Jacquetta~
Gull, you alwayzzzzzzzz gonna be "Jacquetta" to me!
This is gonna be fun.
The next thing on my TO DO LIST was to process a bunch of images for a "TUSKEELOOSSEE TURNAYDER- BEFORE & AFTER" album but this is a much better use of my time.
Wow! Have you got the wheels in my head turning!
Oh yeah! I've already FOUND OUR NEW SONG! This version on Youtube starts out with Ray Charles & Bonnie Raitt but then it becomes a live performance @ The Grammys by Bonnie Raitt & Billy Preston. Anywayzzzzzzzzzzzzz: OUR SONG! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t7WToybpck
Now cut the bull about being so surprised by me responding to your request. Manera told me MONTHS AGO she had found you & she'd LOOKED FOR YOU JUST LIKE I HAD!!!! She said she talked to you once and then RADIO SILENCE. She was afraid you might have been blowing her off.
ANYWAYZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
I'm back AS LONG AS YOU'LL HAVE ME!
You've got so much wrong in your head about us but that's the way it beezzzzzzzzzzzzzze wid YOUR FEMALE RACE.
I'm SO GLAD you remember "our little history."
The "NOT WAITING BY THE MAILBOX" letter was so heavy it had a "Postage Due" on it when it arrived @ General Delivery, University, Alabama 35476!!!! (Do think I still have it in the archives somewhere in some storage facility. Don't think the hurricanes or turnayders got it!)
The clerk ( the late Dick Ellenberg who became one of my best friends) knew it was a "Dear John." He knew all us freshmen so well & all of us guys were getting them from the gals BACK HOME that Oct. If we didn't have mail in our box @ General Delivery, Dick would give us a nod while we were in line so we wouldn't waste our time waiting. It was on yellow stationary. About 9 pages. You had big handwriting anywayzzz and the longer you wrote THE BIGGER IT GOT!
I'll respond more to your letter later but I've included some personal info about my life for the past 40 yrs.
Found this letter to my ZERO, NW FL friends from '08. It'll tell you a lot about my life:
Hey y'all~
Working with my old classmates has me reminiscing a lot about my life so I've started hauling out the archives to search for the bits & pieces of my memories.
College was fun but it was tough. I worked hard every summer saving my money & had a work study job at the Union Building which enabled me to work backstage at the rock concerts. I remember working for Elton John, Jethro Tull, Joe Cocker and The Rolling Stones. In fact, I met my future wife while working the gate to the floor at Jethro Tull. She flashed that pair of play pretties at me and next thing ya know she had full access to everything at that show.
I didn't get to travel at all while in college except for a couple of trips to the Panama City Beach each summer.
Before I settled down to work after college I took a couple of trips up to the Carolinas but I spent most of my college years working and saving my pennies.
My first job out of college was being a Psychologist 1 at Partlow. The first year wasn't bad. I saved up all of my vacation days, holidays and comp time so I could take off an entire month during the summer of '73. Greg Wright & I took my VW van out to Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Greg had already served in 'Nam & I was still scared of being drafted so I wanted to check out groovy little hippy pads in Victoria, B.C. in case I needed to take an extended vacation. Driving back to Tuscaloosa, we visited Olympia National Park, Yellowstone & I got to hang out at Philmont in Cimarron, New Mexico for the first time since visiting there in July of '65.
The Partlow job came to a screeching halt one day in January of '74. I got attacked by a patient who almost took out one of my eyeballs so I took off a couple of days and decided to become a school teacher. The Colegio Americano de Guayaquil came to the rescue and enabled me to live in Ecuador for four months and get my teacher's certificate. Before leaving for Ecuador, Susan & I took the train down to New Orleans & we stayed with Jeanie Dowling and her husband Octave Livaudais at their house in the Garden District.
SUSAN FROM BACK IN '72
I returned to Tuscaloosa from Ecuador in September of '74 broke & broken hearted. Fortunately the head basketball coach & science teacher at Druid High got caught with his britches down during sixth period so in November I had a science teaching job on the West End of Tuscaloosa.
In '75, I went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans again & took at least three trips to the Smokies. I spent a week hiking the Appalachian Trail above Cades Cove and really fell in love with the mountains.
The Olympics were in Montreal during the summer of '76 so I got this old gal to haul me up to Quebec in her Barracuda. We stayed with Thomas Wheatley and his wife in Hingham, Mass. and then toured Boston and the coast of Maine. We didn't make it to the Olympics but really enjoyed discovering Quebec City & Ille de Orleans. The girl I was with spoke fluent French so we had quite an adventure.
I finished my Masters at the Sea Lab on Dauphin Island in the summer of '77 and celebrated by going out to Austin to meet my old girlfriend Laurie Bensburg & we drove out to Santa Fe in my old '62 Impala. We climbed to the top of Lake Peak and hung out in the cafes on the square in Santa Fe. On our way back to Lubbock, we heard the news that Elvis had died.
