User:Gregory.george.lewis
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[edit] Inception, Childhood and California
Gregory George Lewis was born in Long Beach, California on May 30, 1959 to David and Doris Lewis. David Lewis was a Russian Jewish immigrant who survived World War II as a young boy in Shanghai, China. The name "Lewis" was an adoptive name, David was born David Slobaskaya, and did not acquire the name Lewis until his mother married a U.S. serviceman, and moved to Missouri some time after the Allied occupation of Japan. Doris came from a rural Massachusetts town. Until the age of 12½, young Gregory George lived in Southern California suburbs at Carfax Ave., Bellflower, and then at age 5 his family moved to 11664 E. 169th St., Artesia, CA 90701, where he spent the happiest years of his life. Gregory's mother worked for North American Rockwell, in Downey, and Gregory received autographs by test pilot Scott Crossfield, and also toured an Apollo space capsule on its return lunar expedition. Lewis lived at Artesia in some turmoil, while still attending classes at Ernie Pyle Elementary School, in Bellflower, while under the care of an abusive sitter named Bertha Munoz (Carfax Ave.). During that time, Gregory George had little exposure to classmates or other children his own age, because he was kept in a backyard most of the time, with his younger brother Daniel and Lawrence. This backyard was surrounded by a tall cinderblock fence, and the only part of the world at large visible to young Gregory were the San Bernardino Mountains, most conspicuously Mt. Baldy, and the sky. In the 1960's it was not uncommon for military jets to fly over at supersonic speeds. Gregory George invented a fantasy that at age 11, the Starship Enterprise would "beam him up", and he could spend the rest of eternity saving young women from space aliens. Because he attended school several miles away from his neighborhood, Gregory George did not integrate well with neighborhood children his own age until age 9, when his mother had a falling out with Betha when Daniel Lewis brouht home a tortoise from the school yard. Doris transfered her children to John Niemes Elementary School in Artesia, only a few blocks walk from the Lewis home, in Artesia.
That was said to be young Gregory George's golden years, when a world of camaraderie and companionship opened up to him. By the fifth grade, Gregory George had well acclimated to his new environs, and in his sixth grade he met his favorite school teacher, Mrs. Ashkar. Young Gregory sometimes deliberately misbehaved just to be asked to remain after school. Mrs. Ashkar invariably asked the miscreants to help with small chores like hanging posters or sorting homework. Mrs. Ashkar was sometimes known to hand out Life Savers candy to the boys. At some later point, Mrs. Ashkar learned that staying after school was not a punishment, but a reward and ended the practice.
Young Gregory experienced one of several boyhood crushes at this time. The object of his goggling was a dark haired girl by the name of Joni Valley. When Gregory George graduated to junior high school at Faye Ross, his fondness for Valley was as strong as ever. Young Lewis seemed to be at the top of his game, walking with his friend and neighbor Mitchell Higa to and from junior high school, and even receiving his first affection from the opposite sex while at Faye Ross. A particular scene from his life could be said to epitomize his love for California life at the time, and that was on a school bus at the end of a summer-school term, with girls dancing in the aisle of the bus to Diana Ross's "Where Did Our Love Go?". That was June, 1971. For young Gregory George, his later Artesia years represented the perfection of being. It was an age of surfers, the Beach Boys, and the Lewises didn't live far from many popular Southern California beaches, including Huntington Beach, Seal Beach, Dana Point, and an amusement park called "The Pike", and Port 'o Call. During his childhood, Lewis's father David was an avid boater, and his second and last boat, the Snoopy, a 27-foot cabin cruiser with twin inboard Grey Marine engines was docked in Long Beach Harbor, close to the Queen Mary, and other significant attractions. The Lewis's were fond of boat rides and fishing expeditions to Santa Catalina Island, as well as weekend evening parties. Gregory especially enjoyed the harbor lights at night, with boats decked out in lanterns, and the conversations and laughter from the city of boats.
The Lewis boys salvaged and renovated a sunken dinghy they had found near where the Snoopy was docked. Mounting oars and a small outboard engine to the dinghy, the Lewis boys embarked on their own boating adventures around the harbor, motoring alongside merchant ships, as well as the Queen Mary, during that cruise liner's brown sandblast restoration phase.
