I should mention my best friend, Mark.

He went to college too. Took music ed AND GOT HIS DEGREE!! He stuck it out. Is he a teacher now? No, but at least he has the credentials. He kept me company in my year of torture at Penn State (State Penn?)

Anyway. I joined the work force as a factory worker, first in a steel mill, then in a bakery. The music bug didn't let go, though.

In the year that I studied and practiced my cojonies(sp) off, I had to study piano and music theory & harmony in addition to my main performing instrument (clarinet). Learned alot there! That was another labor of love. Playing the piano piece that my instructor gave me for the week, then breaking out the theory books and going over them. My instructor here was a wonderful lady named Mrs. Miriam Heisler. A very kind, patient and extraordinary teacher. She also coached me on the vocal piece I had to perform in the WC audition. I was a tenor and she suggested a classical song called "When Love Is Kind". I still remember every word and note of that song, and the expression on the face of the professor who listened to my audition. He practically BEGGED me to join the school's vocal choir siting the rare quality of my vocal tenor and how much they needed it.

Anyway, after I stupidly put the screws to my college career, my parents sold the Kimball Whitney spinet piano that dominated the small parlor in our small house. I had entertained thoughts of writing songs on it, but when it was sold that went out the window too. My above mentioned best friend, Mark had a small, cheap guitar that his girlfriend bought him for his birthday. In addition to that, another friend at the steel mill I worked at also started to play acoustic guitar that his wife had from before they were married. Hanging around these two guys got me thinking "Hey, I could write songs on guitar too!"

So I bought a cheap but adequate acoustic 6 string. I also bought a new killer stereo system around the same time, but I had to put them both on hold because being the dangerously inqusitive type, I joined a local theater group who were doing "Fiddler On The Roof" at the time. I endured three months of this in order to hopefully get a good part in their upcoming production of "West Side Story" Man, I wanted a JUICY role, like Tony or Riff, but alas, I soon realized that it was a clique that I just never fit well in to (in hindsight, I'm glad I didn't). Anyway, on the night that "West Side" opened I sat down at home with my acoustic guitar and roughly using the first few chords I learned in a Mel Bay book, wrote my first song. It was a folk ballad called "Carolyn". The lyric line was kind of hypothetical, but had some truth in it. After I had it perfected, I sang it into a battery operated mono cassette recorder. Alas, MY FIRST MASTERPIECE!