CLASS OF |
Catalina High School, Tucson, Arizona, USA |
Your Humble Webmaster Writes... |
Winter, 2007 It's great to be back. In May we sold our retail stores in Nevada and in August, 2007 I moved back to Tucson. I was away for 42 years. In 1965 I graduated from the U of A. I put myself through school by disc jockeying at KTKT radio. After getting my diploma I decided to start up the ladder to broadcast management and that meant moving to Phoenix and starting in our sister station's sales department. I packed my car and U-Haul trailer with a few sticks of furniture and my new, pregnant wife, and waved goodbye to the Old Pueblo, off to make my fortune in the big city. After 7 years in Phoenix radio and TV it finally dawned on me that I would just never make it working for somebody else. I guess as an only child I just couldn't stand to have anybody tell me what to do. The politics of corporate advancement were things I just couldn't understand. So, I quit, started the first of a bunch of different businesses, left Phoenix for Nevada in 1993 and....yada, yada, yada, now I'm back. The wife is gone and the U-Haul trailer turned into a Penske truck, but other than that nothing else has changed. My Dad still lives here...just a few blocks away. He's 91 and can take care of me in my declining years. When I left here, Tucson had a population of 200,000. Now it's 800,000. But, it seems the same. Still as charming as it once was. I bet you guys who stayed here don't appreciate what you've got. It takes a few years in Phoenix and Las Vegas (both have turned into mini-Los Angeleses) to REALLLLY love Tucson. It almost feels like I never even left. I have coffee once a week with my old KGUN-TV boss Larry Schnebly and a group of other old geezers from the media-past. Jack Parris, Bob Lee, Art Waller, Jake Crellin, Jim Arnold, Jack Jacobson (remember Dr. Scar?). Burt Schneider and I are still buddies and have frequent discussions eschewing the state of broadcasting. I still see Frank and George Kalil. I took my dad to a U of A basketball game and I saw some familiar faces: Nate Foster, Jim Sakrison, Pete Hand, and Mike Nagle. And, there are a zillion connections. Serving dinner at Christmas to the homeless at the Salvation Army, I discovered that a fellow server was Cathy Burneo's sister Marilyn. Bert Roberts called me up to just say hi the other day. I could go on and on. It's just great to be back home. I live in the Oro Valley area, but I am always up for a cup of Starbucks anywhere in town. Give me a call: (520) 797-2405. Ray LIndstrom Your Humble Webmaster PS: Don't forget, I need your continuing input for maintaining this website. Let me know what you're doing. |
