Biography

I was born at Saint Luke Hospital in Fort Thomas, Kentucky in July 1955. Saint Luke was only about six months old at the time. I, and many whom are my age, still call it Saint Luke even though it was bought out and is now known as Saint Elizabeth, Fort Thomas. 

We lived in at 914 N Fort Thomas Avenue in Fort Thomas. As I recall, it was a house converted into three apartments; one per floor. We lived on the second floor. 

When my maternal grandmother died (1959), we moved in with my grandfather at 1815 North Fort Thomas Avenue. It’s haunted, BTW. It also has a bathtub walled up in the upstairs bathroom. I wonder if any of the following owners ever found it during renovations? I attended grades K-2 at Johnson Elementary during this time.

My grandfather decided to sell the house, so my parents bought a house at 40 Arlington Place. We moved just before I entered third grade in 1963. I spent grades 3-6 at Woodfill Elementary, and 7th grade at Highlands High School.

My grandfather died, and we moved to 119 Tremont Avenue in 1968 (just before I entered 8th grade). I lived there for the rest of my time at Highlands. 

I started attending NKU (Northern Kentucky State College when I first started) starting the summer of 1973. I took one class; English Composition. This was known as the flunk class. State schools could not turn down residents, so the schools weeded out poor performers by making one class mandatory for every major. At NKU, this was English Composition. If you fail this class, then you were ejected from the school. I took this class by itself right out of high school.

In 1976, NKU hired me as a night time operator for their administrative computer system. I moved out of my parents’ place and into my own apartment on North Grand Avenue, now known as the Churchill Apartments. Back then, the Tzcheng family owned them.  

Six months later NKU promoted me to programmer. University of Louisville purchased a DECSystem-10 to be used by all the colleges and universities in Kentucky. I volunteered to be the liaison. Later, NKU purchased a DEC PDP-11/60 running RSTS/E. I was put in charge of that system. I fell in love with Digital Equipment Corporation products.

In 1979 I applied to DEC, and they hired me in November to work at Wright-Patterson AFB. I married Ellen in December and we moved to Middletown because she still worked in Cincinnati and I worked in Dayton, Ohio.

In 1981, while Ellen was pregnant with our first son, Brandon, we moved to Kettering, Ohio. We built a house in Clayton, Ohio and moved there in 1983. Then we moved to Trotwood, Ohio. From there to Beavercreek, Ohio. Then to Kettering again. Then to Springboro, Ohio. Then back to Fort Thomas in 2011.