I was born a very old man. I spent several years that way until I decided that I had better experience childhood and it is a good thing I did because school was a much less expensive that way.

I was raised in central Minnesota in a family with 7 children, I am the youngest. My father was a Professor at St. John's University (SJU), Collegeville, Minnesota. My mother didn't have a job that paid money while I was child, but she got her master's degree in botany, and later went to work at Apollo High School and after that in the library at SJU.

Some of the highlights of when I was a child were:
The trips that we took around much of the USA in our green '66 Chevy impala station wagon. I often had to sit in the far-back seat which faced out the back window. I like to think that this helped to develop my odd way of looking at life. And I got a fair idea of size. Some people I talk to have no idea of just how big the USA is. It's huge; we drove for days and days and IT just goes on and on and on.

The 4th of July parade in St. Joseph, a nearby town. Almost always the same stuff every year, and it still does. After the parade there is a shindig in the church parking lot with a beer-tent, bingo, a band, a quilt-raffle and some rides for kids.

Trips out west to see our relatives in North Dakota were always a great adventure and seeing Uncle Gordon was very special, especially when he lived near an A & W where he could buy rootbeer by the gallon. Fishing on Eden Lake near Eden Valley, MN, was one of the formative activities of my youth. More about these things later.

We didn't have a TV for a long time, and even when we did we weren't able to watch it much. I do remember watching Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, and later President Nixon resign. Both of these events have stuck with me, playing a large role in my later life. I also remember watching old comedies on Sunday mornings, Laurel and Hardy, L'il Rascals, The Marx Bros. and a few others. I remember my dad laughing so hard he cried at the antics of Stan and Ollie.

Programs that affected me later on have been mainly productions from the BBC: Monty Python's Flying Circus, Dr. Who, Blake's 7, Red Dwarf, Good Neighbors, Secret Agent, The Prisoner, Are you being served? and just about anything else that came through the Public TV station down in the twin cities, when the reception was good enough.

I've always enjoyed fishing and when I was a boy I had a lot more time for it. My brother John and I used to get up at dawn and ride our bikes the mile up to Lake Sagatagan, on the grounds of St. John's Abbey. Once there we would fish until we had our limit, grew tired of trying or the time that Mom said we should be home at drew near. We usually caught bluegills but once in a while we would manage to get our hooks into a bass or northern pike. I still love to fish but have a lot less time for it than I used to.

About once a year I was allowed to stay for a week at my grandparents house, the parents of my mother. They lived on the shore of Eden Lake, near Eden Valley, MN. This was great because they really wouldn't let me do any work except mow the lawn, I was expected to fish as much as possible, and I once caught an 8½ northern (I know, I know, it's not that big. But the story of how I caught it is!), and another time a very large snapping turtle.

While I was staying at my Grandparent's I would occasionally go and visit my great Aunt Aurelia Heibel. She lived over the hill from my grandparent's house and she had a garden that I loved to spend hours in. The reason for this was that if one had very sharp eyes one could find the occasional arrowhead, pottery shard or other artifact leftover from an earlier culture that had dwelt on the land.

We would also take a trip almost every year out to North Dakota to my dad's home town, Montpelier (pronounced mont-pee-lee-er) There we would visit "the big rock" and look at leftover rings of stones from where Indians had had their teepees.

My parents always had a large garden. We had to help tend it. One of the perks of this was that once in a while we would find square nails. Apparently there used to be a building on the site, it must have burned down because we also found charred wood. These square nails were usually straight, about 5 inches long, and beautifully rusted. I collected them for years as did the other members of my family and I used some of them in my sculpture "American Fetish #1."

In the mid-1970's the highway near my parent's house was replaced by a 4-lane freeway, changing the neighborhood forever. But we were occasionally able to start and move the heavy equipment-what a rush for a kid!

Model Rockets are a rush too, I used to build them and was a member of the "Estes Aerospace Club" and I still love to watch kids launch 'em, although they don't seem to go as high as when I was a kid.

I participated in the cub scouts when I was in grade school, and later the webelos, the level that was in between cub and boy scouts. I also participated in 4-H and was club president one year and rather enjoyed it.

I started playing the baritone ukulele at the age of 7. This instrument is tuned like the four bottom strings on a guitar (if you are talking about looking at a guitar. If you are speaking about pitch, they are the 4 highest strings: D-G-B-E). As soon as my fingers were long enough I moved up to the guitar. My brother Paul is a master guitar player and my sisters all learned a bit at one time or another as did my mom, so I got it into my head that I should learn too. I had some piano lessons as well but they were way too structured and I didn't last long in them. We had some guitar lessons for a few months and they went a bit better. They didn't last long either, but I got enough out of them to work on my own. I saved my money until I could buy a John Denver song book, he was my favorite performer at the time. Then I worked from the chord diagrams provided and learned to strum the songs. Almost as soon as I could strum comfortably I started writing my own songs, something I continue to do to this day. But it has taken me a long time to learn to laugh about the John Denver thing.

Sometime in 1979 I started to work as a slave to a local Artist, Master Joe O'Connell. He taught me how to use chisels, make ink, print woodcuts, ...all sorts of artsy things. He also showed me how to live, and eventually how to die, with dignity. I worked for him regularly through high school and irregularly from that time until his death from esophageal cancer in October of 1995.

