Autobiography Chapter 1 - "Autobiography of a Nobody"

Autobiography Chapter 1
by Paul Pakusch

PROLOGUE

     It’s conceivable that I could change clothes four times in one day.  I might wake up to put on jeans and a t-shirt to drive my school bus.  After the morning run, I’ll change to a men’s suit so I can officiate a wedding.  Then I’ll change to jeans and a t-shirt again.  When the afternoon bus run is complete, I’ll put on an authentic Civil War uniform and march in a parade, playing my rope snare drum well into the evening.

CHAPTER 1 – AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A NOBODY

     As an avid reader of biographies, it has always struck me as quirky that people would gravitate to biographies of historical figures or celebrities.  Reading a historical biography makes a lot of sense.  It’s how you learn what influenced or shaped the course of history.  Celebrities are generally egomaniacs that sell their stories to make a buck, or someone else trying to make a buck off their story. (So, what does that make me, since I’m writing my autobiography?)

     One of my favorite biographies is “On Hitler’s Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood,” by Imgard A. Hunt.  It’s a fascinating story of her youth as she lived a short distance from Berchtesgaden.  She lived a seemingly simple childhood but with constant exposure to history.  At first she was under the influence of Hitler’s propaganda, but later became skeptical.  Never a celebrity or a powerful figure of history, Imgard shares the story of her life in a historical setting, one that could have been told by thousands of other people in similar situations.

     Another favorite biography written by Violet Jessop, an ocean liner stewardess who survived two famous ship sinkings:  The Titanic in 1912 and the Brittanic in 1916.  She was never successful at publishing a book during her lifetime but her niece found her manuscript and had it published long after her death.  Obviously capitalizing on the resurgence of all things Titanic after the 1997 movie came out.  In the book, she talks not only of the two sinkings, but of what life was life in the cruise ship industry in the early 1900’s.

     In both cases, these were not historical figures, nor were they celebrities.  Just ordinary people living in extraordinary circumstances.

     So, what am I?  I’m not a historical figure nor am I a celebrity.  The title of this chapter jokingly implies I’m a nobody, yet I’m writing my autobiography.  Part of the reason I did this was for therapy.  I was going through a divorce when I started writing this, a very difficult time in my life.  I never saw it coming.  I was under the impression we had the perfect marriage.  Maybe we did for a quarter century, but then we drifted apart.  I’m middle-aged and was starting over again.  In counseling to deal with the breakup of my marriage, it was suggested that I keep busy.  It was also suggested by my nephew, Matthew Martino that I write a book about the many experiences I’ve had in my life. I’m proud of those experiences and I’m happy to share them with people who want to read about them in my blog.  And while writing my autobiography, it  gave me something to do.

     This first chapter will be a timeline of my life up to now, highlighting those experiences.  Subsequent chapters will give further details of those different experiences.  This format will allow the reader to first get an overview of all I’ve done, and then be able to read in depth about the experiences that interest them and skip the chapters they are not interested in.

     Many of my memories have been preserved in journals and letters that I’ve written on and off since freshman year in high school.  In my first English class, we had an assignment to start each class by writing in a journal.  I continued my journal writing when I got involved in my first band.  Then letters to my friend Burt after he moved away and we continued our friendship in a pen pal-like relationship.  I saved all those letters.

     My girlfriend Mary, who later became my wife, and I wrote a lot to each other in our early years.  I’ve  kept random journal entries on my computer.  I also sort of journalized a lot of my thoughts on an internet political forum for several years.

     I’m using a lot of these letters and journals to help me remember what was going on at various stages of my life and of the activities I was involved in.

      

     My dad emigrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1955.  His parents had six children, five of whom came to the U.S.  They grew up in Nazi Germany and became refugees during the movement of German civilians from east to west.  My mother and her sister grew up in Rochester, New York, to parents who were also of German heritage.

     I grew up exposed to a lot of German culture, although I never learned the language.  I remember going to parties with German bands, early Oktoberfests in Rochester at the Hofbrau Haus on Lyell Avenue, and parties at the Labor Lyceum where a lot of other kids wore lederhosen.  I hated most of the German food as a child, but happily, my tastes changed and nowadays I enjoy a lot of it!

     If you read virtually any history of the 1960’s, you would think that every young person was a hippy and went to Woodstock, everyone protested the Vietnam war, and everyone was listening to psychedelic rock. That’s not how I remember it.
     I was born in 1960, so this period accounts for the first ten years of my life. I was doing what kids that age typically do. I occasionally saw long-haired teenagers called hippies, but most of what the sixties are known for was not a part of my life. Superman, Batman, comics, Bewitched, Adam-12 and the NASA rocket launches and recoveries were. I had a cool 5-speed Stingray bike that I rode constantly all over the neighborhood. I loved climbing trees; we had a couple of trees in our yard that were awesome for climbing. Eventually we put a rope swing on one. My parents listened to country music of the day and so did I.
     I remember President Johnson. I didn’t really understand who he was or what he did, just that “President Johnson” had a nice ring to it and couldn’t imagine saying “President-anybody-else”. I was too young to remember Kennedy. I once asked my mom what I was doing when the word of his assassination came on TV. She told me I was playing in the living room. She remembered Walter Cronkite breaking down on TV, so I guess I must’ve seen that. On November 22, 1963 I was a few weeks away from my third birthday. I do remember watching the episode of Bewitched in 1968 that was interrupted by a news bulletin about Martin Luther King being shot. Before then, I didn't know who he was. I also remember watching the long train ride of Robert Kennedy's funeral on TV and my mom crying.
     My first big interest was magic.  When I was in third grade, we had a school assembly where a magician did a performance.  I was spellbound!  Pun intended!  At first I believed everything he was doing really was magic.  After that, I learned that there were tricks and secrets to what he was doing.  I started borrowing books from the library about magic tricks and purchased some magic sets.  That interest lasted several years and then eventually faded away.  By my early teens, music was becoming the most important part of my life.

