Mom was a farm girl. Dad was a city boy. The war was over and they met in St. Louis. I was born in 1948 in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, and grew up in Kennett (about an hour to the south). Dad was a “radio announcer” and mom worked for the “welfare department.” Job titles that –like my youth–vanished years ago.

A little piece of shrapnel from the Baby Boom, I watched a lot of TV. In the early 50’s I sat two feet from the Motorola, staring at the Indian-head test pattern until the afternoon programming got underway. The spirit of Norman Rockwell hovered over me through a near-perfect childhood.

The Beatles released I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND in the US just after Christmas in 1963 and it a very big deal by February of ’64. Hard to imagine a better time to be a high school sophomore. We weren’t paying much attention to Viet Nam, yet.

By the time I started college in the fall of 1966, getting and keeping a draft deferment was top of mind. I quickly switched my major from Business to Theater. Guys were coming back from Viet Nam and bringing good drugs and great music and protesting was catching on, even in the Midwest.

I was part of the first draft lottery and drew number 210, just low enough to be dangerous. Following graduation in 1970, I goofed off all summer before –at my father’s suggestion– entering law school at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. I attended classes and kept my deferment until Nixon froze the draft (in December of 1970) at lottery number 195. I quit law school the following week, just before finals.

In the spring of 1971, I went to work for the U.S. Postal Service as a Postal Inspector. After three months of training in D.C. I was sent to Pendleton, Oregon, where I audited small post offices in Oregon and Washington. I counted stamps and money orders for almost a year and investigated exploded rural mail boxes (a federal crime). Like law school, not what I had in mind.

In early ’72 I returned to the Midwest and hung around Memphis for a few months before returning to Kennett in early summer. In July, I started working at KBOA on the overnight shift and found my true calling. For the next dozen years I spun records and MC’d the Little Miss Christmas Belle Pageant.

In March, 1973, I met Barb at Tommy’s North-End Cafe and fell in love. We dated for six years and married in 1978.

In June, 1984, we moved to Jefferson City, Missouri, to work for Learfield Communications. For the next 15 years or so, I handled affiliate relations for the company’s various radio networks. When the Internet came along, I got the bug and slowly started migrating in that  direction. I now spend most of my waking hours online –with periodic breaks for Barb and the dogs–and look forward to every day.

March 8, 2003

If you have an “issue” with weight, skip this post. You won’t find it amusing, insightful or nostalgic. It will only piss you off. (Are they gone?)

If turning 60 was a  milestone, this week I passed one of far greater significance. I outgrew my Levis. First time.

I’ve weighed 155 pounds since high school. I’ve worn the same size Levis –34″ inseam, 32″ waist– for more than 40 years. And I have some jeans that are 20 years old. The same age as some of our summer interns.

You can see where this is going, can’t you?

I’ve gained about 5 pounds in the last 6 months, enough to make all of my comfortable, fashionably warn jeans just a little too snug. Oh, I can lie down on the bed, like some supermodel and get them buttoned but they just aren’t comfortable any longer.

So this weekend I purchased some new jeans, with a 34 inch waist. Talk about Passages. On the up side, it’s a hell of a lot easier to find 34×34 jeans than 32×34, although I’m not sure why.

Still in the last stages of denial, I came home and tried on –one final time– all my dear old jeans. Only a couple made the cut. The rest are in suspended animation in a big Tupperware crate in the basement.

I have no doubt they could fetch a couple of hundred a piece on Rodeo Drive (assuming straight leg jeans ever make a comeback). But you can’t put a price on knowing Jessica Alba’s little keester was packed in a pair of my old Levis. Sigh.