Comments:
Headed West in 1976 after English degree at Ithaca college and never looked back. Discovered the Lake Tahoe area of the Sierra Nevada and settled in for the long haul. Marriage, family, and embracing the incredible beauty, ruggedness, and unique life style living and working at the 6300 foot elevation in the mountains of California. Always a struggle in financial terms, always a blessing in quality of life. Had a wonderful opportunity in 1993 to partner with a real estate client from Honolulu, and my friend Matthew Blair to open up a cafe and bar at the Lake Tahoe Airport. The concepts of live jazz in the evening, the room lined with fine art, South Tahoe's first non-smoking bar, ( later to become law ), and good, reasonably priced dinners and appetizers, was a formula I was proud of. Location, though, always was the thorn, as the Casino area with all the food and entertainment found there, made it such a tough go where we were. The three plus years was an experience of a lifetime, not to mention broadening my musical knowledge and meeting and befriending a jazz legend, Jim Aton. One highlight for sure was booking Grateful Dead Hour founder and author David Gans' band 'The Reptiles' to play for two nights in June of 1994. As a bonus, I gopt to sit in on the grand piano and play the songs I have known and loved for all these years. My first and only performance on the piano, priceless, and the tapes sound good to my ears, even to this day. Moved to the Carson Valley in 1999, where at 4700 feet elevation, the winters just aren't so cold and hard.
