Maury Lieberman:  

Graduating from Stephen F. Austin High School in Houston was the beginning of a long journey for me which began at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. During my four undergraduate years at Wisconsin I encountered a world of ideas and experiences as well as a variety of people far beyond anything to which I had been exposed. The transfer from my Texas worlds of the East End and Denver Harbor sections of Houston to Madison, Wisconsin required some radical adjustments on my part, many of which were not easy.. At the most basic level, I left the warmth of the Houston winter for guaranteed below zero temperatures and snow storms. the novelty was wonderful at first during my first winter, but became old when it was still snowing in April. It was the 60's and Houston schools were still integrated. Wisconsin schools had never been segregated so the issue of race wasn't that big a deal. It was amazing how quickly and pleasant my adjustment was to this aspect of my new environment. Wisconsin at that time, along with Columbia University and the University of California at Berkley was one of the centers of student activism and politics. As one who was never political, being a part of all the excitement that was going on was thought provoking. On the other hand, I joined a fraternity and experienced the social life that had eluded me in high school. as you can see, i wanted the whole college experience. One football weekend when a group of us from my fraternity went down to see Wisconsin play the University of Illinois, I met a lovely young woman from Chicago named Elyse whom I married after I graduated from Wisconsin. My summers in Wisconsin were spent doing "real work" as a laborer for a construction company. Five summers of hard work put some real muscle on the gangly kid that had shown up at the construction site that first summer, Had I been in such shape in high school , i might have actually imagined going out for the football team! An additional dividend of this experience was the life experience wisdom I picked up from my work mates who had been and would be continuing to do this hard labor the rest of their lives. It brought home to me that useful learning can happen anywhere and from anyone if one is open to it. The world of student activism and politics at Wisconsin had made its impact on me. From Wisconsin, I next went to Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey where I spent two years getting a Masters of Social Work and being trained as a community organizer. For two and a half years , so much of my time was spent on the the streets of Newark, New Jersey, and New York City, trying to help people climb out of lives of poverty, crime, and delinquency. So many more new experiences :The first painful experience of seeing someone shot to death in front of me; Learning that to be poor doesn't automatically make one noble or good; growing to admire the resilience of the human spirit among people who have been harshly dealt with by the unfairness of life. Again, I learned a lot about life and acquired "street smarts' that helped me survive on the"mean streets" of the rough and dangerous urban environments in which I worked. Feeling the need for additional credentials, I left New York City and with my new wife Elyse, settled in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where I got a Masters Degree in City Planning and International development at The University of Pittsburgh School of Public and International Affairs. At the end of the two years, my wife and I were accepted into the Peace Corps and were to be sent to Honduras. The Vietnam War was happening and my Houston draft board , instead, ordered me to have my pre-induction physical in preparation for reporting to Fort Jackson, South Carolina for basic training . The military works in strange ways and because of my academic training and experience, I ended up in Washington DC as a Naval Lieutenant in the US Public Health Service stationed for the next four years in Washington DC. During that four years, my own immaturity led to the breakup of my marriage with Elyse . While sad, the divorce was amicable enough to have allowed me to remain friends with Elyse over many years. After my military tour, I have stayed on in Washington having a rich career in government working in the fields of mental health and city planning.In 1978, I was able to take a sabbatical to lecture and do Doctoral work at Cornell University in Ithaca,New York. I've been lucky to meet and work with the "who's who" of my respective fields as well as of the political world of Washington and the US Congress. Work has taken me to every State in the United States as well as to a number of foreign countries traveling on a diplomatic passport for the US Government. That early taste of travel fueled a passion for travel that has continued until this day. As a sideline during my single years, i invested some expendable income to become part owner of a travel agency. Back in those days, the benefits of such ownership were substantial and subsidized my travel to many exotic and distant destinations At last count, I have traveled to 77 countries in the world. The experiences and friends I've made abroad have helped me understand how the larger world sees the United States as well as giving me an appreciation for the richness of of other cultures and other ways of l...Expand for more