Richard Goepfert:  

Life Hi all, I grew up on Long Island and attended grade school up until about mid 5th grade. Then I went to a parocial school for about 2.5 grades, shifting back to public school in 1970. I attended high school and college, graduating from college in 1980 with a BA in Broadcase Communications with a minor in PR. Sadly to say, I am not in the business, but that's OK. I don't need much, just as long as I'm comfortable and have a roof over my head. Moving from Long Island in 1992 because I could no longer afford the high cost of living there, I settled in Syracuse, NY where I have lived for the past 14 years. For 12 of those years, I lived with a woman whom I met at a party. They were 12 happy years which are ending because she has decided that she would rather be with a woman whom she has known for most of her life and did not know that she felt that way about. So I am beginning a new chapter of my life and am starting over again. It's tough being out there since I don't know the rules anymore. It has been so long since I've dated. It will be interesting finding out what's out there. Life certainly has been full of ups and downs. Can't say that life is perfect, but then again, what is? Life these days is best summed up by an old quote from Casey Stengel: "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes it rains." No folks, that was not a steal from the Kevin Costner movie, that was a direct quote. As Yogi Berra would say, you could look it up. Hope to be hearing more from many of you in the near future. School School was a kind of mixed bag for me. As I am visually impaired, OK, let's cut to the chase--I'm legally blind. School in my formative years is something of a blur because there was a lot of pain involved. I was in a school where the administrators did not know how to handle someone who was partially sighted. So they had no real way to instruct my teachers on how to deal with my problems. The thing that stuck out in my mind is how nasty a lot of the kids, mainly boys, can be. Little kids can become such cruel monsters. I do recall a few people who were not that way with me and made the whole thing bearable. I did not last long in grade school. I attended K-mid 5th grade before going to a parocial school. ...Expand for more