Later that year, his family began to speak of moving to Massachusetts, to live on his grandparents' farm, his mother's side of the family. Gregory was anxious about the talk, but never spoke of his anxiety. While other family members seemed eager to leave California for the unknown east, Gregory kept his misgivings to himself. To young Gregory, everybody who meant anything in this world lived in California the uncontestable hub of the known civilized universe. Why would people leave California for a place like Massachusetts, when they moved to California to get away from Massachusetts in the first place?
In February of 1972, Lewis's family packed and travelled across the conintental U.S. in their maroon colored Volkswagon mini bus, and left California for all time. They arrived during a blizzard at Florida, Massachusetts, on St. Valentine's Day. The symbolic irony of the Lewis's arrival at their destination would confound Gregory George for most of his adult life. He had left the sun, the Golden State, and everything he loved for the cold, bleak harshness of the Brown family in Massachusetts. It soon became apparent that his grandparents, Harold and Sarah Brown had little patience for the young city children. The tension between the Lewises and the Browns in the old Berkshire Hills farm house often erupted into arguments, where the subject was those "misbehaved, spoiled kids". Everything about the boys from California seemed to be a problem to the Browns. The boys had no farming experience, knew nothing about hay, or caring for cows, or the conservation of well water. Young Gregory was heartbroken when his cousin, Stephen, suggested he trade in his tennis shoes for work boots. That event triggered a devastating loss of identity. Gregory George was often unfavorably compared to young "Stevie", the darling of the Brown. Stephen was brought up on the farm, and the unquestioned heir to the Brown farm. By contrast, Gregory knew nothing about farm life, and was disinterested in how a hay bailer or manure spreader worked. Gregory's uncles, his mother's brothers, were especially bent on demoralizing the Lewis boys, and especially Gregory. They were ignorant and provincial hill-folk who probably saw the Lewises as a threat to local Brown sovereignty, which before their arrival was largely unquestioned in the area. Also, the Browns recognized human worth based on the ability of one to grow a vegetable out of the ground, and intellectual or literary achievement seemed quite beyond their understanding of what constituted value.
Gregory George did grow fond of the surrounding woods, and often took walks in solitude. The nature of Massachusetts and the farming community were really at odds, it seemed to Gregory. With a growing affinity for the woodland spirit he grew to understand how antagonistic were the people who tore the land assunder for their own commercial ends. Where the Browns had deliberately alienated nature by fencing themselves apart from nature, Gregory sought direct commune with it. He integrated his own spirit into the life of the earth. From his flourid imagination arose a wood nymph, a female spirit who accompanied Gregory during his solitary summer walks through the wild woods.
Gregory George was officially enrolled in Gabriel Abbot Memorial Consolidated Elementary School. A school with a long name, it comprised grades 1 through 8. One more brick added to his house of humiliation, Gregory found himself demoted from junior high school, back to that of an elementary school student. This signified another psychological blow. He went from a school of 350-some 7th-8th graders his own age, to a school of about one hundred children total, across all grades. He now was in a class of about twenty children. His presence was conspicuous. One student suggested that Gregory might want to join the sixth grade, rather than the seventh. Girls he had never even met passed him "love notes". It was a terrbily confusing time for young Gregory George.
As evident by his "Starship Enterprise fantasy", Gregory Lewis had always been gifted with a powerful visual imagination. This translated into his writing. His ability to write, combined with a Remington typewriter given to him by his mother allowd Gregory George to churn out pages upon pages of science fiction and fantasy. These were stories that bore no relation on the surface to the turmoil of being a California boy trapped on a dreary Massachusetts farm. At about this time, also, Gregory started attending the local Baptist church with his family (but not his father, who never had any compelling reason to stop being Jewish). Gregory dabbled with prayer, and making deals with Jesus to stop bad habits. The eschatology and evangelism were apparently strong within the Baptist church. It was evident that other parishioners seemed to believe their own faith, or at least they were loud about proclaiming it. Still, Gregory did not quite "get it". He had doubts about almost every aspect of this new Christian doctrine he was expected to believe unquestioningly. How could Jesus be responsible for everything, when he only came into being 2,000 years ago? Didn't people do good things, and bad things before he came along? What about the dinosaurs? How could Jesus have been responsible for them, when they lived millions of years before the existence of Jesus? And why did parisioners talk about Jesus like he was the only person to have suffered a horrible death? That could not possibly be true, if the news reports coming out of Vietnam were true.
