I was forty-five years old.

I had a lot of reasons to go. However, to this day, I don�t think I could pin it on any one thing. While I like change, I didn�t like the way my job was changing, I was pretty fed up with the way the unions were allowed to run the place, and I just didn�t think I was the right guy for the job any more. I�ve never been one to hang around just for the money.

Up until then, my situation within the company changed quite regularly. I had a lot of fun there. I started in 1975 as a general technician and became a Recording Engineer shortly thereafter. That job, in hindsight, was thee best. I didn�t think so at the time, but it was. I worked at outdoor festivals, symphony concerts, jazz concerts, opera. I worked with Sarah Vaughan, Stephane Grappelli, Jean Luc Ponty, and tons of others. I engineered radio dramas, pop, jazz and country albums. It was a very active time for me but I think I just burned out.

So I worked nights for a while to get a University degree and when I got that, I came back as a supervisor. But I had ambitions and made it all the way to middle management. (Ambitions,/middle management. What an oxymoron that is.) Apparently I was pretty good at it, though. We were downsizing even then. I became the benevolent slasher - manipulating my way through the system. I actually painted my way into a situation where all my help was gone�poof! So I ended up doing everything. That was an ugly time for me, toasting my friends from their jobs. So that�s when I decided to leave.

Luvofmylife was working as an arts manager at the time. She changes jobs every couple of years so she was ready to go too. So we sold all our stuff, got out of the apartment and took off to Italy. We spent a few days in Venice and then headed off to Florence. We rented an apartment there along the Arno just down from the Ponte Vecchio and planted our little butts there for two whole months. Our place was just outside the tourist area so we were able to walk along the streets and buy groceries, stop at a caf� and just loligag through the town.

You can�t imagine how romantic it is to be that casual in a city like that. Others will tell you how much of a sappy romantic I am but that place is the real deal.

Often, we�d leave our apartment in the evening to walk down to a little gelateria just north of the Ponte Vecchio. Then we�d toddle over to the gates of the Ufizzi Gallery to sit on the steps. Every night around eight o�clock, a guy with a blue electric violin would lead an orchestral recording of the Albinoni Addagio for Stings through a small amplifier. If you know the piece, you know just how haunting it is. And in the courtyard of the Ufizzi Gallery�well�what can I say.

After that, I attended a marble carving workshop just outside Pietrasanta for a month. Gorgonzola Cheese and Vino Rossa. It doesn�t get any better than that. I carved a pretty good piece, had it transported to Canada, and it�s standing in the front yard under a big Red Maple tree. I�ll probably never sell it.

So now we live in the country, among the fruit trees and the lakes and the rivers and the streams, in a little farmhouse � luvofmylife and I. And I�m contemplating a return to the rat race. I�m in love with two women, something I�ve never, ever expected, and I�m not doing any carving or painting or modeling any more.

Is nothing ever easy?

Arc