Frank McGovern:  

My story isn't particularly impressive, but that won't stop me from adding a bit of tedium to your life by presenting a synopsis to you. Following high school, I was off to Ohio State University where classes almost interfered with drinking and pool. Once I clearly established my priorities, I moved in a much more focused way toward flunking out of OSU after two years that proved academically void. My fault, not theirs. At the time, coincidentally, the army was offering exotic training and travel opportunities and requested my presence among them. I had actually spent that summer ('65) working in Paris, France. The military thought my time would be better spent with them. Being ever canny, I joined for four years rather than allowing them to draft me for two years. They sent me to Monterey, California, for a year of language school, then to Europe for two and a half years as a Russian linguist. So the four-year choice worked out to be the better choice, since the two-year option would almost certainly have involved the even more exotic Vietnam. Of course, at the time, having just flunked out of college, the French-Foreign-Legion sense of a trip to Vietnam probably would have seemed poetic justice. Following the military odyssey and two really good years in Colorado, I returned to Monterey to attend a JC. There I met Maggie. As of May, we have shared more than 40 years of partnership. In August, we celebrated our 37th anniversary of marriage. I've made good and bad choices in my life, but she remains the great choice. I don't know that she would have the same sense of that, but Who asked her anyway? She and I moved to San Diego and graduated from San Diego State University in '75. Having earned my degree in Journalism, I agreed to help a disabled friend begin a civil rights publication. He had envisioned pulling together the disparate segments of the disabled movement into one solid movement for real change. For the next four years I dedicated myself to Mainstream Magazine, for and by disabled people. Once it was established, I turned it over to my friend, as had always been the plan, since, despite occasional accusations of mental deficiencies, I had no real disabilities to speak of. Having made my altruistic contribution of four years of my career-building time to the cause of a better world for disabled people, I embarked on my actual career--corporate prostitute. I exaggerate. My career was actually Public Relations. All right, I didn't exaggerate. Journalism still intrigued me, but the entry-level wages, particularly for a guy almost 35 years old, meant pursuing a fascinating career as a reporter, while watching my growing family starve. Now, that I think about it that might have made a great book: A sensitive piece about starvation in America using my family as the target source. What touching images of a man watching his children wizen before his eyes, and my recording the deterioration so that I could sell a sure heart-tugging list topper. Another missed opportunity. Instead, I accepted a job in Santa Cruz, California, as the Community Relations Director for Dominican Santa Cruz Hospital. As its name suggests, Dominican was a holding of the Dominican sisters, an order of Catholic nuns. The CEO of the hospital was a manic-depressive, alcoholic over-achieving nun with three masters degrees. She was the first woman president of the California Hospital Association. No small feat. She was obviously a gifted person in many ways. Working for her, though, was an emotional roller coaster. On days she was up, she basted those around her with praise as inordinately as she spit her vitriol when her mood followed her blood-sugar into the toilet. An amazing woman, but a tough one to be around. A few years earlier, Mag and I had traveled in Idaho. Following my army "career," I had lived in Colorado for two years, and really loved the mountains. Our trip to Idaho re-ignited my affair with the crowning touch to our continent, The Rockies. California's central coast pleased me less because there were no real seasons, despite spectacular scuba diving. We had kind of a six-month summer of mostly sun, and a six-month fall-spring of mostly rain. I longed for real season changes, I guess, so I could mark and worry about the aging process more effectively. Our oldest was eight at the time. After one particularly nasty bout with Sister CEO, I followed the advice of a friend, who had said if you're ever feeling lousy about your situation, redo your resume. I felt so much better upon completing the resume that I pulled out a hospital trade journal, opened it to the "help wanted" section, and sent the resume off in response to an ad for a Community Relations Director needed somewhere in the "Rocky Mountain Region." Within a month I had forgotten that I had even responded to the ad. Within another month I got a call. Three months later we had relocated to Idaho Falls, Idaho. By this time we had three children and another on the way. For lapsed Catholics, who hadn't attended church in years, we were churning out the kids like true believers. We did stop at four kids, each separated by three years. Eileen, our oldest, is now 35, and practices law in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, about 600 miles away. She has our two grandchildren, Maggie (13) and Quinn (a 10-yr-old boy). Frank came next. Now 32, Frank pursued scholastics at University of Idaho with much the same enthusiasm and many of the same techniques that I had employed at Ohio State. At least he wasn't drafted. He's a great kid, and has won some national writing awards. If you do a Google search on Frank McGovern, you'll find him, not me. He graduated and now works a .com in Boise. He is married to a great gal, Cady. Bill, 29, is doing graduate studies in Japan for a year. He wants to teach. Did you know that college students party in Japan also? Imagine that. Kate, our youngest, 26, and is attending medical school in Yakima, Washington. All great kids. We have been blessed in the most profound sense with our kids. But I digress from my biographical tale of tedium. Are you still awake? You probably haven't even read this far. I'm probably writing to myself by this...Expand for more