Questions like these, although seemingly simple minded, were preliminary teasers that served to seduce Gregory George on a life long quest for the meaning of existence and a search for God. He was not easily convinced by mere vociferous dogma, i.e., persons in the religious community who used ridicule, criticism, and theatrics to persuade nonbelievers. Outwardly, Gregory denied any religious conviction, but inwardly he was on a search for the truth of it all. Voodo, black magic, Egyptian and Greek mythology, hallucinogenic substances, and later eastern philosophical systems, especially Taoism and Buddhism were all integrated in his spiritual Gestalt.
At about age 14, Lewis's intellectual life began to flourish as much as his spiritual awakening. He was possessed with an undeniable genius, in the classical sense of the word, where the absorption of every manner of knowledge was its own satisfaction. Lewis jioned the Science Fiction Book Club. He fancied himself an inventor, and began to experiment with electricity and electronics. This was due in no small part to his father's influence, for David Lewis was himself an electrician and amateur electronics enthusiast. Not that the young Gregory was necessarily a quick learner. His experiments were often redundant, trying again and again variations of experiments, both on paper and in practice, until a particular designed worked. It seemed that in whatever Gregory worked hard at, he would succeed. In later life he designed power supplies for helium-neon lasers, computer controlled laser mirror tracking devices, and many software graphic designs. Gregory did not distinguish categorical differences between hardware and software design. He programmed in several computer languages, excelled in an adult electronics course, delighted in high voltage transformers, transistors and capacitors, and even graphic design.
Gregory was a wood carver; an herbalist who made his own root beer from wild herbs; an avid hiker.
[edit] Adolescent Years
Gregory attended Charles H. McCann Technical Vocational School from 1974-77, majoring in the electrical program. He did not see himself wiring houses and factories for the rest of his life. He probably chose McCann in the absence of proper guidance. He suffered serious bullying in high school. One student, two years his senior commanded Lewis to pick up a tool from the floor. Lewis bent down to pick up the tool. The other student dropped a wooden ladder on his head. Lewis lie unconscious for some time. Although there were two teachers in the shop room at the time, they pretended not to notice. On another ocassion, Lewis was working on a three-phase transformer circuit when he accidentally electrocuted himself in the presence of the shop teacher and the school principal.
It was not until his junior year that he began to enjoy high school. Gregory liked to party in high school with his friends and class mates, and a common past time was seeing rock 'n roll concerts at Springfield Civic Center or Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC).In 1977 Gregory studied for one year at Fitchburg State College, majoring in psychology. In 1978 he transfered to North Adams State College because of financial hardship. Gregory graduated late, in 1982 from North Adams State College. He had always been beset by an inability to connect with the prevailing social network. Because of a love affair with a girl nearly four years older than himself, Gregory did not attend his high school prom. Because of some trouble he had got himself into during his senior year at college, Gregory did not attend his own graduation. It seemed that he continuously missed the boat at critical junctures of his life. This made him something of a loner, and characterized the rest of his adult life up until the present.
