Bob Welch:  

Used to be a class clown. I didn't really graduate in Eureka, but I grew up (for 16 years) there. I DID attend during my sophomore year, though. I AM alive. Amazing, considering. . . I joined the Navy in 1970. Spent a year in. Quit 5 times and then they fired me. I smoked my first weed in front of a flop house on the corner of Haite and Ashbury streets in San Francisco at the age of 18. Went to Job Corps in San Marcos, TX, studying how to be a computer programmer. This was in 1974. The computer they had was an IBM 9500. The kind with punch cards and tape spools and filled the entire room! It could only speak 2 languages - Cobal and Fortran. I refused to shave one day, after my supervisor gave me strict orders to do so and was told I had to find something else to learn. I tried upholstery for a couple of months, but the place was getting close to having a riot, so I eased myself out of that place, also. Hitchhiked around the country for a while. Found my real mother (in Visalia, CA) after 22 1/2 years in August of 1977. In December I got into a motorcycle accident and broke my left tibia. I also haven't been able to smell since that time either. In June of 1978, I got out of the cast on my leg. My moter bought two bikes - one for me and one for my 2 brothers to share. Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you, when I found my mother, I also found a whole new family I didn't know about. I have my older brother, raised with me in Eureka, plus 2 half brothers and 2 half sisters. OK. So, as I was saying, my mother got me a bicycle. I went to the EDD to look for work. The work that was available was almost 8 miles away. I rode my bike there and picked up an application. On my w...Expand for more