Gerald Frank:  

Graduation party for me was a self-built raft trip down the Colorado river with my 4 best friends. The next week i rode my bicycle up the coast to Big Sur and back. After my 2 big adventures, i started working at the corner carwash on Ball & Valley View where I met my first wife of 24 years. 3 kids and 5 grand kids and (OMG) 3 great grand kids. I still use those car wash skills--wax on, wax off. I worked for a few Christian rock band in the 70's where I learned audio mixing. But that wasnt great pay so in spite of the Jimmy Carter economic downturn I landed a good job at F.E. OLDS & Sons. No, not a law firm but a brass band instrument manufacturer. Some of you band members probably played one of their products. While working there a parent company bought us out and we became part of a conglomerate that included Pearl Drums, Armstrong woodwinds, Story & Clarke pianos and Gibson guitars. The Gibson part interested me greatly as I have always been a guitar aficionado as my older brother who is currently a pro steel and regular guitar player in Nashville, has owned some of the more amazingly sounding guitars ever since. I was once the guy who distributed Gibson all over the western U.S. while at Olds I was given the opportunity to move to Petosky, Michigan for a short time from '75 to '76. Work was scarce so I packed up the family, again, and returned to California. I got work at MusicMan guitars and Amps. I worked in the amplifier division where I was given the opportunity to do special cabinet designs. I designed speaker cabinets for the band ABBA, Alabama and Eric Clapton, etc. I have photos of my cabinets that He used. Getting out of a saw dusty workshop sounded enticing. A friend gave me a tip for a recording engineer position opening. So began a spell working inside very comfortable offices. Becoming a recording engineer I had the chance to meet some of the most famous recording artists of the late '70's and early '80's. From Luciano Pavarati to Barbara Mandrell. After a couple years there was a parting of minds so I had a short go in the construction trade as a plasterer....stucco actually. Not my cup of mud so I was off to work in Tustin where I lived. TBN television network which was just around the corner from my home. During my 5 years there I became head of 2 departments, mail services and computer operations. Computers were still growing in use and PC's were in their infancy. The bigger ones were still single functioning. But I was good at running them and got the opportunity to move onto a better position with Fedco membership department stores. I ran 4 different machines there. But there was where multi tasking IBM computers were introduced which also supported the ever growing PC platform. Fedco was tumultuous for me and my family as during this time my wife and I parted living together. Also, my boss framed me for an false offense against the company. She had made an inappropriate advance on me which I rejected. This angered her and out I went. Next was Oshman's sporting goods. 12 hour shifts there were hard on me and my kids. After not getting another computer position I started truck driving. An interesting job. Up at 3:30am and home usually befor 9pm. Long hard days driving a route from downtown Anaheim to finish at my next home in Moreno Valley where I owned a house. I watched Moreno Valley grow from no stop lights and 8000 residents to the huge town it is today. My middle son still lives in that house. He works for Union Pacific Railroad. My oldest son lives...Expand for more