Who Is This Guy?

Just in case you are interested, here’s some backstory on me. Born and raised in Beachwood, Ohio, a suburb on the East Side of Cleveland. A chronic academic underachiever, I may be the only National Merit Commendation who graduated with a 2.4 average. Did a year at Ohio State, transferred to what was then New College of Florida; the school still exists but has been transformed beyond recognition by Florida’s nitwit governor, and not in a good way. I spent a year as a psychiatric technician at University Hospital in Cleveland, then moved to New York City to attend psychology graduate school at Yeshiva University. While I was grinding my way through my program, I spent a couple years tending bar in Greenwich Village at the late, lamented Googie’s on Sullivan Street, a joint that has gone the way of most of the great dive bars of Manhattan. I also met my wife, Kay, while living above a rug factory in Brooklyn. I received my doctorate in school psychology in 1983 and spent a year working in the NYC schools.

Looking back, I have somehow managed to have worked an unusually large number of different jobs. In no particular order, these include :

• Butcher (in my father’s meatpacking plant; I didn’t actually cut any meat, but I did drive delivery trucks)
• Baker
• Line cook
• Residential counselor for adults with developmental disabilities
• Hebrew school teacher
• Bartender in my family restaurants, Greenwich Village and world’s worst waiter

Kay and I bounced around a bit, with stops in Palo Alto and Cincinnati, and finally settled in New Hampshire. While I started out working in the schools, once I got to New Hampshire, I met my mentor, Wilfrid Derby, Ph.D. He trained me in forensic psychology and neuropsychology, and those specialties have pretty much taken over my practice. I’m on the verge of turning 70, and I’ve resolved to keep at the psychology gig until I can’t do it anymore, since I still find it stimulating and don’t know what I’d do with all that free time if I hung it up. I do have a wide range of interests and hobbies, although I haven’t necessarily stuck with all of them:

Writing (4 psychology books, numerous academic articles, and now blogging)

Martial arts (Fencing, judo, praying mantis kung fu, iaido, tai chi)

Brewing beer and mead

Music (Ukulele, dulcimer, blues harp, recorder, tin whistle)

Pottery

Magic and sleight of hand

Cooking

What People Say

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