Laurie, oldest daughter of Gerry Bensberg
I was getting tired of teaching so I was restless when I attended our DHS 10 Year Class Reunion in the Summer of '78. Ricky Blumenfeld told me about a sales job so I quit my teaching job at the end of July and started my new career as an underwear salesman out in the world "covering the asses of the masses." That didn't work out so another buddy of mine told me about a job out in California so I took off for California. I got to hang out in Austin, Philmont and Santa Fe again and really had a wonderful time in Big Sur and Yosemite but I had nightmares out there so I came back home. I got a scholarship to work on my PhD but in the spring of '79 I dropped out of school and took a job teaching in New Orleans. I got an apartment in Faubourg Marigny and got to hang out in the French Quarter & see why they call New Orleans an ELEPHANT'S GRAVEYARD.
In September of '79, I got my old teaching job back in Tuscaloosa. I married Debbie Emblom and for the next three years I settled down and didn't go anywhere except to Panama City Beach in the summer.
Debbie and I got divorced in '83 so I spent the summer living in Scott Gellerstedt's Gulf Front apartment in Reddington Shores near St. Pete.
Scott and I hatched a business plan to sell Panama hats so in the summer of '84 I returned to Ecuador. I attended the inauguration of President Leon and had a wonderful time except I got my wires crossed with Scott and didn't see him until we both took the same flight back to Miami.
We sold some hats but selling the excellent handmade sweaters Scott had discovered proved to be more lucrative.
In the summer of '85, I quit my teaching job so I could take care of my mother. She died on the day I would have returned to school so after taking care of Mother's funeral arrangements, I went out to Austin to see Laurie again before returning to Ecuador. I returned to Ecuador twice in the fall and winter of '85 and really got the sweater business kicked off in the spring of '86.
I returned to Ecuador twice in '86 to buy handmade sweaters, handbags, belts and earrings.
I also returned to New England again and got to see Thomas Wheatley again. He had moved up to Maine so it was great hanging out with him while I set up the sweater business on the coast of Maine.
During the school year, Scott and I spent all our time selling sweaters in sorority houses all over the South and Midwest. I spent a lot of time at Indiana University, the University of Illinois, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Minnesota,the University of Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue. We worked all the SEC schools and all the girls schools in Virginia and North Carolina.
I returned to Ecuador once in '87 and spent that summer in New England but I was getting burned out being on the road all the time. By Thanksgiving I was hanging out with the girls in Tuscaloosa and by Christmas I was married.
My wife got pregnant right off the bat so in February of '88 we went up to Michigan to unload our merchandise and then took a little honeymoon down to Key West.
On September 14, 1988, my son Christopher was born in Druid City Hospital so for the past 20 years I've been concentrating on raising him making sure that he was able to travel every summer. He's been to a National Scout Jamboree near Washington, D.C., sailed around Abaco Island in the Bahamas, canoed the boundary waters between Minnesota & Ontario, hiked Philmont, camped on the Ontario side of Lake Superior, visited New Mexico with one of his buddies, hiked portions of the Appalachian and attended many national and regional Order of the Arrow meetings as far away as Oklahoma, Iowa State University and Michigan State University.
I've published a bunch of articles on Alabama history and have traveled a lot in South Alabama & Northwest Florida doing research. On one trip from Tuscaloosa to Panama City Beach, I checked my trip meter on my speedometer and saw that we'd traveled 996 miles one way from Tuscaloosa to the beach.
2008 finds me opening an entirely new chapter of my life.
I still have my health so I'm looking forward to all the challenges my new life will bring.
I've still got plenty to accomplish but at least I can be thankful that
I'VE HAD A DAMN GOOD RUN SO FAR!
The main thing I do for Pake Realty is keep the houses rented to Section 8 tenants maintained to HUD standards. I do the work plus I hire others when needed. I do all kinds of plumbing and electrical work but I also clean & paint. Whatever is needed~ that's what I do.
I taught high school science (mainly Biology) for 19 years. I taught in Ecuador, Tuscaloosa, New Orleans, Carrollton, AL , Midfield, AL and Birmingham. I was also an adjunct faculty member @ Bevill State Community College in Fayette for seven years. I quit teaching in '97 and started working for Pake Realty in '99. I have a B.S. from Bama ('72 -major: Psych , minor: Biology) and an M.A. in Education from Bama ('77 concentration in Biology). I also did some work on a PhD.
My wife of over 22 yrs., Sharon (native of Northport), passed away January 30, 2010. We started dating in the summer of '72 but didn't get married until December of '87. We have a 22 yr. old son, Christopher, who lives in Northport. He has his own home repair business and he has earned certificates in Welding, Diesel Mechanics and Industrial Electronics Technology from Shelton State Community College in Tuscaloosa. He will begin working on a machine shop certificate @ Shelton State this fall. We are very close and talk to each other every day. We also work together some days and we take a couple of vacations together each year. He's my best bud & it would be tough for me to leave Tuscaloosa because I would miss him so much.
Call me sometime 205-657-7724
Best,
Robert
Here are some of my other blogs:
http://rockpilgrimage.
http://atlasofalabama.
http://academicshithead.
The sample of my play, WELCOME TO THE COTTON KINGDOM is @
http://cottonkingdom.blogspot.
The sample of my novel, SNAKE DOCTOR is @
http://snakedoctor.blogspot.
http://www.myspace.com/
http://www.myspace.com/
http://www.facebook.com/
BEST,
ROBERTOREG
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