BK2011
Distinguished member
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2011
- Messages
- 201
- Reason
- PALS
- Diagnosis
- 06/2011
- Country
- US
- State
- Florida
- City
- Clearwater
Grew up in a rural area and use to ride my bike behind a DDT fogger truck in the late fifties, early sixties. Started working in fields picking water melons at twelve. Next summer picked melons and tobacco. Kept that up until 16. I have no idea what insecticides were in use then. Played football from 12-21 (peewee league thru college). Most of my football was as a linebacker; busted webbing out of several helmets. In a college game found myself in the other teams huddle, ref took me out of the game, sat out a series of downs and got sent back into the game. Twenty four years in the Coast Guard; started driving ships then went to flight school and spent the vast majority of my career flying helicopters. After that life was pretty routine. Eight years as a Product Manager then Senior Purchasing Manager (read that stuck staring at a computer) for a technology distributor. Then partnered with my brother-in-law in our own business selling high end gas and charcoal grills (Max, I think you're familiar with the Big Green Egg; We sold more BGE's than any other store in Florida at least from 2006-2012). Mostly retail sales but my brother-in-law did the marketing and I did the physical stuff like unloading semi's, building grills and delivering appliances to our customers. One of my first heads up as to having ALS was dropping small nuts and bolts as I assembled grills and my brother-in-law asking me "what's your problem, you're dropping stuff all the time." Got to the point I couldn't keep up with my part of the partnership and I retired for good.
BK
BK