Play the Dr. Evil theme song (by the group "They might be giants" a favorite of mine) while reading to get the full effect.
OK, a little about me to establish perspective. I have printed it elsewhere and liked it enough to kind of keep it rather than re-invent the wheel.
My Life, a synopsis
My early life was one of privilege. I born in Berlin Germany in a very well to do family and was extremely comfortable physically. My father was always elsewhere working in Asia mostly, so most of younger years were spent with my mother and grandmother in our home in Berlin. To me Berlin is one of those great and tragic cities in the world that held a greatness that still echoes today. It was the cultural center of Europe at the beginning of the 20th century and I would hear my grandfather (grandmothers second husband) tell me all of the stories about cultural life and the influences of artists and writers that preferred Germany's open culture to some of the more stodgy cities (including Paris). I went to a private school that was specifically for the well off and had the best of a multicultural upbringing. The school was a boarding school for the upper class in which roommates rotated and I had Arabic, French, and American companions that were counted as my friends (some I still keep in touch with). My father was mostly in Asia working for the state department. He spoke and I believe wrote several Asian dialects and spoke them fluently. I do know he spoke Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese. He learned German in roughly 30 days to date my mother, he was smitten. I wish I had my fathers proclivity for languages, it certainly would have made for a more interesting life with different opportunities.
A bit about my father, who I did not know well at all until my 12th birthday. He was born of poorer stock than my mothers family (that will be the greatest understatement of this thread). In the Appalachian hills, he was the seventh son of the seventh son in a family that bore two sets of twins, eleven children total. In that region there were two options, the military, or the coal mine. At 15 he lied about his age to get into the military and out of the coal mine because his official learning stopped at 15 so he could bring in income to his family. He joined just in time for the Korean conflict and was actually part of the battalion that had made it to the Yalu river before hundreds of thousands of Chinese crossed that frozen river causing the largest retreat in the history of the US. One thing he did do during those years was pick up Korean, and quickly. To such an extent that he was quickly pulled from the normal ranks and given "different" responsibilities. He was sent to a special school in California during those years for intense learning in languages and excelled at these. Later he became one of the original Vietnam advisors before the army began moving in after the Tet offensive. Later he worked with Kissinger on the China talks, still in the military but assigned to assist the diplomatic corps. I bring this up for two reasons, I am incredibly proud of my father, and it would also cause a schism in the family.
By the way, dad was a died in the wool communist, loyal to his country but sure that workers would one day tire of oppression and rise up to kick the bastards out. He had good reason for feeling that way. Unions allowed a jump in pay in that region of VA. Pay was approximately ten cents an acre of coal dug, and not just dug, but useable coal. Unions raised that to a ton of mined coal. Coal companies were very hard on families, they stole the land (some of which has been tied up in litigation for almost 100 years), they oppressed the attempts at collective bargaining and company stores kept a certain level of servitude and indebtedness that created a type of serfdom for the area. My mothers family never knew that part of him, it was not politic to speak of such things in mixed company.
Anyway upon my 11th birthday my father decided it was time for us to go to America next year (I had been there before but only for a short time and never to meet my fathers family). In that year I ran away from home with my cousin to Morocco which actually got Interpol involved because at that time Germany suffered from the Baadar Meinhof gang and other East German sponsored terrorist groups. I don't think I was ever in worse trouble with my father then than ever before or after, he actually flew back from Asia.
So here goes this city boy, who also wore leather britches as an optional fashion statement, among what could only be called the cast of "Deliverance". My first month there I was beat up too many times, for making a better grade in school, for talking funny (I had an accent then), for looking funny, for being a momma�s boy, and so on. I was taken "snipe" hunting where I did not get back for well over a day, and I was beaten up because I thought I was better than they were (that part was true). Finally I toughened up, lost my accent, and learned how to be "one of the guys". I learned to hunt, shoot, make moonshine, listen and appreciate old time bluegrass and our Sunday mornings were spent listening to Gospel Sing on a TV that got one channel if we were lucky. Gospel Sing was a variety show for blue grass music that was sponsored by the "Huff Cook" funeral home which wanted to put the fun back in funeral (that was a slogan they did use, especially for those partial to Irish wakes).
