John Jeb Bergh:
CLASS OF 1968
Berner High SchoolClass of 1968
Massapequa, NY
John Jeb's Story
Life
Out of high school, jest a tad later than I should have been, I explored life at the lower end of the intellectual evolutionary scale for a bit longer than I should have as well. Then on to a too brief stint in college which left me with ambitions that leaned more towards excessive fun than earning a living. Exhaustive research (not real exhaustive) indicated that I might satisfy both the desire for fun and the need to earn a living by working in television and so I did for a long time, but I get ahead of myself. Coincident with finding a calling, it was either going to be in television or as a bouncer at the Daisy in Amityville, I found a wifeÂ
in a cabÂ
Massapequa Taxi, Star#10, I was driving. You know how most people feel they donÂt really get the good things they deserve in life? IÂve always been far more fortunate than I deserve. Lily, her name is Lily, was then and is now one of the most beautiful, totally wacky, and dangerous women in the world. Of course that makes the relationship one of the most trying and rewarding relationships in the world. I am blessed. She might have looked a little longer. Kids, adults now. Two, one of each. She, Robyn the elder, is married to a really nice, worthy, man and is living in and teaching English in Israel. He, Jason is valiantly struggling to enlighten the commercial world with his new visions of the Hip Hop and Action Sports world. His blessings come in the totally beautiful form of Jennifer, significant other and Deschen, significant minor.
O.K., work. Local television at first, real local. L.I. local not New York City local. Doing all the jobs I could from camera to directing but leaning towards news and documentary for about three years, then on to ABC Sports and Soaps for a little while, 1976-77. Now that was a revelation! People earning a very good living, having fun and getting just as ripped as they possibly could whenever possible. On to ABC World News where people were much more responsible and did not get stone...Expand for more
d whenever possible.
War Zone. I had objected to the Vietnam War for all the obvious political, ethical and moral reasons and vowed that I would not goÂ
also, the mere idea of going off into the heart of darkness that was that war, would come damn close to scaring me into a dead faint or a case of severe gastro-intestinal distress or both. Luckily, I suppose, I turned out to be 4-F and my Patriotism and courage were never called upon. Today, more than thirty-odd years later, I feel as though IÂve let down my classmates and neighbors and those who served, by my not having served. Any Vet I mention this to will smile or laugh and tell me that IÂm crazy. So many inescapable truths and theyÂre all so different for so many people.
Life, being the ironical muse that she is, found me in 1978, only the tiniest bit braver, working as a soundman on my way down to Nicaragua for the start of that war. I arrived to find that the cameraman that IÂd be working with had, just a few hours earlier, taken a small arms ricochet in the leg and would be back at work tomorrow. The soundman that I was replacing was on his way to the airport without even getting his luggage from the hotel.
IÂd like to say that I acquitted myself admirably there. IÂd like to and maybe I did if you werenÂt looking too closely but hell, youÂd have to have been looking in a completely different direction from the one I was in.
1979? Iran! I discover the real meaning of war; Sex, drugs, Rock, RollÂ
and dead people. Scores of them, each morning, laid out before our cameras.
On and on and on, as a cameraman now, famine in Africa, a bit of the war in former Yugoslavia. Genocide, murder, rape. Travel, travel, travel. Criss crossing the United States on and off for nine years following William Least Heat MoonÂs trail from his book ÂBlue Highways and discovering our own blue highways and the indescribable beauty of the world and its people along the way. I also, gradually discover some of the real meanings of l
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