Happy Anniversary to Me

At this time 25 years ago I left a “real” job in Chicago– and a pretty good one at that– to try what many deemed “sefl uemployment.”  I had a concept for a children’s story brimming with multi-media tentacles, and a nest egg of $10,000 in 1984 cash.  I’d swim until I became the next Walt Disney or until the money ran out, one or the other.

Neither happened.  The childrens book never found a publisher, though eight others eventually did.   I passed much of that first summer in my mobile office at Wrigley Field, three blocks from my condo.  It was the golden era of pre-lights Cubs baseball, when $2 on game day conferred status as a Bleacher Bum, a subculture 355 feet and a societal universe from the hoi polloi behind home plate in reserved boxes.   Barking comments to a left fielder known as The Sarge (he actually shouted back) and catnapping in the afternoon sun mollified the recjection letters piling up back home, and my manuscript always read much better after a beer or two.

Just as the Cubs were bounced from the playoffs in October, I got a call from my former employer seeking writing help.  Then another inquiry, and yet another.  To my mild amazement, freelance work was working.  Within a year I had replenished my savings, and the rest is my version of history.  The road has taken all sorts of unexpected professional and personal turns, including a journey north to sink roots behind the Cheddar Curtain in Wisconsin, from where I scribble today.  It’s been a ton of fun, and to those who have smoothed the path with an assignment, even an encouraging word, I’m eternally grateful.

And say, might you be interested in a book on a talking Victrola?