1970 continued: My mother passed away unexpectedly 10 days before Christmas in 1970. A couple of weeks later my best friend died in a car accident. 1970 was a very full year for me.

1971:     I entered the military in 1971. The US was still involved in the Viet Nam war when I came of age for the draft. In 1971 the country used a lottery system to determine who would be drafted. I had a high number, but I lived in a college town where student deferments were the norm. As a result, early in the year they began calling up the holders of rather high lottery numbers. So, that year I joined the Air National Guard to perform my duty with the hopes of staying stateside. I did my boot camp at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Then my orders transferred me back to perform my active duty at McClellan Air Force Base. I was stationed at the 149th Mobile Communications Squadron in North Highlands, California (near Sacramento) until we moved to the Midwest. Then I continued on with what totaled 8 years of military service by transferring into the 162nd Infantry Regiment with an armory in the Iowa town where we raised our children. During my tours of duty I performed first in Cryptography, then as a Company Clerk, and finally as a Supply Sergeant. I learned management in a Mobile Communications Squadron and outdoors living and survival in an Infantry Squadron (that specialized in firing old-fashioned mortars).

1977:     On January 1st, 1977, we packed our family into our little Datsun sedan and left California to move to Southwest Iowa. I became the General Manager of radio station KYFR 920 AM in Shenandoah, Iowa. Shenandoah is where our two children, David and Christina, were raised. At the time It was a community of about 6500 people. It is located near the four corners of Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, and Kansas. We went to a church at a little Evangelical Covenant Church in a nearby town called Essex, Iowa.

1991:     On August 5th, 1991, my wife and I relocated to the suburbs of Chicago when I went to work for Salem Communications at their FM station WYLL. I began working with them as the Chief Engineer of the Chicago FM Broadcast station. Our children were out of the house when we moved to Chicago, so it was just my wife Sharlene and me.