It all started in Oshkosh
It all started in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, an unassuming, pragmatic town on the shores of
Lake Winnebago.
Both my mother’s and my father’s families had been there for
a few generations. I had
one great grandfather, a flautist, who died of the flu during the
Spanish American War and another who was shot by a disgruntled
employee. Even in
Oshkosh
life could sometimes be unpredictable.
I was born during the Second World
War. My father, a
Naval
Academy graduate, was busy with the
invasion of Normandy, so I started
life with my mother and grandparents in the big house on Washington Street in Oshkosh.
When my father finally returned from the victory in the
Pacific, uniformed and decorated, I am reported to have pointed at
him and say, “What’s that.”
My relationship with authority figures has been somewhat
complicated ever since.
After the war we did the naval
shuffle, from Corpus Christi to Pensacola
to Jamestown until my father and the
Navy parted company and we settled in
Connecticut.
I grew up in New Canaan,
somewhat presumptuously labeled “The Next Station to Heaven.”
Childhood was fairly uneventful, although the Oshkoshian
roots always made me feel somewhat out of place in the
quintessential eastern suburb. The
discrepancy between my Midwestern background and
New Canaan culture made me a bit of a cultural
anthropologist, a participant observer at a very early age.
I think these early experiences have allowed me to move
easily about foreign settings and fit in, a skill which has been of
use both in my professional life as a family therapist and family
life as a spouse of a Greek.
Being married to a Greek is somewhat like being a member of a
fraternal organization without knowing the secret handshake.
Clearly you are part of some special organization but you are
kept ignorant of the details.
My wife and I live in the same
house in which we raised four children.
We partially heat with wood, eat a healthy diet, exercise
regularly, and disagree enough to keep things exciting.
In addition to writing and performing music, I enjoy
restoring and sailing wood boats.
I have also done some writing, publishing a few scholarly
articles and a book, Butterfly
Moon, which I co-wrote with Ann Tuller.
So, except for missing
details, that brings you up to the now in my life.
My music is an effort to reach out to people I have not yet
met and present some of what I have learned in my travels.
I hope you find something of value in what I have tried to
share.