Dad went back to the mines, but this time with an eye for representing the unions. I learned more about reading and analyzing union contracts at that time than I dare say most negotiators knew. Certainly more than the Union President at the time. Sam Church was a tobacco chewing good old boy that wore bib overalls but couldn't negotiate himself out of a traffic ticket much less a strike, I think that was a low point for the UMWA. Years later my father was one of the key supporters for Trumka. He regrets the UMWA joining with the AFL CIO though because he considers the organization corrupt, and with reason.
Dinner at our house was always cold. Physically and emotionally. My father always maintained we could say anything we wanted to, but we had better damn well back it up with some facts. Our mother was of the same nature, though her method was infinitely more manipulative. So we kept an updated set of the encyclopedia Brittanica next to the dinner table ready for a quick reference. I wanted to beat my father so badly that I began reading the entire set of secondary encyclopedias we kept upstairs for our homework, to this day I remember it, World Scope encyclopedia. Not of the level Brittanica had but still a good read for a little kid of 13. Surprisingly enough I learned that Bill and Hillary Clinton raised their child in much the same way.
At sixteen my parents divorced. The difference between an aristocratic (and manipulative mother) and an intelligent but cold and distant father was too wide for them to work out. The divorce was acrimonious with my father yelling and stern and my mother manipulating us children with both guilt and anger. My brothers were really too young to do anything about it, but I wasn�t. I went to court to become an emancipated youth. Both my parents thought I would soon see how "tough" the world was and return to them. They felt that when I returned humbled I would be more "pliable" to one or the other. As an emancipated youth I had no rights to support from either parent and the judge stated that he would watch both my well being and grades (a small VA town the judge knew both my parents). I never looked back, got an apartment, barely made enough to live on, and more than once skipped a few meals to make ends meet. The rent had to be paid and I would turn off the electricity so that I could cover that. It was tough but doable.
OK, a little about me to establish perspective. I have printed it elsewhere and liked it enough to kind of keep it rather than re-invent the wheel.
My Life, a synopsis
My early life was one of privilege. I born in Berlin Germany in a very well to do family and was extremely comfortable physically. My father was always elsewhere working in Asia mostly, so most of younger years were spent with my mother and grandmother in our home in Berlin. To me Berlin is one of those great and tragic cities in the world that held a greatness that still echoes today. It was the cultural center of Europe at the beginning of the 20th century and I would hear my grandfather (grandmothers second husband) tell me all of the stories about cultural life and the influences of artists and writers that preferred Germany's open culture to some of the more stodgy cities (including Paris). I went to a private school that was specifically for the well off and had the best of a multicultural upbringing. The school was a boarding school for the upper class in which roommates rotated and I had Arabic, French, and American companions that were counted as my friends (some I still keep in touch with). My father was mostly in Asia working for the state department. He spoke and I believe wrote several Asian dialects and spoke them fluently. I do know he spoke Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese. He learned German in roughly 30 days to date my mother, he was smitten. I wish I had my fathers proclivity for languages, it certainly would have made for a more interesting life with different opportunities.
A bit about my father, who I did not know well at all until my 12th birthday. He was born of poorer stock than my mothers family (that will be the greatest understatement of this thread). In the Appalachian hills, he was the seventh son of the seventh son in a family that bore two sets of twins, eleven children total. In that region there were two options, the military, or the coal mine. At 15 he lied about his age to get into the military and out of the coal mine because his official learning stopped at 15 so he could bring in income to his family. He joined just in time for the Korean conflict and was actually part of the battalion that had made it to the Yalu river before hundreds of thousands of Chinese crossed that frozen river causing the largest retreat in the history of the US. One thing he did do during those years was pick up Korean, and quickly. To such an extent that he was quickly pulled from the normal ranks and given "different" responsibilities. He was sent to a special school in California during those years for intense learning in languages and excelled at these. Later he became one of the original Vietnam advisors before the army began moving in after the Tet offensive. Later he worked with Kissinger on the China talks, still in the military but assigned to assist the diplomatic corps. I bring this up for two reasons, I am incredibly proud of my father, and it would also cause a schism in the family.
