Jim Tucker:
CLASS OF 1968
Brandon High SchoolClass of 1968
Brandon, FL
Jim's Story
Jim Tuckerâs Brief Biography [prelude to his obituary]:
October 25, 2013
What a long, strange trip it's been! I've been a Hippy Farmer and Student Radical Anti-War Activist in Gainesville, a Professional Environmentalist (Hillsborough County EPC, Colorado State University, US EPA, Puget Sound Air Pollution Control Agency, Chairman Florida Sierra Club, co-founder: Hillsborough Environmental Coalition) then, the biggest cocaine dealer in Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming before becoming a burned out, twice divorced, Drunken Pothead and wastrel.
I have lived in the Great Northwest since 1981 after traveling throughout the USA, Central and Latin America and Caribbean, around the world [in 1971 on the "Hippy Trail"]. A very unique and varied Place this Region is.
Worked tending bar for 7 years. Telemarketed cable TV sales for 3. Department Supervisor in Big Box Home Improvement Stores for 3 more, sales in a small town lumberyard for another 2.5 yrs.
Then!! Magically...a new-improved better woman came into my life which caused me to come out of my stupor and quit feeling sorry for myself! After 25 years I returned to college [UF '68-71, Sante Fe CC 72-75, USF 77-79] at Washington State University and got my BA! Psychology and Criminal Justice, Magna cum Laude, Class of '04!! I continued on to Graduate School at WSU and received my MA in Crim J, Class of July 2007!! Woo Hoo!
Assistant Producer, Researcher and Script Writer KSPS Public TV during grad school; managed Spokane, WA's largest men's Homeless Shelter and social service facility after grad school for a few months, then was selected to work as a Correctional Mental Health Counselor WA. St. Department of Corrections Special Offenders Unit (for mentally ill offenders, aka: crazy male felons doing prison time) 2007-8. I loved the nature of the work but I lacked any skills, training or experience counseling people. Hell, my own self-inflicted psychic wounds were still oozing the puss of my recent nefarious and more-than-slightly deranged past! So, I went back to school at Edmonds (WA) Community (i.e., "Junior") College and earned a 2-year Certificate in Chemical Dependency Counseling in 9 months!
I was hired 3 weeks before 'graduation' by Evergreen Manor Chemical Dependency Treatment Agency in Everett, WA to conduct and In-Jail Chemical Dependency Counseling Program for male inmates in the Snohomish County Jail in May 2010 and been doing that ever since! I LOVE my work! Helping people to "Change their Lives While Doing Time"!
At my job I get to be: a stand-up comic, existential philosopher, Zen Buddhist Spiritual Guide, motivational speaker, social critic, voice impressionist, closet anarchist, atheist subversive, organic/natural food and holistic health mentor, pretend bureaucrat, sage counselor, life advisor, patient advocate, world-changer, life turner-arounder, and I do all of this with great humility between 0700 and 1530 Monday through Friday for $40,000 a year at age 63 !!
My goal is to retire on a meager pittance (which is al...Expand for more
l we'll have to live on) in about 5-7 years to someplace not at war with anyone or anyplace else and where older ex-patriated Americans are welcome and are able live comfortable and safely in their "golden years". Panama? British Columbia? Costa Rico, Bora-Bora, Amsterdam? (my wife, Carrie, has Dutch citizenship Woo Hoo!!).
Never had any kids. If I believed in a god, I'd thank her for that blessing! I subscribe to the theory that, in addition to ADD, I suffer from the Peter Pan Syndrome. I doubt if I'd make good parenting material, and think of all the fun I'd have missed. There's already way too many messed up kids in the USA, make that in the World, with billions more on their way. It takes a Village to dig a new cesspool, among the myriad other things it takes communal efforts and involvements to do, like raise healthy, nurtured children who don't want to grow up to become suicide bombers!
I DETEST WAR! I do not like, respect or support 95% of the things 'my' government does at home or abroad. I think all religions are B.S, and the underlying causes of 99% of all human problems. I believe the hidden Powers That Be control the media are behind the dumbing down of public education and the public in general (along with Fast Food, âRealityâ TV, artificial ingredients, Monsanto, Big-Agro, Big Pharma, the Military-Industrial Complex, allopathic medicine, TV, videos games [I do enjoy the latter two, in moderation!] and, of course, American Idol). I watch the Seahawks on TV (but can't afford a ticket to a live home game) yet believe it's the old Roman Coliseum all over again--give 'em bread and circuses and distractions [and Fox âNewsâ] and they won't figure out what's really going on!
Peace, My Classmates of this confusing historical epoch. Final comment: I'm glad as hell (which, of course I don't believe in) that I won't be around to suffer through the ultimate global environmental, economic, political, resource (water) religious and military catastrophes that are bound to happen before the first half of the first century of this new millennium ends. Peace to All!!
Jim Tucker
(I would have been Brandon HS class of '68 but my family moved from Brandon to Dallas the summer before my senior year. Texas as a senior was a Mind-blowing Trip! I managed to "fit in" from the start; I even co-hosted the Annual Richardson High Senior Show. My comedic comments are documented in their 1968 Yearbook!
And, my father was killed in a Braniff Airliner crash on 5/3/68âjust before my HS graduation! It only took me about 35 years to process the Stages of Grief over that devastating event in my life.
Remember me as the 1967 Cakewalkingâ Drum Major of the Fightinâ Eagle Marching Bandâthe one who almost slipped and fell in the mud, but at Halftime managed to spin out of disaster, get back up on his own two feet and finish the Show with a flourish! Kinda like how life went for me over the years twixt then and Now.
Whether we like it or wanted it, or not, We ARE living in Interesting Times. March On!
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