I spent 20 years in the navy as a cryptologist (okay, 3 of the 20 were on recruiting duty in southern Illinois). I served in Spain, Panama, Scotland, and Florida. Served on 5 aircraft carriers, 3 cruisers and 2 destroyers on temporary duty and 1 additional destroyer for a full tour (during the first Gulf war.
Retired from active duty June, 1996 and started a piano tuning business part-time. It eventually became full-time and I've been honored to tune for big guys coming through Springfield. (Doc Severinson, Lou Rawls, B.B. King, Arlo Guthrie, and some world class classical folk.)
I'm not tuning at the theatre anymore but am still at one of the universities here and all of the public high schools, middle schools and elementaries.
I tried selling life insurance for a while but it was no where the fun of piano tuning.
Zaphoon