By the way, dad was a died in the wool communist, loyal to his country but sure that workers would one day tire of oppression and rise up to kick the bastards out. He had good reason for feeling that way. Unions allowed a jump in pay in that region of VA. Pay was approximately ten cents an acre of coal dug, and not just dug, but useable coal. Unions raised that to a ton of mined coal. Coal companies were very hard on families, they stole the land (some of which has been tied up in litigation for almost 100 years), they oppressed the attempts at collective bargaining and company stores kept a certain level of servitude and indebtedness that created a type of serfdom for the area. My mothers family never knew that part of him, it was not politic to speak of such things in mixed company.
Anyway upon my 11th birthday my father decided it was time for us to go to America next year (I had been there before but only for a short time and never to meet my fathers family). In that year I ran away from home with my cousin to Morocco which actually got Interpol involved because at that time Germany suffered from the Baadar Meinhof gang and other East German sponsored terrorist groups. I don't think I was ever in worse trouble with my father then than ever before or after, he actually flew back from Asia.
So here goes this city boy, who also wore leather britches as an optional fashion statement, among what could only be called the cast of "Deliverance". My first month there I was beat up too many times, for making a better grade in school, for talking funny (I had an accent then), for looking funny, for being a momma�s boy, and so on. I was taken "snipe" hunting where I did not get back for well over a day, and I was beaten up because I thought I was better than they were (that part was true). Finally I toughened up, lost my accent, and learned how to be "one of the guys". I learned to hunt, shoot, make moonshine, listen and appreciate old time bluegrass and our Sunday mornings were spent listening to Gospel Sing on a TV that got one channel if we were lucky. Gospel Sing was a variety show for blue grass music that was sponsored by the "Huff Cook" funeral home which wanted to put the fun back in funeral (that was a slogan they did use, especially for those partial to Irish wakes).
Dad went back to the mines, but this time with an eye for representing the unions. I learned more about reading and analyzing union contracts at that time than I dare say most negotiators knew. Certainly more than the Union President at the time. Sam Church was a tobacco chewing good old boy that wore bib overalls but couldn't negotiate himself out of a traffic ticket much less a strike, I think that was a low point for the UMWA. Years later my father was one of the key supporters for Trumka. He regrets the UMWA joining with the AFL CIO though because he considers the organization corrupt, and with reason.
Dinner at our house was always cold. Physically and emotionally. My father always maintained we could say anything we wanted to, but we had better damn well back it up with some facts. Our mother was of the same nature, though her method was infinitely more manipulative. So we kept an updated set of the encyclopedia Brittanica next to the dinner table ready for a quick reference. I wanted to beat my father so badly that I began reading the entire set of secondary encyclopedias we kept upstairs for our homework, to this day I remember it, World Scope encyclopedia. Not of the level Brittanica had but still a good read for a little kid of 13. Surprisingly enough I learned that Bill and Hillary Clinton raised their child in much the same way.
At sixteen my parents divorced. The difference between an aristocratic (and manipulative mother) and an intelligent but cold and distant father was too wide for them to work out. The divorce was acrimonious with my father yelling and stern and my mother manipulating us children with both guilt and anger. My brothers were really too young to do anything about it, but I wasn�t. I went to court to become an emancipated youth. Both my parents thought I would soon see how "tough" the world was and return to them. They felt that when I returned humbled I would be more "pliable" to one or the other. As an emancipated youth I had no rights to support from either parent and the judge stated that he would watch both my well being and grades (a small VA town the judge knew both my parents). I never looked back, got an apartment, barely made enough to live on, and more than once skipped a few meals to make ends meet. The rent had to be paid and I would turn off the electricity so that I could cover that. It was tough but doable.
