John Grohs:  

Thanks for stopping in. I haven’t used this site in a while and am surprised to see so many visitors so I’ll give you a thumb nail sketch and see if I can catch you up. Until I was 10, 1964, I lived on the South Shore of Long Island less than a mile from the Great South Bay and a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean. You could often hear seagulls at sunrise and smell the salt in the air when the wind blew the right way. K through 3rd grade was there. Oakdale. 4th grade we transferred to a middle school with students from other schools. That year my dad decided to become a Lutheran Pastor, sold his Barber Shop and our house and we moved to Columbus Ohio where we lived on The Campus of Capitol University for three years of seminary. 5th , 6th, and 7th grades were each at a different school. My sisters were adopted in 65 and 67. Dad’s first church was in Petersburg W.Va. June 1967 to February 1970. 8th, 9th and half of 10th . Dad’s 2nd church was in Curtis Bay Maryland. We lived in Brooklyn Park and I went to Brooklyn Park High for the second half of 10th and the first half of 11th. I transferred to and experimental high school called Bay Country School for the 2nd half of 11th grade but still did drama at B.P.H.S. and played the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz in spring of 1971 even though I wasn’t a student. Bay Country closed and I returned to B.P.H.S. for 12th grade but left a couple of weeks before graduation. I remain a proud high school dropout. Didn’t want to give up my amateur status. I married a year later, enrolled in Essex Community College, volunteered at a Children’s Developmental Clinic on the weekends, got a job at The Maryland School for the Blind working with multiple handicapped kids, lived there for two years running a dorm with 16 very young, severely handicapped kids. My folks and sisters left Baltimore in 1974. I remained. My dad’s 3rd church was on the southside of Chicago and his 4th in rural Illinois. My 1st wife and I moved to farm country in July of 1977 for a year to catch our breath and watch my sisters grow up a little. We returned to Maryland in 1978 and ran a group home near Aberdeen until 1980. My family moved back a few years later and dad served 2 more churches in Baltimore. I crashed and burned after the group home gig and began playing music professionally again in 1980 while having several interesting day jobs. My firs...Expand for more