It's Not About Me

to decorate the place. I also continued my practice of renting out my upstairs bedroom to help pay my monthly mortgage! As a sideline, I went into partnership with three other guys to buy a bar and establish a restaurant in Mt. Pleasant, PA., it was not successful. The prior owner/partner James Blocker was pocketing what little profits there were and running the bar past the legal hours of 2 AM. I ended up taking the liquor license off the wall and turning it in to the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board which terminated the business and partnership. Best $2,000 investment I ever made …it taught me to never engage in another business partnership again…and I never did ! For the first six years of my work life at Westinghouse in Youngwood, PA, I remained single. I was busy establishing my career and building a home. I guess I was raised with the “old fashion notion” that your role in life was to grow up, get a good education, get a job, provide for a home, get married and have children (IN THAT ORDER). At least this is the way things turned out for me! Time to Get Married… It was about this time that a fellow employee and partner in the bar business, Bill Walker, happened to be at Bobby Dales Nightclub in Greensburg at the conclusion of their weekly Westinghouse Golf Outing. I had no love for golf, so I did not participate in this extracurricular activity. Bill called me at home from the nightclub one Thursday night and says that he met this girl that I might like to meet. Having nothing better to do, I drove directly to Bobby Dales and met Janet DeVaul who

happened to be there alone. I found out she lived in Homestead, PA – a suburb of Pittsburgh. We had a couple of drinks, and I kissed her goodnight as she left the nightclub; three months later, we were married! We got married on December 8, 1972. I used to joke with her that we got married on the “day after Pearl Harbor day”! Dave Long, my best friend from college, was my best man at the wedding (seated in background). It is unfortunate to have to summarize your first marriage of over 31 years by way of an obituary, but it does acknowledge the important role Janet played in my life.

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