     In November of 1971, my mother signed me up to join the Greece Cadets Drum & Bugle Corps.  She had seen a clip in the newspaper that they were recruiting new members.  The day she took me in the first time, I met the director, Dale Bond.  I didn’t play a music instrument at that time so he asked me if I wanted to learn drums or horns.  Without giving it any thought, I blurted out, “Drums.”

     That single, impulsive decision has been the catalyst for just about everything I’ve done in my life since then, and it has affected untold numbers of other people.   In 1975, to further my drum education, my mother signed me up for lessons on a drum set.  That led to my forming a band in 1978 with a group of Greece Athena students.  I went to Greece Arcadia at the time.  Most of our rehearsals were in my basement, which meant my sisters and their friends got to meet these Athena students.  This is something I think about from time to time and it still boggles my mind.  Who knows if they would have met otherwise?  Friendships, relationships and families formed and many of these people still socialize on a regular basis.  Because of my drumming, I’ve joined other bands through my life, met more people, and have formed friendships with many of them.  I’ve introduced some of these people who have met other people and formed more friendships.  It’s just really interesting for me to think about how I impacted other people’s lives.

     In 1974, I was invited along with about 10 or 12 other members of the Greece Cadets to appear on a local TV show in Rochester named after the host, “Louise.”  The purpose was to promote a show that we had coming up.  We entered the studios of WOKR Channel 13 and I was intrigued by all the TV equipment.  I wanted to see more.  I wrote to one of the news anchors, Don Alhart, and inquired whether I could come and visit to watch them do a newscast.  I made several visits, both to WOKR, and also to the two other affiliate stations in town, WHEC Channel 10 and WROC Channel 8.  My career began in high school radio in September, 1975 when I joined WGMC radio in Greece, NY, when I was 14.  That led to both part-time and full-time radio jobs through the next few years at WEZO/WNYR, WPXY/WPXN in Rochester, WJJB in Hyde Park, and WSAY in Rochester.  I was heavily involved in college radio & TV at SUNY Geneseo from 1979-1983, at WGBC-AM, WGSU-FM, and GSTV.  In the summer of 1982, I worked at WROC TV 8 and then WHEC TV 10.  My career at WHEC lasted from August, 1982 to September, 2014.

      In 1973, my family was vacationing in Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire, where I saw a sign advertising seaplane rides.  No one else wanted to go for a ride, but I convinced my parents to let me go.  So I did.  I’ll never forget the feeling of transitioning from skimming across the water to floating in air as the seaplane lifted off from the water.  In 1978, I had an opportunity to fly again, with a neighbor who was taking flying lessons.  My next flight occurred in 1984 when Mary and I flew to Florida for our honeymoon.  It was during that trip that I determined I wanted to take flying lessons.  I couldn’t afford them until 1990, but in the intervening years, I subscribed to aviation magazines and read everything I could possibly find about flying.  I passed my flight test in September of 1991.

     I met Mary at college in a folk dance class in 1981 and we quickly became college sweethearts.  We married in 1984 and had three girls; Kristi in 1986, Tracy in 1988, and Melissa in 1991.  I was so in love with my family and imagined that we would always be close.  My relationship with Mary was so passionate; I couldn’t believe we would ever drift apart, and I always felt like we were a model of how a marriage should be.  Mary survived a Sudden Cardiac Arrest in 2006.  She nearly died in my arms.  She is now in the “5% Club.”  Only 5% of people survive what she went through.

     In 1985 I became a union officer.  This was a pivotal moment for me as it led me into experiences that I never dreamt would occur.  It not only exposed me to the whole labor movement, but also introduced me to bookkeeping and accounting.  I was my Local’s treasurer for a good part of the next 30 years.  That led me into getting an accounting degree, bookkeeping experience, and starting up my own tax preparation business.

     Also around 1985, I tried my luck with a DJ business.  I got a few gigs but quickly lost interest.

     Travel is a recurring theme throughout my life.  I’m addicted to travel and can never get enough.  In 1995, we took our first family trip to Disney World.  That led to quite an association with Disney, as we got my sisters and my mother to join us on a big family trip in 1999.  We’ve had more group trips since then, and ultimately my nephew and then Kristi ended up working for Disney in the college program.  In 2004, we took our first cruise.  It was a 9-night Western Caribbean cruise and I fell head over heels in love with cruising!  I loved it so much that I decided to try selling travel, with an emphasis on cruises.  I became a home based travel agent for about four years.

     In 2014, coincidentally just about the time I lost my job at WHEC, I signed up to become a Wedding Officiant.  It’s turned out to be the biggest success story of all my side ventures.   Also in 2014, as a direct result of losing my TV job, I decided to try out as a school bus driver.  These are two paths that I never pictured myself taking, but together they have become my new life.  Neither one of them earns me enough to live on, but together, they are now what I do for a living.  I thoroughly enjoy both!

Subsequent entries to my autobiography series will be posted every Thursday morning until further notice.  If you wish to subscribe to notifications of my posts, please enter your e-mail address in the form at the right, under "Follow by e-mail."