Sharing My Story

Being reserved by nature my social life didn't particular prosper
during high school or college. Being a fairly average college student
I found time to doing my part-time job, do college home work and
go to church. Since I lived at home and commuted to college and
work time for extracurricular activities was very limited. Perhaps
the major church activity at that time was the College/Career group
that met at Pastor Gerald "Jerry" Wilson's (then minister at
Immanuel Bible Church) house. Every Sunday night after church
the college age young people would gather at his home and play
pool or table tennis (they had a table downstairs) and have a
devotional and prayer time with refreshments. Pastor Wilson
was a World War II Navy vet and was a very dynamic pulpit
speaker and real love for young people. He had been a youth
minister with the Firs Conference Ministry before coming to
Immanuel. While these meetings were nice they weren't
particularly memorable as they were rather disconnected
from my interests and daily life.

Perhaps the most interesting thing in my life during the early
college years were the articles I was writing for Mike Robertson's
fanzine Concussion (1967-1969). Those articles gave me an outlet
for discussing comics even though those articles related to
obscure characters (and comics) from the 1940s. Mike Robertson
was a fan who lived in Maple Valley, Washington who published
a friendly chatty mimeographed fanzine with contributors some
of whom went on to become comics industry professionals. I even
met Mike during that time as I traveled to a small comics convention
(really a comics trading meeting) held at someone's house south of
Seattle. This was actually an exciting time in comics as Marvel was
expanding with people like Jim Sternako and Neal Adams at DC
(and Marvel) who were revolutionizing comic story telling. Of course,
the Batman TV program was happening at this time. Pastor Wilson's
son, Dan who was my age invited my good friend Bob LaRievere and
I to do a Batman and Robin skit for a youth group one evening. My
mother made me a handsome Robin costume and Bob (as Batman)
and I stumbled through a very silly skit. It was fun but I was glad it
was over with because I couldn't wear my glasses (being very near
sighted) and was literally stumbling over not only my lines but
everything else (this may have actually happened in my senior year
in high school). This is a good, fun if goofy memory.