Upon graduation, Gregory thought to put his psychology degree to use, and worked for The Center For Humanistic Change, a private organization that provided housing for institutionalized mental health patients who were being recently released in Massachusetts. Being bitten, urinated on, and smeared with feces was not Lewis's cup of tea either, but he somehow endured for another six years, before quitting the human services profession and going to work for a roof truss manufacturer in the Massachusetts town of Colrain. Shortly after quitting the Center For Humanistic Change, Gregory married a co-worker Sandra Clark, and a year later Gregory became father to a baby girl, Cassidy Anne. Gregory chose Cassidy's name on the night the Grateful Dead keyboardist Brent Mydland died, as he was lying on a red velvet sofa listening to the song "Cassidy". Gregory believed the baby would be a girl, based on this dream he had:
[edit] The Dream
I was in a dark chamber, like a grotto. There was a raised platform in the center of the room, I was standing at the edge of the room. On the center of the raised floor was a large globe, which appeared to be like glass, with a milky, swirling opaqueness in the center. A young woman, perhaps in her young twenties, was standing on the outside of the globe. She was thin, had straight reddish-blond hair. Her hands were raised, as if feeling the outside of the enormous sphere (eight feet in diamter?) I shouted, "no! no!", but it was too late, as the girl "fell" into the sphere. After that, she was inside, swimming in the inner liquid like an embryo in an egg, looking out, but she appeared oblivious to me, as if she were unable to see out.
Gregory said he preferred to have one quality child to several mediocre children. He eschewed mediocrity in everything he did. He coined a phrase, "Mediocrites was the understudy of So-Socrates", and he applied that to many people in his life who he thought represented a comprise of creative energy. Cassidy was Gregory's pride and joy, and remains so to the present time. Although Gregory's and Sandra's marriage was bound to eventual failure (Gregory admits he is not an easy person to live with, and would not settle into a permanent subservient employment situation; while Sandra's lack of higher education and culture misaligned the partnership from the beginning), he often told friends about Cassidy, "She's the one thing I got right the first time."
Lewis tried his hand at many job occupations after human services. Quitting the roof truss business after one year, which, though physically demanding was also demoralizing, he made a failed attempt at selling mutual funds for the First Investors Corporation. This was during the period of Michael Milken and junk bonds. Lewis was loath to convince retirees to roll their IRAs and pensions into high-risk, high-yield junk bond funds, and within the year, his conscience getting the better of him, Lewis quit cold-calling at First Investors. Lewis had a wife, a baby on the way, a step son Christopher, and the venture cost him a over $300 in various licences, tests and other fees, as well as over 600 miles a week driving to-and-from Springfield, Massachusetts. He left more penniless than he went in.
Shortly afterward, Lewis's father David told him about an adult education program at Mount Wachusett Community College, in Gardner, also a 60 mile drive from his cabin home in the Town of Florida. The program was a computer repair/electronics engineering course, which would run from September of 1990 to May, 1991. Lewis easily passed the entrance examination, and was accepted for the course. It was clear that Lewis enjoyed playing with electronics in an academic laboratory setting, and by the end of the course he had earned the respect and admiration of teachers, counsellors and classmates. Lewis was nominated for an achievement award for his diligence and nearly perfect attendance. Lewis missed one day of class, and that after turning back in a blizzard half way to Gardner, when a tractor trailer attempted to run his car off the road. When Lewis returned home, he learned that the school was closed that day, because of the snow storm.
After graduating, Lewis began working for a small computer repair shop in Pittsfield. His rapport with clients made him an invaluable asset. But, once again, personalities and a demoralizing work environ led Lewis to quit his job, and start his own computer service business. Things progressed downhill for Lewis from that point. His wife separated from him, and subsequently divorced him. He lived in his mother's house, with daughter Cassidy, age 4. Lewis's father David died of cancer the year before. His truck was reposessed, and he contemplated suicide often. When Cassidy turned four, she went to live with her mother. Lewis moved into a trailer on Stryker Rd, on the property where he had previously lived for ten years in a hunting cabin. Lewis's years on Stryker Rd. was his favorite time on Florida Mountain. It was there he learned the art of herbalism, and lived close to nature, especially the many black bears that inhabited the area. In his mind, he imagined himself a hobbit, those small human-like characters from Lewis's favorite fictional literature, The Lord of the Rings. Many birds, including orioles, rose-breasted grossbeaks, and scarlet tanagers lived among the trees around the home. Lewis had an outhouse, and sometimes had to chip ice from a brook to get water, when his well froze. In the summer, the well sometimes went dry. His oil-burning furnace did not always function correctly, and Lewis burned wood when he had it, and was cold when he didn't have it. Despite the hardship, Lewis endured on Stryker Rd. out of his love for independance and wilderness.
