The Early Years

I grew up in Central Pennsylvania, specifically, in State College, Pennsylvania (yes, that's the name of the town), in essentially the geographical center of the state.

State College is home to the main campus of Penn State University (once the Pennsylvania State College; long, long ago, the Farmers' High School - there wasn't much town back then). State College is also home to the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, a 5-day event that occurs every July.

We lived in a 3-story duplex my folks moved into a few months before I was born. At first, they rented out the whole third floor, and the first and second floor on the "other side", to students. When I was in about 3rd grade, we stopped renting the third floor and took that over as family space. Some years later we also took over the first floor apartment, giving my dad an office and the family a first-floor guest room. The second floor apartment remained until my folks moved out of that house.

We always had a dog and a cat: the same cat for most of the time I lived at home, but two different dogs. The cat was mine (or I was hers, it's difficult to tell). I don't remember much about the first dog; the second dog was first and foremost my mother's dog.

I went to elementary school in a nice old brick building (the former high school) several blocks from my house. Then on to junior high and high school. I played in the band (concert band and marching band), attended all the football games (with the band; I don't much care for football), joined the Thespians in my junior year and was Props crew head my senior year, and took all the science courses I could cram into my schedule. That about covers it.