Paul Champion:  

Life To those of you that I talked to at length at our recent 31st reunion, this may be a repeat, so feel free to skip some of it or all of it if you're so inclined to do so, otherwise; I worked briefly at Reulands Electric shortly out of High School but didn't last too long, I actually thought that if you're sick and can't work, that it's not your fault is it? Trouble is, I thought I was sick probably once a week. I was so naive, I really was surprised when they let me go. To continue, I joined the Navy in the fall of "73" and served what one might call a "less than stellar" short tour of duty. I was a great "paint chipper", and being such a little guy, I was always being ordered to crawl into tight, dark, smelly places and find things, retrieve things, or fix things while I was in there. I'm sure that you can all see that these kind of skills really come in handy on the outside when your a civilian again, which I was, pretty darn shortly. The only really cool thing I took with me from the Navy was the "classification" I get to check off on employment applications, the very useful "Vietnam Era Veteran" box. I have discovered that checking this box is very handy in that it allows me to act any way I desire in public or otherwise since I can always blame my behavior on "flashbacks", or on "Post Traumatic Stress Caused By Too Much Paint Chipping, &/or Crawling Through Dark, Tight, Smelly Spaces Syndrome". So, after my brilliant Military tour, I returned to good ol' Howell to collect unemployment, and live off of my long suffering and patient Mom and Dad. This situation didn't last very long though, as although my parents were very long on love and long suffering, I was running them very short of patience. And so, I finally showed some resposibility and found a job right? Nah, I started hanging out at the girls dorms at E.M.U., playing the piano and picking up as many girls as I could. (This was the 70's you know.) Well anyway, while I was there...Expand for more