Happy 5th of July. We saw our weather transform from hot and humid to cool and dry in the space of 12 hours. Today the weather is nearly perfect in the Lehigh Valley.
In the unlikely event that anyone is interested in learning a bit about me, I am writing a brief biographical sketch. I was born 6 months before John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election. I was born in New York City. I do not remember meeting my biological parents because they gave me up for adoption after I was born. Thirty days after my birth I was adopted by two wonderful people from New Jersey who had been trying for years to have their own children. My father was 39 and my mom was 33 when they became my parents. Unlike many adopted children these days, I never searched out my biological parents. I do not have any regrets about that.
I grew up as the only child of my parents. Over the years I have learned that only children often develop personalities and traits that are very different from people who were raised with siblings. There are many, many books on the subject of birth order so I will not attempt to describe all of the ways in which only children differ from children who have brothers and sisters. Suffice it to say that I find it much easier to be alone than to be in the company of others. This makes all relationships challenging, as you might expect.
I grew up in a very wealthy bedroom community in central New Jersey. My parents were comfortable financially but also extremely frugal. They were both children of the Great Depression. They spent very little and almost always chose to repair things rather than replace them. My dad owned his own business and worked with his hands. He and my mom were college sweethearts from Cornell University. Mom was in charge of all things financial and dad was the one who made his business successful. They both worked hard but also had a fun social life. We spent most summer weekends at our house on the New Jersey shore.
Reading came very easily to me. My parents were very good about reading stories to me as I sat in their laps. Eventually, sometime before my 3rd birthday, I began reading on my own. In kindergarten I was given a reading test. The teachers said I was reading on a 6th grade level. I attended public schools in our community through the 8th grade. As I was preparing to go to high school, my parents became very worried about "racial tensions" and well-publicized incidents of race-related violence in our public high school. So they decided I should go to a private school in our area. I applied to and was accepted by The Lawrenceville School. At that time it was an all boys' school with about 500 boarding students and 200 day students. I would be a day student as we lived less than 4 miles from campus. I struggled during my 9th grade year since I had been accustomed to coasting through 7th and 8th grade with minimal effort in middle school. By 10th grade my grades began to improve but, sadly, that was also the year I discovered substance abuse.
To be continued...,
(Edited 9/25/19)
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