I was born into a family of circus performers. My parents were travelling minstrels. Our first pet was an iguana with only one eye. O.K., that’s stretching the truth - but not by much! There were six boys in my family (I know... my poor mother. Don’t worry about her - she more than held her own). My dad was a doctor and I can’t stand the sight of blood. My mother was a violinist in the Portland Symphony Orchestra and, for the longest time, I couldn’t stand the sound of Mozart (lucky for me I found my cousin’s peach crate full of classic rock albums!) At one point, everyone in the family played an instrument and my mother would drag us around to schools in Portland to perform. We were kind of like the Partridge family... without the bus!
Now, my time outside of work is pretty much filled with stuff involving my wife, Amy, and our daughter, Sally. (I met Amy playing Love Connection on Valentine’s Day on the morning show more than 10 years ago. That’s right... she won me on the radio so no more prizes for her!) We love cheering on the Red Sox in the summer and are impatient in the winter waiting for the first day of spring training. We live in Brunswick and a bike ride to Cote’s for an ice cream is our idea of a great afternoon (in the winter, it’s the Little Dog for hot cocoa). Amy and Sally love the beach... I tolerate it - unless it’s Kettle Cove - then I’m game anytime.
The only thing I play now are tunes on the radio and on my iPod at home. I’ve always wanted to play the guitar so I keep one in my office in the hope that it will, one day, inspire me to set aside the time and schedule lessons. For now, I take it off the shelf every once in a while and balance it on my chin. An entertaining but, probably, useless skill I learned as a kid at Camp Agawam. Then again, if the radio thing doesn’t work out, there’s always the circus!