Unfortunately, Lewis's business accumen was not as keen as his imagination and talent with electronics and computers. He spent much of his time programming games and designing electronic gadgets, but he sold none of them. His time and effort earned him nothing in the end. Evicted, Lewis knew he had to make a move. He moved to Syracuse, New York. Lewis met a woman who introduced him to the wonders of city life. She was a self-proclaimed Wiccan, and managed a New Age bookstore in a trendy part of the city. Lewis was down to his last two dollars when he landed a job with a temp agency installing computers at an insurance company. From there, Lewis was employed for the next nine months at the Syracuse University Health & Science Center (Upstate Hospital), installing 1,000 new computers and 200 printers. Although the job was not a highly skilled one, nevertheless the working environment was engaging and energetic. Lewis witnessed all manner of tragedy and personal calamity that only a city hospital can bring together under one roof. This was one of the most memorable periods in Lewis's life, and he did not miss a day out of the nine months. Again, his eagerness to work, his energy, and his ability to get along earned him a three month contract extension. But, the job did end. In the mean time, one of his partners from the hospital job, who had been let go, went to work for an environmental engineering firm of scientists and engineers called Blasland, Bouck & Lee, Inc. The friend convinced his boss to hire Lewis as a free-lance temp, to upgrade that company's computer systems. Lewis stayed long passed the upgrade, and became fully employed with BB&L. The job lacked the intellectual stimulation and progression Lewis required, but an opportunity came to learn web programming on the job, when BB&L decided to dabble with electronic commerce. Lewis was laid off from BB&L in 2003, but he acquired solid experience in web technology, learning and becoming certified in Cold Fusion, a proprietary server-side programming language, and also Macromedia Flash ActionScript and javascript. After BB&L, Lewis learned two non-proprietary programming languages, Perl and PHP, the last of which he still develops with to the present time. Lewis also learned cascading style sheets (CSS), and performed free-lance web work for a few clients.
Lewis entered into a partnership with a friend in Syracuse, forming a postcard company. Lewis took the photographs, designed the layout and web pages, while the partner came up with short sayings for each card. Economy and a lack of faith in the postcard partnership drove Lewis out of Syracuse.
[edit] A Writer's Life
Gregory George Lewis ended up in Massachusetts, the state he had left 8 years before. While he was searching for job opportunities in Massachusetts, Lewis, always the writer-at-heart sought publications to express his thoughts, whether they were short stories, restaurant reviews, and other human interest stories. An editor of the West County News in Shelburne Falls gave Lewis a break, and published a restaurant review he had written. Lewis also took exceptional photographs from time to time—sunsets over valleys filled with fog; a man climbing a wall of ice; a girl rappelling up the side of a bridge, rafters negotiating category-5 rapids; still life glass art, and many others found their way into the West County News. Lewis began covering town meetings. He was not a natural journalist, and some errors in one of his stories earned him the wrath of a local millionaire. Lewis escaped without being sued, but learned how to take more careful notes. As Lewis once remarked, "I got tricked into covering town politics the way a porn star is tricked into a triple penetration". Gregory George Lewis continues writing regularly for the West County News, as well as other publications.
Because of his exposure to controversial local issues, Lewis eventually connected with other important modern figures, such as reproductive rights pioneer Bill Baird, the only person to ever stand before the U.S. Supreme Court three times; Buz Eisenberg, a lawyer representing detainees at the notorious Guantanamo, Cuba Naval detention facility; and found his way to covering the Massachusetts Democratic Convention in Worcester, 2006.
[edit] Original Quotes
"Mediocretes was the understudy of So-socrates" (First said during his employment at the Blasland, Bouck & Lee corporation, where creative solutions were discouraged in favor of the conventional, if more expensive and inefficient ones, and where it seemed the more obsequious the subordinate emloyee, the higher he rose in rank and salary.)
"I got tricked into covering town politics the way a porn star is tricked into a triple penetration" (First said after writing on town meetings as a correspondent for the West County News.)
