David Abbott:
CLASS OF 1977
Whitehaven High SchoolClass of 1977
Memphis, TN
Southaven High SchoolClass of 1977
Southaven, MS
Olathe High SchoolClass of 1977
Olathe, KS
Santa Fe Trail Junior High SchoolClass of 1976
Olathe, KS
Millbrooke Junior High SchoolClass of 1975
Olathe, KS
David's Story
Life
After graduating I did not go directly to college. Did all kinds of odd jobs and wound up as a deckhand on a bargeline for a year.
Enrolled at Christian Brothers went totally gah gah over the Liberal Arts. (Many nights festooned with a black beret at Zinnies and too much red wine. Many nights of sweating through my good clothes @ the Antennae Club.) I could not get enough philosophy, humanities and art history. (Aced English composition, btw) Transferred to Memphis State as a photography major. Was building a real style when I grew weary of being poor.
Began selling cameras on commission (Top rep for 39 consecutive weeks.) Later sold copiers and got married. (Gorgeous wedding on the Square during the pre-Beale street days. We paid for it siI married a jewish girl. Orthodox at that. I'm a goy boy.)
Took a job in San Franciso in '88. THE MOST BEAUTIFUl CITY ON THE PLANET! and lived there for 7 years. Survived the earthquake in '89. (do not like earthquakes very much since then.) Became a sales trainer for Sharp Electronics Corporation and traveled 48 weeks a year throughout the US for almost 5 years.
After a million airmiles and a promotion to corporate and an expensive divorce, I moved to New York in '95. I lived 2 blocks off the Hudson just north of the City. NYC is THE GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD! Had a glorious studio apartment on a busy street in a quant Irish town. Met more people than anywhere in my entire life. Lots of day biking on the Hudson and weekends on the Jersey Shore. Became a lifetime Yanks fan when they won the World Series in '96.
Worked in Manhattan for just over a year for SkyTel communications. They had just been bought by Worldcomm the day before I signed my deal. It was a mess that got worse as it went.
A friend I knew from Sharp asked me to take a sales manager's job in Los Angeles. I found an awesome beach apartment next to the Santa Monica Pier and was living large with an absurd salary, an office on the 17th floor in downtown LA, making sales calls in Hollywood and Beverly Hills, a new shiny luxury car (a must have in SoCal) and enough time for other afterhours mischief.
Although I was making better money than ever, the job totally sucked and I resigned after one year. Tried to start a company with another friend just after 911 and it also took a big dump.
Then there's the dark part. Probably due to loneliness I married again after knowing a woman for a month. My business blew up soon after and I realized I had made a huge mistake with the marriage. She was a seriously obssessive compulsive disturbed person who had married what she thought was a successful package. It was utter hell until we divorced 11 months later.
After struggling along in a sales job in Orange County I rented a condo in Newport Beach and became romantically involved with a roommate. She encouraged me to begin writing and we've been together since then.
Not knowing what I'd do next since I'd had it with sales and the corporate life, she asked me to move with her to Texas where she is raising her teenage daughter. We published a collection of poetry a couple of years ago that is used in interpretive performances in forensics competitions in high schools and colleges. Our work is now used extensively throughout the state of Texas and beyond.
I haven't worked at a real job or shaved since I left California in '03. I run the small publishing business we founded and drive a school bus for the benefits and cigarette money. We continue to produce narrative historical poetry. She's an incredible woman and we're very happy.
After being bitten twice by two not so good marriages, I'm more than hesitant to commit again. But after witnessing my life change on a dime more than once, who knows?
I do not have any children and am rather glad of it. Even though my parents are wonderful I've never been built that way.
Please feel free to leave your name on a visit and I'll write back.
School
High school was a difficult time for me. Maybe that's the was it was for many others. As with many teenagers struggling with the onslaught of puberty and raging hormones, being liked seemed important to the degree of life sustaining.
To compensate, I developed an elaborate mask of being clever and entertaining all the while not knowing how transparant my barriers had become. Invincibility of youth is born from ignorance. How can one know one's limitations without the knowledge of one's natural boundaries?
All my life I'd been attracted to the forbidden. I succumbed to curiosity. I sought to solve the mystery of a tender heart girls of ill repute and hung out with the guys who did not compete on the football field. Their besting of their peer was based more on the variety and quantity of what they could imbibe.
I write poetry for interpretive competitions these days. Since the "normal" events of a young life were missed only imagined, the resource I draw from is a universal yearning to belong. How I relate to others is more a theoretical proposition than one inspired from empathy.
Please do not misconstrue my morose retrospection that I didn't have any fun. Lurking in the shadowy backways with trusted companions on epic adventures had their due time. School was the backdrop, not the stage. Life happened in the great beyond just beyond the perimeter of campus and structure. Just as in the Hero's quest, life happened in the voyage "out there."
