Brian Bennett:  

When I graduated from Harry Ells High School in 1960 I had not yet reached my 17th birthday.....I had reddish-gold hair, zitz and stood 5'11 in my gangly and tan swimmer's body.....The post-war world that I saw was so exciting , terrifying, and magnetic that my hormone-laden, and sexually-driven, body felt like a 4th of July sparkler most of the time......Although I saw my family and the city of Richmond falling apart , and the mushroom-cloud of Civil Rights guaranteeing future Social chaos, I felt sure that as an open-minded , semi-bright young white man [ without heavy ethnic nor religious Prejudices ]... with borderline good looks, could accomplish whatever his goals were.....Showing my abstract- impressionist paintings [ done in Mr. Biasotti's terrific Art classes ] along with some charcoal sketches and mural works, I was able to secure a Scholarship to the Calif. College of Arts and Crafts in 1960-61....While attending CCAC , I worked at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, where the exposure to the mysteries and marvels of birth, sickness , death --and all the cataloguing and record-keeping that Healthcare requires-- awoke in me a lifelong interest in The Human Being, you, and me.., Homo Sap.....I was a Lab. Assistant under the head of Pediatrics. Dr Edwin Schoen taught me rigorous protocol for conducting lab experiments in the early days of Cancer Research with Steroid Hormone applications-- with some asides in the arena of Gender reassignment.......From this somewhat Esoteric arena I decided to choose Hairstyling and the world of Looks as my profession...Keeping the hands, mouth, feet and mind busy at all times, with the immediate daily rewards of money, artistic satisfaction and information exchange, [ hopefully with humor and bon amie.] ....Knowing I'd probably be a hairdresser forever, I wanted to try something else completely different for a short time and signed on as Quartermaster Surveyor [ a map- maker ] on board the US Coast and Geodetic Survey Ship PIONEER, based in Oakland's Jack London Square.....After 29 days at sea in the North Pacific in ...Expand for more