

Unfortunately, I was a poor student and soon landed on a list of worries for the dean. In one of our meetings, she did her best to guide me to other careers that did not involve college. I told her that I wasn’t going to quit and she had to make up her mind whether to keep me or not. What I lacked in academic ability I made up for with initiative and chutzpah. One of my friends suggested I take Painting 101 to build up my grades, but I ended up fighting with the professor over modern art (Art vs. Garbage) and scored a “D” in this class. In an attempt to find something I could do for a living I chose to study finance. It seemed like a poor decision at the time, as most people thought it was a difficult subject, but I found that I had a gift for it and it saved my college career.

I also moved off campus in my senior year and lived on the second floor of a 19th century log cabin. I learned a lot about log cabins in the winter time as the chinking (stuff between the logs) was poorly done. At night, I would lie under two blankets, a comforter, and an electric blanket while I watched the curtains inside the window blow in the wind. Additionally, as five college students who had things to do, we had no time to take care of the lawn or weeds. To help in this responsibility we bought a goat. Originally, we looked for a sheep but were told a goat was better as they wandered around while they fed so it would keep the grass a uniform length. (Imagine the looks as four college boys stopped into a farmer’s auction asking to buy a sheep!). Gertie the goat and I became fast friends and I would often take her for a run on a dog collar and leash. We would run on the small two-lane highway that ran by the house and drivers rolling by would honk at us.

Two years ago, my wife and I visited the old house and as the owner showed us around, she asked questions about when I lived there and what it was like. When I mentioned Gertie, she blurted out, “OMG, you’re the goat boy!” For the first time, I realized that I had earned a Bachelor’s Degree, a minor in Finance, and the title of “Goat Boy” in college.

When I graduated and went looking for a job I had a really difficult time. The economy was a wreck and I was focused on becoming an investment broker. With a “C” average in a field that didn’t mesh with investments it was a hard slog. I stopped into every investment office I could find and pleaded my case. I covered a large area and did it for so long that during an interview I had in Philadelphia the hiring manager said, “Hey, you’re the kid whose been all over the state. I’ve heard of you!”. By the time I was hired I had applied to 93 different jobs and offices. I know this number because companies still sent out rejection letters and I kept every one of them for years.

Early in my career I worked for small firm on Wall Street that had been established by people with years of experience in the business. My first day the president of the company asked me to run for lunch. I reminded him that I was already a registered person with licenses and perhaps there was something more challenging for me to do. He put his arm around my shoulder, walked me over to a window overlooking the trading floor and told me, “See those people? Most of them have been licensed since before you were born. If you’re a good kid, and don’t screw up my salad, someday I may let you talk to them.” Lesson learned.

The next few years was a real learning experience. My boss was as good as his word and I worked with most of the people at the firm. I gained insights into areas most people did not know and was able to meet and work with some really capable people. This was a time when we still had “runners” on wall street delivering physical securities, a broad tape machine where one of my jobs was to rip individual news stories off the paper roll and staple them on the wall for the traders to read. It was byzantine by today’s standards! But as a result, I gained a large list of influential people in the investment community and a deep understanding of how all the moving parts fit together.

On the personal front my life was good. I would get together with Carolyn Hill, Lou Maddalena, Tim Hanlon, and Chris Andreasen. The guys would go to the YMCA for a workout or racket ball game and then invariably to a bar. We’d often stop at White Castle and afterwards build a monument of empty boxes in Lou’s driveway as he was always studying. I met lots of women and thought life was good. Meanwhile, my aunt and the woman across the street (Carolyn Hill’s mom) kept trying to match me up with girls they knew. After numerous conversations and a single threat, I called one of the girls. We had a great conversation and made plans for a blind date.

On the day of the date, I joined Timm Hanlon to retrieve a car he had been working on and we ended up being pretty late. I called Renae several times to keep her in the loop, but I ended up being several hours late for a blind date. When we arrived at Poor Henry’s for dinner, we were placed at a table right next to a recent widower I had known for years. After speaking with him for 30 minutes he asked how long we had known each other and I told him, “About 45 minutes.” He hurried out. We finished dinner and went to “Rascals” in West Orange to see Sam Kinison. Of course, we sat directly in front of him and I was the fresh meat of the night. He asked Renae what we were doing and she told him it was a blind date. He said, “That makes sense. Where’s your dog honey?” That pretty much was the perfect ending to the date. I sent her flowers the following day and asked what she was doing the next weekend. We were married a year and a half later. I also found out I wasn’t the first one to propose to her but was the winner in the end.

After a few years, Renae and I had two daughters back-to-back. Her family lived only a short distance away and helped tremendously with the kids. After several more years we added two sons to the family and things were going great. We got really involved in the Wayne P.A.L. and ran a soccer program for about 3,000 little kids. Again, I met some really great people and we had a wonderful life going. We were very active in the community and our church, had lots of friends and we ended up coaching almost every sport under the sun. At this point I received a great promotion and I thought I had arrived. Life would be great from then on!

Of course, life doesn’t work like that and I was soon offered another promotion that entailed moving to Chicago. We had a family meeting to discuss the move and I gave each one of the kids a “put” they could use to reject the move. Even our little guy, Tommy who was 5. In the end, we made a great move to Naperville, Illinois and moved into a golf community. My job had me traveling almost every day across the midwest and it took a lot of work to learn to work from a rental car and hotel rather than an office. That lasted a short time and when the economic disaster hit in 2008 and 2009, we had to move to another house. Over the next few years, we moved every year as the homes we were renting were foreclosed. Turns out the landlords were very efficient in collecting rent from us, but not so efficient in paying their mortgage on time or at all. Needless to say, we all grew better at handling transitions.

Eventually, my oldest daughter moved to Las Vegas to start a family with a man she had met at a family wedding. After two years, my first granddaughter was born and it got us thinking of being more than long-distance grandparents. My youngest still had two years of high school, but he was ok with the move. The decision was made one morning, at 5:30 am, on a train platform where the snow was blowing sideways and the temperature was 27 below zero. At that moment, I decided that I could move one more time to a land with palm trees.

When we arrived in Las Vegas, I had to rethink my career as what I did in New York and Chicago wasn’t done in Las Vegas. Many of my friends had told me over the years that I’d make either a good teacher or a great bartender. I chose teaching (it’s a day job) and spent the last six years as a math teacher in high school, middle school and eventually the fifth grade. I really liked teaching and working with kids and soon gained a reputation as a fun teacher. Besides math, I also coached kids to speak like they were from New Jersey. (It’s cawfee, not coffee.). In my second year of teaching, my seventh-grade class achieved the number one growth spot!

Last year I decided to throw in the towel and retire. Renae and I go down to the strip every other month for dinner, concerts, and shows. We have three of the four kids all living close by and one is in San Francisco. We now have three granddaughters and see them all of the time. We are beginning to travel and recently spent our 40th wedding anniversary in Hawaii with Lou Maddalena and his wife, Joan. Life is good and I have two goals left in life: First is to keep Renae happy and last is to lose weight. So far, I’m batting .500.