Robert Dennis:  

So we a clear here, I attended West High School in Salt Lake City, Utah. I did not attend South High School in Salt Lake City, Utah nor did I attend West High School in Denver, Colorado. I graduated in 1957, and spent the next seven and half years in military service. I was an aircraft mechanic based in Hawai'i for my last three and a half years. Yeah I know, it was tough duty, but someone had to do it. While I was in the service I went to Japan, South Korea, South Viet Nam, India, Pakistan, Germany, the UK, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, and just about every island in the South Pacific that had a military base. I kicked supplies out of an airplane over Little America in Antarctica. I left the service married with three children. I understand that military service may not be right for everyone, but it was so very right for me. I had a very low opinion of myself when I left High School, but in the military I learned that I did have some talent and ability and could learn and competently perform some complex skills. I was assigned responsibilities beyond my imagination when I was a student at West High School. When I left the Service, I went to Sacramento and worked in a variety of jobs, until I landed a job as a plant operator on the Grave Yard Shift at the Sacramento Sewage Treatment Plant. People say that you get used to it, but I never did. However, working the night shift allowed me to support my family and attend college. I graduated from Sacramento State College in 1969 with a BA in Public Administration. The weekend beginning Friday, June 13, 1969 was one of those major life events for me. On the 13th I graduated from college and my wife divorced me. On the 14th, I worked my last shift at the Sacramento Sewer Plant, and if you remember where you were, you might have heard me yelling with joy when I walked out the door. The following Monday, June 16, 1969 I started working for the California Sate Personnel Board as an Administrative Trainee, beginning a career that would last for over 34 years. At one time or another, I worked for the State Personnel Board, the Department of General Services, the Department of Parks and Recreation, the Department of Corrections, and spent the last 20 or so years with the Department of Transportation. During those years I lived in Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Apple Valley and Long Beach. I was working in San Bernardino when I completed a Master's in Public Administration, at CSU, San Bernardino. I was very active in the Affirmative Action Programs during the 70's, worked in general administrative positions during the 80's, moved into management during the early 90's and into an Executive position during the 90's retiring in 2003. I spent 7 years with Transportation as Departmental Contract Office and helped the department spend a lot of money. From that position I became Deputy District Director, Administration, District 7, at the Department's Los Angeles Office. I spent much of my time in that position working on, and finally getting approval for, a $300 million new office building in down town Los Angeles. I retired before the building was finished, but it did happen. I married a second time. We were together for over 25 years, however as I developed some health issues, we decided it would be better for both of us if we split up. Twelve years ago, I married for a third time. Following retirement we moved to Las Vegas for four years and thence to Denver. I like Denver, but I'm not sure we will stay here. The thing is, when you get about five miles outside of Denver or Boulder, in terms of social norms, Colorado is about where LA was 40 years ago. The only reason we went to Las Vegas is my youngest daughter is a drummer and I had hoped she could find a steady gig there. While she did well, I had not considered the possibility that she would not like playing covers of top forty music. I couldn't blame her; I would have hated it too. When I lived in Long Beach, I got involved with a Brazilian style Samba School, called SambaLa. I became a member of the Bateria, playing a wide variety of Brazilian percussion instruments, but my main thing was a kind of snare drum called a caxia. In 1998, I traveled with some ex-Patriot Brazilians who were also members of SambaLa, to Rio for Carnival. I remember reading about Corcovado in school and it was thrill to be able to visit the landmark. I also climbed Sugarloaf Mountain. I look at the pictures and I wonder how I did that. The Samba School in Brazil enjoys a very complex position in Brazilian working class society. The term school is just the name that is given to Samba organizations because the first such organization took place in an abandoned school building in Rio. The big and powerful schools are A Schools, and the smaller are grouped together as B Schools....Expand for more