Owen Leonard

I was ready to retire at age 18 but found I couldn’t afford it; tried my hand at being a bum but there was no money in it.

I’ve pushed a vacuum and emptied trash. I’ve pumped gas and did minor engine maintenance. I spent time being a Russian Linguist and Crypto analyst for the United States Air Force. I loaded vans for a package delivery company, washed dishes at a restaurant and became kitchen supervisor in the span of three months. I managed a phone room for telemarketing a carpet cleaning service. I’ve been as customer service representative for a national life insurance company.

I’ve slept under the stars on a Japanese beach. I’ve sported in the midnight surf on the far side of the Pacific. The sea laid a blanket of glowing plankton, a reflection of the stars, at my feet. I’ve felt the island rock beneath me from quakes as I lay in bed. I played in a lake in one of Japan’s dead volcanoes, traveled her railways, and partied the sun up with one of her television celebrities in Tokyo (supposedly Tokyo’s answer to Oprah) in a little hole in the wall bar called “The Rebel”.

I’ve traveled the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Smokey Mountains of the Southeast. Saw a spirited revival meeting in a tent on a humid August night of North Carolina. I traveled one of her mountain roads during a thunderstorm and watched the lightening strobe through the valleys beneath me. Lightening looks and sounds much different from above. I’ve tolerated the rageful traffic of Minneapolis and endured her chilling winter moods. I find myself still a resident of her environs.

I’ve played in the waters of the Gulf where also swam sharks, dolphins and flying fish. I’ve felt shrimp nibble at my toes in the self-same tide. I’ve walked the sandy beach of an island where still stands a confederate fort. I’ve spent only enough time with my toes in tropical salt water to know that that is where I’d like to keep them most of the time. The older I get the more I believe I would rather pay for air conditioning than for heat.

I’ve written manuals covering everything from work processes in a government office to maintaining a more Zen outlook towards work in a customer oriented envrionment. I’ve been writing ever since I was old enough to discover which end of the pencil made the marks on the paper.

I’ve conversed with peoples on different lands in different tongues although I’ve forgotten more words and languages than I currently remember.

Conversation is the sharing of ideas and that’s what is most important, isn’t it?