Below is the Biography that I have on ClassMates.com.This is a "Tongue-in-Cheek" Bio I wrote for my old high school classmates.
Woefully underprepared and blissfully ignorant of the real-world’s challenges, we were the shiny graduates of Laurel High School’s class of 1981. We were ready for ... absolutely nothing ... zip - zero- nada.
“If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.”
Oh, did I have big, big plans. Here’s how my story has played out so far ...
I planned to crank out a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland and get my Second-Lieutenant Commission as a pilot in the US Air Force. Sometime while dashing between clouds, I’d marry, we’d have our 2.4 children, and train our scrappy dog to fetch my pipe, slippers, and newspaper. Twenty years later, after our kids left for college, the missus and I would enjoy our retirement years in Boca. Yep, I had it all figured out.
Honestly, there were several times over the years that I swear I heard the rumblings of distant laughter. Wearing glasses doomed me to a career in the Air Force as either an engineer or a navigator, both of which I’m lousy at doing. I left the U of Md in 1983 with my Honorable Discharge from the USAF. My life was going exactly as planned. Huh?
A few more months passed, and I knew it was time to let go of my dream of being the Master Chef of Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant in Laurel. Having transferred my Big Book of Life over to an Etch-A-Sketch, I packed my 1971 Chevy Kingswood Estate station wagon and toddled back down to good ol’ Florida. I stumbled into retail-store management right away.
Four years later, I leaped into my Mazda Rx-7 sports car (the matching ugly gold chain not included), and off to Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU), I dashed.
Confident my plan was now going well, I left my Etch-A-Sketch planner and took up a pencil and paper (always an eraser handy, of course).
Yeah, buddy! I was on the road to riches. I battled through undergraduate school, studied Japanese and Spanish languages, and was ready to rock the business world.
Finally, I was ready to put a Mont Blanc pen to parchment and draft my final Big Book of Life. I was accepted into Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Management (AGSIM) in 1990. This was the #1 international-management graduate school in the world. While there, I even earned a scholarship to study for a semester in Japan at a school near Mt. Fuji. Career plan? rock solid!
Did I mention that I was engaged by then? Yeah, back in 1989, Lisa and I met in MTSU’s *yawn* library. She instantly fell for my wit, charm, and dashing good looks. Studying at Thunderbird (over in Arizona) and Japan was a struggle, but, Lisa and I held on (a decision she most certainly regrets to this day). We were married in the Crystal Gazebo at Opryland Hotel (Nashville) in 1991 — just 3 months after we both graduated from our respective schools.
Into the Chevy Cavalier and Ryder rental truck, we climbed, eager to take on the world from Arizona. The bright folks among you realized that there was a lot of moving going on between Arizona and Tennessee back then. Yeah, I had the bright idea that we could find better-paying careers in a land-locked state closer to the West Coast than a land-locked state ... in the ... never mind, that wasn’t important. We were in love, and marching along to my spiffy, parchment-rich Big Book of Life. We moved to Arizona — into an apartment right down the road from Thunderbird.
... and smack into the midst of a full-on global recession. Out came the Etch-A-Sketch. Dusty and peppered with bullet holes, it still was ready to capture our latest life.
Lisa skipped right into a cute little teaching job in a cute little school. Me? After blowing all that money on six years of butt-kicking education, I had to go right back into retail-store management.
Oh, how I laughed and waved as I headed to and from work every day — right past Thunderbird. I say I waved. The police reports state I always had my middle finger extended as I drove by the ol’ alma mater.
Eighteen months later, with my tail firmly tucked between my legs, we skedaddled back to Tennessee in hopes of finding me an executive career.
Seven-hundred and fifty resumes later, I landed a marketing gig with an old, broken-down camera manufacturer on its way out of business. Guess what we did? Yep, packed up and moved to east-bumbles, not Cleveland, Tennessee. Nine months later, having helped permanently closed the camera manufacturer's doors, we were back in Nashville — the stench of Cleveland’s Bowater paper mill still stinging our noses.
Finally, along came the dream job. As a guitar player, I nearly peed myself when offered the job as a Product- & Marketing-Manager with Gibson Guitar Corporation! While working there, Lisa and I met THE Steven Tyler of Aerosmith (he drew a big heart on Lisa’s shoulder). Bustin’ full of fresh ideas, we marketing folks teamed up with the very cool sales-force and clobbered the bejeezus out of global sales targets. While we all were busy high-fiving each other, Gibson’s owners realized that the plant was unable to keep up, and we had two years of back orders in the system. Let go for doing too good of a job — seriously?! That’s exactly what happened.
Lisa earned her Masters degree in Mathematics Curriculum Design while remaining stably employed as a high-school math teacher. Me? I landed a prestigious, honorable, and high-paying job as the Trade Specialist for Tennessee’s state government. OK, so it wasn’t actually prestigious or well-paying, but it certainly was honora...ble. Well, it got me and the missus to lead a trade mission to Australia.
