John LaChance:
CLASS OF 1967
Madawaska High SchoolClass of 1967
Madawaska, ME
Pepperdine University - EducationClass of 1974
Malibu, CA
University of MaineClass of 1971
Ft. kent, ME
John's Story
I know how to saddle a horse...and ride better than most. So, let's start from there.
I've been divorced for 20 years after 20 years of marriage...and what does she send me? Just to piss me off? A YouTube video. Here she is headlining the 3-day "Headbangers Open-Air Festival" in Hamburg, Germany. You know what? It didn't piss me off...because it's appropriate to remember where we've been. This is Kim performing one of the songs she did with her old lead guitarist, Marty Friedman, from Megadeth: youtube.com/watch?v=snpQuTyEmQQ&feature=share
Anyway, you remember me in high school That's my picture: that was me in high school. But you already know that. Then, I attended UMFK only to miss out on going to Woodstock (one of my missed opportunities), went into the army after graduation, and spent some time in the artillery, blowing stuff up. On my way to Viet Nam, the plane stopped in Hawaii for fuel. They saw in my records that I could type (it was during the Early Out Program when GI's were allowed to leave the service, which they did in droves), and the next thing I knew I was an office drone, replacing 13 clerks. As those other desks filled with properly MOS'ed personnel, I watched the periodic levies to Viet Nam, expecting to be finally called up on my 13-Alpha...but was otherwise safe in beautiful Hawaii.
At first, I managed Line of Duty Investigations for the 25th Infantry Division and later secured the editor-in-chief position of the awards program for Schofield Barracks operations. During my last year on active duty, I lived in a 3-bedroom condo in Waikiki with three Army nurses, a Marine driver and a Navy submariner. During this time, I was virtually a civilian, without having to report for reveille and grew my hair way long; in fact, I forgot my own ETS and failed to report in so that I was classified as AWOL when I showed up a week later. Nearly went through a court-martial until I brought charges against the army then I was out, a free man...with an honorable discharge and lots of compensatory money. Anyway, that's a long story.
Lived on the beach on Oahu in a hippie commune after that -- half were burn-outs (psychiatrists, Playboy photographers, physicists) and the other half were world-class surfers sprouting up in every surfing magazine at the time, with a never-ending spattering of South African Boers, Aussies and Kiwis. What an oddball mix, but volatile and entertaining. Spent a lot of time on the other islands during the puka shell craze, often by shooting the Molokai Express on somebody's sailboat or hydrofoil. It was on one of these ventures to Maui that I got full value from my French-Acadian accent since I met the girl I eventually married, Kim Kennedy LaChance.
As the lead singer in several heavy metal bands, such as Hawaiian Vixen and Malisha, Kim received a lot of attention in Europe and Japan, rising high in the charts, and made it into the British edition of the "Encyclopedia of Heavy Metal and Rock and Roll." Incidentally, Kim is headlining the heavy metal outdoor festival in Germany the summer of 2012. The "Headbangers Open Air Festival" in Brande-örnerkirchen, near Elmshorn, features 28 bands but is not Coachella by any means, though still pretty good. Since I helped build that moment, I take some pride in it.
Anyway, back to life on the beach. We had a carefree existence for some years (surfing, scuba diving and just living off the sun-drenched land during the day but with pounding drums and screeching guitars at night, until she got pregnant...and my head started spinning. Two weeks after that, I had a nine-to-five as a counselor at a middle school in Honolulu, a new apartment for me and my live-in girlfriend in Aliamanu Crater, plus a short haircut, clean shave and a good scrubbing. Pregnancy ended at about that time, but it was too late mentally for me to return t...Expand for more
o the beach.
Did school counseling and home visits for three years in the worst school district in Honolulu then escaped into the Federal civil service in Pearl Harbor. Within the year, I was nominated for a "US Congressional Award for Exemplary Service to the Public" for computerizing various functions of the DOD's PWC Housing Department. After that, they flew me between the islands and the mainland to do more of the same. So, with the extra bucks, I bought a beautiful home in Mililani and watched the equity go through the roof for nearly a decade after that.
Left for California after twelve years in the islands, got my Master's degree from Pepperdine University in Malibu, bought another house in LA and watched that equity go beyond my wildest imaginings. In the mid-80's, I worked for a company developing the guidance system for the cruise missiles that were first used in Iraq. Had to deal with lots of retired generals and admirals with taciturn faces in civilian clothes, people whose influence we needed but who provided no real input on the project, at least none I saw.
Afterwards, I fell into a strange line of work as a demographic statistician for two of the biggest corporations in their field. Can you believe that? I had two lousy semester hours in statistics at UMFK and spent 15 years of my life doing it, at least well enough that they thought I knew what I was doing. Even made presentations to a former vice-president of the United States and to one of our ambassadors to the Court of Saint James, who were both on our board of directors. I even took a piss with General Alexander Haig, who was on our board. Life takes some weird turns, doesn't it.
As work began to consume my days, nights and even weekends, I found myself blindsided by divorce in 1993, this after nearly twenty years of marriage. Can't blame her there; nobody likes a workaholic. Though she cleaned me out pretty well, she became a millionaire in her own right later on. By 1996, after too many bad or lukewarm relationships, met a wonderful girl from Japan, Azusa Wada, a student at the University of San Diego. Moved her to LA and lived together for the next two years until her visa ran out (should have made her my bride but gunshy at that point, so another missed opportunity).
By 2001, after trying to make up for lost time by more overwork to provide a large retirement cushion, I lost a bundle on the stock market crash, when $150 stocks in my portfolio were worth one penny for accounting purposes. I decided I had had enough of wasting my life slaving for others. So, I dropped out of the system...like, disappeared during this millennium from the labor rolls. Decided I could live just as comfortably off my real estate investments and my wits.
Current status: I'm mostly satisfied and mostly happy; I'm master of all I survey, with the bank looking over my shoulder. But in actuality, I went back to my Hawaiian para-roots, you might say, living a more carefree existence with easy-going people, a very eclectic mix ranging from published poets, paint artists, movie actors to cops in the LAPD, oil-rig workers, ex-pats from various countries. And that takes you up to today. Sometimes wish I'd had kids but that could have mucked up the works. Never could see myself as a father. Hell, my kids deserved a better father than me, and maybe they have them (chuckle).
Health is excellent, never been sick but for colds and flu and some broken bones (skateboarding in an empty swimming pool on Oahu's North Shore; squashed under a falling tree during Hurricane Eva). I have good friends and a good life, none too rich but rewarding on a personal level. Do I feel that life is winding down as we play out our sixties? Not in the least. We are not our fathers' generation. As they say in LA, sixty is the new forty. Let's not get old before our time.
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