Bruce Grant:  

All my years at HHS I was a shrimp: 4'11" in my Junior year, 5'3" at graduation. During my Sophomore year, my girlfriend was 5" taller than me. I was very shy, not popular, probably thought of as a nerd. I spent almost every lunch hour in my Junior year playing chess in Mr. Siringer's classroom. I had no social self-confidence at all until my Senior year. My favorite teachers were Mr. Warner & Mr. Koller. I loved sports, but wasn't very good at them. I was on the 10's Basketball team my first 3 years (only played 10 minutes in 3 years) and on the Tennis team for 4 years (didn't play regularly until my Senior year). I was smart, though, and had the 2nd highest SAT scores in our class (both SAT sections and the 3 Achievement Tests I took all had scores in the 99th percentile). I was also a National Merit Scholarship Semi-Finalist. I received a competitive appointment to Annapolis, but failed the physical because my eyes were 20/25 and 20/30; 20/20 uncorrected was required. I majored in Physics and Mathematics at Oregon State U. I also grew 8" in my Freshman year there! Dated Betty Hain (HHS class of '65), a girlfriend of my sister, Judith, after meeting her in the summer of '63. We married in July 1965, divorced in 1971. Two kids, Daniel, 1966, and Elaine, 1968. In 1979, Lauri Kezer and her 4-year-old, Nicole, moved in with me, staying for 5-1/2 years. I'd met Nicole a year before, when she was living with a friend and his family, and we'd clicked right away, since she was the same age as my daughter Elaine had been when her mother moved to Southern Calif., so I became her unofficial dad within a month of her and Lauri moving in (her "real" dad had abandoned her). Even after Lauri & I split up, Nicole continued to visit me and talk with me on the phone regularly. In 1985 I married Deborah Nobles; we divorced in 1996. The first thing I did after the divorce was phone Lauri to see if I could adopt Nicole, since Deborah had interfered with our relationship. Nicole's response was, "What took him so long?" Two years later (1998), Lauri & I started dating again. Six months later, she moved in, and we finally married in April 2001. She is my soul mate and, obviously, the most tolerant woman in the world. Career history next. Late 1965: Started Audio Alley, a stereo component store, in San Francisco. Designed and added a small recording studio in 1967, when I started doing demo tapes for local bands and began managing my first rock band while continuing to run Audio Alley. I was a poor salesman, so I taught myself enough electronics to repair stereo equipment, TV's, etc. I designed and installed sound systems at two SF nightclubs. I continued to work in the music business for almost 22 years, while still working days at full-time jobs. For a year I was the chief sound engineer at the Last Day Saloon in SF and also managed and mixed live sound for another band for 2+ years and a 4-man comedy group for another year. For 12 years, I was also the Personal Manager for one starring local musician through 4 bands which he led. I designed the mixing board for The Matrix in San Francisco (see "The Matrix (club)" in Wikipedia) and mixed live sound there many times. During my musical career I mixed live sound for Jerry Garcia & Friends, Maria Muldaur, Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks, Charlie Musslewhite, Elvin Bishop, Billy Roberts (he wrote Jimi Hendrix's "Hey, Joe"), Steve Miller Band, Jules Broussard, Mickey Hart & the Hartbeats, John Fahey, Sandy Bull, Butterfield Blues Band, Harvey Mandel, Moby Grape, Rosalie Sorrels, Seatrain, It's a Beautiful Day, and many other bands not as well known. Mixing live sound was the most spiritually and artistically fulfilling (and financially unfulfilling) of any work I've ever done. I only wish that my current hearing quality could be what it used to be, so I could still do it. My electronics skills led to an Audio Alley customer, who worked for IBM, arranging an interview for me in 1969 with IBM Field Engineering, to work repairing computers at IBM client sites after IBM training. Because all IBM interviewees also take a data processing aptitude test, where I got the ...Expand for more