Australia is amazing! I’ve always loved the country. Our experiences during the trade mission convinced Lisa that Sydney was the place to live. So, guess what we did? Wait for it ...
Yes, we packed up and moved even deeper into the heart of Tennessee as I took a job in the transaction processing industry.
That was five years I’ll never get back. Not yet satisfied with settling down and sitting still.
Lisa and I believed it’d be wonderful to bring children of our own into the middle of our frequently chaotic lifestyle. We hit our Etch-A-Sketch of Life’s twisty knobs pretty hard. Was that thunder, or was it the roar of distant laughter?
We bought another Etch-A-Sketch as the first one mysteriously was demolished with my baseball bat. So, after feeding our money into a paper shredder (a.k.a. fertility clinic), we decided to adopt. Nobody tells us Pawlicks that we can’t do something! Wanna guess what we did?
Nope, we didn’t move, but we did trade in the Chevy Cavalier for a *sob* minivan. Within six years, we adopted twice from China, once from Guatemala, and once from that crazy country of Michigan.
As if this wasn’t unsettling enough, we became legal residents of Australia. Can you foretell what’s looming on the horizon? But wait, there’s more!
American Express hired me to develop business strategies within the Australasian/PacRim regions. Ah, the executive lifestyle at last! Did they relocate us to Sydney? Tokyo? Beijing? Some other exotic location? Nope, we were moved from Tennessee all the way back to — you guessed it — Phoenix, Arizona. Seriously?! Was that the sound of laughter?
I lasted only two years with AmEx before my eyesight finally failed. Yes, I am blind and have been for most of my life. I just didn’t know it.
I could see well enough to drive until I was 35– when I nearly plowed into the side of a massive cement-mixing truck. I didn’t see the thing until it was almost too late. I could still read novels written in 9-point font until I was 40. After that, my vision deteriorated rapidly. At 54, I can only see fuzzy, gray shadows. I use a cane and my wife’s arm to get around. I am well-trained with adaptive computer technologies. I’ve traveled the world several times by myself and with the family relying on not much more than my cane. I have Retinitis Pigmentosa, the same hereditary eye disease as Kenny Rogers. He doesn’t return my calls, by the way.
Did my li’l family of adrenaline junkies settle down? Heck no. After working for AmEx for two years, my eyesight finally crapped out, and I had to go onto disability.
Soon bored, we packed up and moved to Sydney, Australia. There’s that annoying laughter again.
We did all the geeky tourist stuff — bought the wide-brimmed hats, learned to speak ‘Strine (Australian), and visited every freakin’ zoo, beach, and aquarium between Sydney and Brisbane. Btw, the Sydney Harbour Bridge is Lisa’s favorite, while Sydney’s Opera House is mine. We even lived on an island off Australia’s east coast.
Would you believe that we moved back and forth between Australia and Tennessee 3 times with our 4 young kids in tow? Homesickness finally prevailed as we relocated back near Lisa’s parents in Tennessee for the final time. I had chucked my Etch-A-Sketch planner into the ocean before leaving Australia. Why did I no longer hear laughter?
For the last 6 years, we’ve been living in a suburb of Knoxville, Tennessee. All 4 kids are home-schooled because of that load of crap called “Common Core.” Bullying was also a big problem for us.
Well, we live in a region of the USA that is predominantly white with a sprinkling of Latino. Lisa and I are white, I use a cane, Lisa uses a walker, two of our kids are Chinese (one is missing most of his fingers), one is Latina, and one is black. We fit in everywhere and nowhere at the very same time. Being the Island of Misfit Toys has been fun, but adopting overseas and having a noticeably mixed-race family as its challenges. The laughter from above quieted a few years ago.
So, we’re probably settled — for now. Kids enjoy playing soccer, and one plays football. Our oldest graduates from high school this December (2018), three have, or had, braces, and three will have their driver’s licenses within a few months. Wheee! Teenagers ... you can’t live with them and ... sorry, that sums it up.
Still hopped up on Kool-Aid, Mountain Dew, and Red Bull, the 6 of us decided to remodel our home. We replaced all the carpeting and tile and painted every room. Lisa and I completely overhauled our master bathroom ourselves by taking out the useless garden tub, moving cabinets, installing windows, countertops, faucets & sinks, and lighting,. You bet I’m bragging — I’m blind and Lisa has a severe walking problem.
If we can do all this, anyone can. "We'll leave the light on for you." You either get on with living, or get on with dying, but either way, get on with it, right?!
That’s what I’ve been up to these last 37 years.
So, let me ask you ... What’s in YOUR wallet?
Have a Good Day!
~R.J. Pawlick
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