David J. Pauli
General Information:
School Activities:
Senior Year - Cafeteria Worker
David J. Pauli
MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES
(blessing or curse?)
I was shy at CHS (most classmates do not remember me, I'm sure) and that has limited my professional potential all my life. I could never perform well in any job dealing with the public.
I enlisted in the army after graduation, testing well enough to qualify for some choices. I chose air defense missiles and spent most of the next three years at the Nike-Hercules battery west of Marine, Illinois. Instead of dodging high velocity metal in Vietnam and R&R in Australia or Japan, I lived with nuclear warheads, spent weekends in Collinsville or St. Louis, with two one-week all expenses paid vacations to fascinating MacGregor Range in southern New Mexico including side trips to El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. I got to participate in firing four missiles at target drones and witnessing dozens more. Believe me, Fourth of July fireworks cannot compare. Conversely, nor does combat, so combat vets have my full respect and support.
In the army, I also bought my first of many motorcycles. I attended many races, but never raced. I likewise never was an 'outlaw biker', never used tobacco, alcohol or drugs and am still tatoo-free, although I have picked up a few minor scars here and there. Wear a helmet!
Leaving the army, and home, I moved to the beaches of Southern California. I let my hair grow, but I was NOT a hippy - I was a mediocre surfer and motorcyclist. I worked as a tool maker at McDonnell-Douglas in Long Beach twice, learning that it takes good timing to make it in a boom-or-bust industry. I then worked at many jobs in many cities (StL, MSP, Nashville, Grand Rapids) doing carpentry, building furniture, pasteurizing milk, repairing motorcycles, and driving. I worked as deckhand on towboats in St. Paul and married in Minneapolis.
Along the way, I was exposed to graphic design, which I decided to make my career. I enrolled in a trade/tech college, returned to SoCal, worked for a motorcycle newspaper twice and for a chemical company for 22 years, designing labels, brochures and ads and photographing products for ads and catalogs. When the chemical company shut down and I found a tight job market for degree-less middle-aged starving artists, I went free-lance.
With those varied jobs have come some rare experiences. How many people can say they've touched solid rocket fuel, touched nuclear warheads(!), written their initials on a bulkhead of Hugh Hefner's DC-9, walked through the tail engine nacelle of a DC-10, steered a towboat pushing barges, been down inside a barge(!), turned raw wood into fine furniture, had a boss talk a judge into dismissing a speeding ticket, dined with TV and movie stars? That's on top of having a mule, a shetland pony and a squirrel monkey as childhood pets, and run on and jumped from boxcar to boxcar as a teen.
I also helped raise some great kids. The best experience of all, surely, was witnessing my daughter's birth. I began writing stories for her, my adopted son and myself and gradually spent more and more time writing. I have created a series of animated motorcycle safety cartoons, written quite a few poems, some short stories and one novel set among the Cahokia Mounds and surroundings.
Lately, I ride my current motorcycle in the Southern California mountains at every opportunity, photograph scenery and struggle with the creative process, frustrated that my Muse takes her sweet time helping me finish my next story.
I have lived in interesting times, and by reading this telling, have lived an interesting life. Blessing or curse? I can get really depressed if I dwell on my divorce or the end of later long-term relationships, or the fact that my kids live far away, or that I'm saddled with a house I no longer love in a poor real estate market . . . or psoriatic arthritis.
But it's a sunny morning. I can go outside and walk around a fairly nice neighborhood (much nicer than where I began), maybe even ride down to the beach. Maybe today someone else will read my novel. And just maybe my Muse will whisper, 'write this:'
Blessing!
David J. Pauli
I am author of a number of short stories and poems, and now my first novel, available as an eBook on Amazon.com. Kindle not needed! Amazon has FREE apps allowing downloads to computers (printable!), tablets, even smart phones! 'The Fetish Of The Sun God' is priced at only $2.99 - Short Story Collection coming soon.
David J. Pauli
"I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.” W. Somerset Maugham