365 Days of Impacts

In January of 1988, I moved to Atlanta, Georgia from Columbia, South Carolina. The only things I had to my name were a prayer and a smile. I lived with my sister on her pull out couch. Christy always told me a smile is the universal language. A smile disarms a potentially tense situation and my smile got me through so many of these. I did not have a job, but I worked temp jobs until something came along. It didn't take me long to find a job. I basically exaggerated my skillset on the MAC and said I could design newspaper ads. This got my foot in the door at HiFi Buys. I had worked on MACs to do the student newspaper in school, but not to the degree that I led them to believe. Sometimes you have to believe in your ability to learn something new. I knew I could learn it. I knew what I was capable of. So, I didn't have the experience *YET* to back it up. The thing I learned from this time in my life was that if you set your mind to it, you can do it. Believe you can...

20033 Great Oaks Circle South, Mt. Clemens Michigan. 16 Mile and Groesbeck. Charter Oaks is where I grew up. Until recently, this was the one place that I had lived the longest in my life. 17 years to be exact. I grew up in a townhouse complex, full of kids my age that were super tight. We had each others back in Charter Oaks. Everyone's sisters/brothers knew each other and stuck up for one another. The Pawlickis, the Hafners, the Knechtels, the Burbarys, the Gianokopolous', the Iskens, the Franzs, the Hammetts, the LaRivieres, the Heises, the Johnsons, the Corios, Lisa Mitchell, Becky Taupin, Leslie Kistler, Kenny Lord, Ken Saviko, the Greshams...and the list goes on and on (sorry if I unintentionally have left anyone out).   We all went through the 70s and 80s together. Those awkward teenage years that would later become fodder for FREAKS and GEEKS . It was an incredible place to grow up! Hanging out at the pool in the summertime playing marco polo, shark and havi...