College
As I did not go directly to college out of high school (it was against my shrink's advice at the time) I learned the tempo of a working life. After working for every single temporary employment service in Memphis, I wound up as a deckhand on a bargeline.
Working the river was a para-military existence made up of characte...Expand for more
rs who never transitioned to the path of college, marriage, career, 2.5 children and a 3 car garage path. The river was a place to hide out. Eventually the vast beauty of life on the Mississippi did not cancel the truth that most of it occupants had no choice but to be there. Time to go to college was running out. I grabbed the ticket out.
Entering college I felt that I had walked up the bank directly into Academia. I was in a familiar role of the outsider again in my red leather jacket and ponytail.
But following a distraction of science courses (still don't know what I was thinking with that) I was completely swept up in the liberal arts. At Christian Brothers to be a non-engineering major was an oddity. It was the height of the 80's and pursuing a degree with unknown earning potential was strange and puzzling to the community. If one were not going to school to eventually become rich, to also pursue an education as a quality of life enhancing experience was viewed as near imbecilic.
Constantly carrying a camera for the yearbook, as well as yielding free beer at dances, continued my first interest and very love of expression that began on the river. After yielding to the guilt of spending my parent's money on tuition at Christian Brothers, I transferred to Memphis State.
I took all the "dessert" courses. History of Rock and Roll, History of Photograpy, Art History, Film and Video Production and my passion Photography. After a year of living in the darkroom and on the verge of a real style, I was still looking at at least 2 more years of the Vast Lecture Hall courses. I later realized that undergraduates are a meatgrinding cover charge to pay for professor salaries.
I decided I could sell cameras better than I could create pictures with them. Besides, I got tired of being broke all the time.
Workplace
Mr. Work had always been my friend. Working was the easiest part of my life. The direct reward of earning money was simple and comfortable. (It helped to have a charge account and a car at age 16.)
After leaving college to sell cameras, as had happened with all the jobs, I had ever pursued, I advanced rapidly. Within a year I was managing a camera and electronics department. I hired and fired huge staffs around Christmas time. And did it all for catfood wages.
Frustrated and broke all the time again, I sold photographic equipment on commission. After being the top rep in the company for 39 consecutive weeks I began to press to be a manager to no avail. (it was probably just as well. I partied a lot and showed up looking like hell many mornings.)
I took a job as an assistant manager with a competing company and an HATED it. A friend dropped by the store one day and told me about a job selling copiers. I was able to wedge myself into a direct sales job. In what seemed like a moment I was wearing real suits, driving a new car, living in an awesome apartment and racking up debt like I'd won the lotto.
After just over a year of figuring out what I was doing, I answered a call from a recruiter. When he asked me about possible relocation areas, I said I'd always wanted to see Northern California. On the plane back from getting a job in San Francisco I wrote my resignation.
San Francisco and the Bay Area is the most beautiful place on the planet and I'd never been more sure of a place of where I should be. That was the spiritual part. On the financial side, I was now married and we were struggling badly. After the quake of '89 I found myself back in therapy and looking for a new gig. I went back to selling copiers and sought out recruiters.
While training with the first copier company I worked for I attended a sales training seminar. It was one of the first occupations I really wanted to do. A recruiter in Connecticut hooked me up with a training position with Sharp.
Traveling full time was a pivotal life change. After 3 years I was made National Manager and transferred to Headquarters in New Jersey. A casualty of success was my marriage. I moved to New York alone.
I soon discovered that the Corporate world was a snake pit infested with competing agendas. After 3 years the company did me a favor when they reorganized and gave me a fat severance package. I lived large for about 7 months and went back to work for a telecomm company in Manhattan. Life was good there for about 6 months. The Worldcomm debacle that ended in the headlines around the globe was beginning. People got mean. I left and went back to California.
I took a job as a sales manager in Los Angeles. One day I was making sales calls overlooking Central Park, the next day I was signing deals in Beverly Hills. I found a place right on the beach in Santa Monica next to the pier, worked on my tan when I wasn't fighting the good fight at work.
The job, although it paid generously and had lots of perks, was abysmal. I loathed it and quit the day before 911. I foolishly went into consulting, cashed out my 401k and hunkered down.
After running out of money I took a job as a sales rep covering Orange, Riverside and San Bernadino counties. It was a going nowhere, deadend job once again.
Scratching my head as to my next move. I was considering chucking all my possessions and holeing up in Memphis. At the last moment, a woman I had fallen in love with asked me to come to Texas with her. She encouraged me to pursue writing.
After publishing a collection of poetry used in interpretation competitions, we continue to write and publish poetry that has won several awards and competitions throughout the state of Texas and beyond.
I don't wear suits or shave anymore and still have a collection of berets. I drive a school bus route to pay my insurance benefits and gas money.
It's been one helluva run.
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