I went to Kennedy Elementary School in St. Joseph, MN. At the time that I started there it was an experimental "open" school, with few walls and lots of kids. I found it to be very distracting, and I am amazed that the idea of open schools is being toyed with again today. It may work for some people but I don't feel that it did much good for me.

I later attended John XXIII Middle School in St. Cloud, MN, which is where I learned what I needed to get me through college, the 4 years I spent at Apollo High School being spent learning other things, welding being one of them. At John XXIII the teacher who made the real difference for me was S. Clare Witzman, I was terrified of her in the 7^th grade and thought she was the greatest in 8^th, I still do.

At Apollo High School Virg Reilly was one of the Teachers that made a real difference, as did Bob Seiving. Steve Gerth should get a mention, too.

I attended St. John's University, Collegeville, MN. It took me 4½  years but I managed to obtain a bachelor of arts degree in fine arts. Some of the highlights of my college career were the study-abroad trips I took, seeing parts of England (twice), Scotland, Wales, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy (and the Vatican City), Greece, and Turkey. And Some of the bands that I played in were quite fun (and loud).

While in college I took a lot of music theory, 2 years of it. And I played in pit-orchestras for some of the college plays, took a January-term class in jazz improvisation and I also had keyboard training but had to leave-off after a while due to some carpal-tunnel problems with my wrist.

During those Summers I worked as a lifeguard at the SJU beach and pool. It was at the beach in the summer of 1984 that I met my wife, Monica. She was a regular "beach bunny" and on our first "date" we took a canoe ride across Lake Sagatagan and a picture of us in the canoe made the front page of The St. Cloud Times. We took this to be a sign and immediately married 6 years later.

In the 12 or so years (as of this writing) since we have been married we have bought a house in St. Joseph, birthed 3 talented, beautiful and extremely smart daughters (Emiliana, Leela and Maura), traveled to Guatemala for 3 weeks, Montreal, Canada for a week when Monica and one of her students competed in the semi-finals of the dictee des'Amerique , and visited a few of Minnesota's neighboring states.

Monica is from Door County, Wisconsin where she grew up in a large family on a farm right on the southern County line. She teaches French, Spanish and Careers in a high school. She knits beautifully warm and warmly beautiful sweaters and she paints watercolors as well. While she is at work (and sometimes when she is not), I take care of the kids. They are a constant source of pride, joy, exasperation, frustration, love, smiles, tears...Life. I hope having a "stay-at-home" dad is as good of an experience for my daughters as it has been for me being one.

I've also worked on a mushroom farm near St. John's. Forest Mushrooms inc. is owned by a friend of mine, Kevin Doyle. He was good enough to give me a job for about 1½ years. While in his employ I worked as a grower, picker, packer, plant supervisor, on-site graphic design artist, and occasionally as a delivery driver. After my main stint there I went back to once again assist with my artistic skills, I did the design and some of the art work for both the fresh and dried product lines.

I've played various bands ever since 10th grade, for varying lengths of time. Some of my favorites were:
"Oasis"   (this was in 1982-83), a country-rock and bluegrass band featuring my brother Paul on fiddle and guitar, Mary Hunter-Hill on vocals and guitar, Glen Imholte on drums and I played bass guitar.

"Western Express"   which had two brothers and their nephew being the core of the band and my friend Greg Page, an extremely talented percussionist, on drums. I played keyboards.

"Humor in Uniform"   was a really cool Midwestern neo-psychedelia band featuring Joe Breur, one of the most talented guitarists I've ever heard, Jim LaVigne played great bass, Greg Page on drums and I played keyboards and a bit of guitar.

"The Waltons" was a funny cowpunk band, Nate Luther was the freaky long-haired singer, Dave Weiland on drums, Jan Whitehill played bass And I played loud guitar.

"Clean Fill"   Glen Hanson on lead vocals and rhythm and lead guitar, Bruce Walters on lead guitar, Jim Caron on percussion and I played bass and sang backup. We were famous nation-wide for our 1990 two-state, two-city North American tour. Our major venues on the tour were Loso's Pub in St. Joseph, Minnesota, and Zoe's Bar in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. The tape of our last gig has enjoyed a limited release, entitled "Final Dump."

My all-time favorite band was one that was rather dysfuctional, "The Wildebeats". We'd been getting together occasionally and doing some recording but never managed to get a CD out. About 1/3 of our repertoire was music that I wrote as was all of the stuff that we recorded. Bruce Walters now takes the award as most talented guitarist that I know, Dale Laudenbach is the most solid rhythm guitarist I know (I helped teach him!) and Jim "the greeber" Caron takes the cake in drumming. I hope that someday soon we can get back together for a reunion gig somewhere.

For the past 4 years or so I have been playing in a "Folk" Trio. My Brother-In-Law Patrick Dwyer plays mandolin and fiddle, Br. John Hanson o.s.b. plays guitar and I play guitar, banjo, harmonica and kazoo. We are calling ourselves "Collegeville Station."

I also play solo gigs at coffee houses, parties and weddings. Click on the image below to see where I am going to be playing next.

In 2004 I started taking a Martial Arts class as a way of getting my dear daughters some self-defense training and I sort of fell in love with the style, Quan Li K'an.

On December 20th, 2007, I was awarded a Black Belt. Now I am student teaching and preparing to get my second Dan, hopefully sometime in 2009. I keep a Blog of my Martial Arts career, you can read about it at GrumpyGriz's Xanga Site.

There's more to tell but I'm not going into it right now. If you check back in a month I may have updated and added to this little trip down memory lane.