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Today's Featured Biography

 
Frank Smith

I was born in Texas but moved to Edmonton, Canada (go Oilers!...even if they hadn't yet arrived themselves...) after about six months, due to the fact that my parants moved there and forgot to leave me behind. I moved again for a short stay in my dad's old home town of Bremerton, Washington, before moving on to assist in the occupation of Japan. We were among the first dependents in Occupied Japan after the war. I was the first blond hair/blue eyed person many people had ever seen. It was my Brad Pitt moment. I spoke Japanese and English as a child, since both languages were spoken the home.

We moved to Washington DC for a year or so (actually we lived in Falls Church, VA with an escaped natzi guard dog... he'd helped the owner of the home escape from a prison camp and was thus a hero to us... all the other German Shepherds wouldn't talk to him but he could care less as none of them spoke German and he did. And then we went off to Heidelberg, Germany for three years. I learned to speak German there, as we had a house full of servants (Army policy: hire as many as possible to help the economy, and for each person, the Army then gave an increase in pay to compensate). I think the entire recovery of Europe was due to my family. We even had a live in piano teacher. Then we went to Indianapolis, Indiana (Fort Ben Harrison) for another three years. It's very flat there. The book on things to do in Indiana never went to press due to the impossibility of printing a book with no pages. Japan came up again and off the Minami Rinkin and Camp Zama. We watched Japanese TV and I felt quite at home. We lived there for for about two years. My dad was transfered to Fort Shafter and he went ahead of us while we stayed in the quarters at Camp Zama, before moving to Kailua, Hawaii. I went to Kailua High for two years but then had to leave, as my dad was again transfered and refuse to leave the house to me. I finished High School in Sacramento, at El Camino High. I then went down to Fresno for College, and did a couple of years before tranfering to San Francisco State University (State College in those days) where I got my BA in English. I stayed on and finished my MA before moving to Oregon to teach school.

This was interupted by a letter from the President inviting me to a party he was throwing in South East Asia. So off I went to become a combat medic with the 3/187th Abn Infantry, 101st Abn Div (Airmobile), 3rd Bgd. I managed my R&R in Tokyo, as Honolulu was kept for the married guys, and found myself back in Zama for a short stay. When I returned to the USA, there were no teaching jobs available, so I went to work at Kaiser Hospital as a nurse, until I could get a real job.

Marriage, children and time went by. After nearly seventeen years I decided to actually get a real job, and applied to work with the California Department of Corrections at Vacaville. I stayed in Vacaville for a couple of years before transfering to Crescent City for the opening of a new prison (Pelican Bay). It was interesting, but I didn't know that they didn't have Summer up there so I moved after two years to a place where they have Summer PLUS: the low desert of California. One day flying back from witnessing at a case in the 9th Circuit, the pilot informed us that the temperature at the airport was 127 degrees. At least it was only Fahrenheit. If it weren't for the fact that the airport was about 200 feet below sea level he wouldn't have landed... as the air would have been to thin due to the heat.

My wife and I divorced after 28 years of marriage as, after all, enough is enough. My dad was in need of care and living on his own in Bremerton, Washington, so I retired a bit early and moved up to care for him, until he passed right before Christmas of 2002. At that time I decided to stick around the NW and moved down to Shelton, where I bought a small house for my two dogs and I.

I am able to travel. My main trips are to Dublin, Ireland. I've fallen in love with the place. It is my misfortune, although not theirs, that Ireland is now one of the most expensive places to live in Europe, or I would have picked up and moved. In the mean-time I buy Lotto tickets.

Here it is almost 2007. What happened to the year? One update: now three dogs in the house (Kipper, Rory and Oscar, two German Shepher Dogs and a terrier cross, all female, so the term 'dog' does not technically apply). I'm planning a trip to Cork in February. It's great that time of year as there are no tourists loudly stating embarrassing things in American accents.


If you want to know more about me, I'm quite willing to talk, but you might want to investigate the possibility that you are in need of medication.

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