At the Bank
After all the years of life as a musician, I finally grew tired of life on the road. At the time, I had a girlfriend in Kaiserslautern, Germany so that seemed like a perfect place for a time-out and a rest.
I began to play with local bands. My girlfriend wanted to find me a job to prevent the likelihood of me going back on the road (which was exactly what I had planned!).
And so I took a job at Harry’s Gift Shop selling souvenirs to the American servicemen and women. I t was supposed to be a limited seasonal job, from August to December but somehow that extended itself to 17 years.
17 years and two wives later, I finally began to work at the Community Bank. A banking service owned by the US Department of Defence serving their service members and managed by a US Bank, at the time Merchants Bank of Indiana although there were many holders of that contract including City Bank, Nations Bank and finally, up until my retirement, Bank of America.
The Bank was in the process of introducing computers at their branches and I was hired as an Office Automation Specialist. Thanks to my interest in technology, I was one step ahead of everyone, else in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, and over the years as we developed from single stand-alone computers to a vast network spreading over large parts of the globe, I had a very successful career receiving promotions and honours including the title of “Officer of the Bank”.
One negative effect of the Global Network was that, since I was able to access and assist with computer issues throughout the network, all remotely from my desk, the only exercise I was getting was an occasional run down the hall to the bathroom.
knew I needed to do something to keep myself fit and healthy as I grew older and came up with the idea of cycling to work. My wife was fully supportive of this idea even encouraging me to buy my first high-end bike. Little did I know that this was just a beginning of a passion for cycling and what this would mean for my life and my future!
