Life began in Brooklyn, and I grew up in Los Angeles working part-time as a radio news writer while earning a B.A. in Theatre Arts at UCLA. After graduating, I continued working as a radio news guy in the San Francisco Bay Area for about 12 years.
Then, because of my broadcasting background, I became a U.S. Postal Service media relations specialist, assisting Bay Area news outlets and keeping Postal coworkers informed through a monthly magazine as editor and photographer.
A highlight of my postal career: in January 1987, the new heart-themed “LOVE” stamp was to be issued in San Francisco. My public relations colleague and I asked the legendary singer Tony Bennett’s staff if he would participate in a ceremony because of his love for San Francisco.
On the morning of Jan. 30, Bennett, who performed at the Fairmont Hotel over the years, arrived riding on a cable car to where a mail collection box was located at the street corner outside the hotel. He serenaded the “First Day of Issue” crowd with his signature song, “I Left My Heart In San Francisco”. He then helped dedicate the 22-cent stamp with the mailing of a giant postcard (which he painted) bearing a large heart and San Francisco cityscape.
Less joyful yet noteworthy, I disseminated daily updates about Bay Area postal services following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
After retiring, I have been taking classes with VoiceTrax, the nation’s largest voice-over academy.
And, my early fascination with words and wordplay, plus years of tournament-level Scrabble, has led me to become a palindromist – a connoisseur of sentences that read the same in both directions.
Now having been cast to ‘The Missing Peace,’ one of the hottest audiobook projects this decade, my backward-forward brain exclaims, “Now I won!”
