After an eclectic and adventurous early part of my life I set my sights on a college degree which from my area and early life circumstances was quite unheard of generally. When news was slowly spreading around that I would be departing that fall to start my college career one of my peers said to me in disbelief you're going to college? You're going to work in an office? But you have tattoos!?.

* writing this actually brought back a memory when I was in a classroom in college and the professor was raging on about not hiring anybody for his business who had tattoos as I was sitting in the front row directly in front of him with a long sleeve shirt on covering my tattoos. After class I had a moment with him and showed him my tattoos and said somebody like you who would not hire somebody because they had tattoos probably would not hire somebody if they had slanted eyes or a different skin color than you either. He had no response for that.

This being back in the time when tattoos were not mainstream like they are now and mostly military, convicts and bikers had tattoos. In preparation for pursuit of my degree I gave notice at my job and my apartment and made the move to the big city, well semi big city, Concord, New Hampshire. The whole event was fly by night edge of the sea adventure.

I moved to Concord on Saturday with nowhere to live and by luck at the college campus of New Hampshire Tech I found a room for rent poster on a bulletin board and found a nice reasonable room to rent within walking distance of the campus as I had no vehicle, from a wonderful lady named Joan Wentworth.

Coming from living in Newbury, VT4o Concord was a bewildering intimidating array of traffic and endless roads and places. Fast forwarding about six years I achieved my A.A.S., B.S. and M.S. By then I was fully integrated into living in Concord, and knew all its nooks and crannies, shortcuts for traffic, places for a great meal or a cold beverage and lived and worked there for the next 30+ years.

I had a high-pressure job and living in the city itself could be stressful with things such as heavy traffic pretty much every day everywhere. So, it was often with a sense of anticipation that I looked forward to the weekend so I would head back north to visit the family, fish, hunt etc.

It was with a wonderful sense of freedom and lightheartedness that I would take a right turn out of my driveway and hit exit 16, 93 North, and head for the hills! My first objective on my journey was hitting the Plymouth, New Hampshire exit. As soon as I hit that my next move was to punch in WYKR on the radio and keep heading north. I would often stop at the Quonset Hut and do some browsing and pick up some unusual gifts for the family.

I would also usually hit a few fishing spots with my fly rod on the journey. In Warren, I would often stop and visit my college buddy and wonderful musician Russell Hurst and his awesome family. When I got to Pike, New Hampshire I would usually swing left and go visit my brother, Cliff English, affectionately known as Spiffy Cliffy, although I'm not so sure he was affectionate about that nickname. We would have some great conversations on a variety of subjects from Bruce Lee to tiger salamanders.

Then I would head for Mountain Lakes where I would always stay at my baby sister Rosie Farr's house. It is a rural legend in the family that I had an uncanny knack for showing up at her house exactly at suppertime. I loved coming up here on the weekends and now I live here permanently and I still love it, it is a wonderful area.
Now if there was just a Taco Bell and Burger King....

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