When I was in college, I coached a recreation squad. Then, out of college, I continued to teach dance, and I coached some recreation teams. And then I started a team at the elementary school in Richmond, where I was teaching.

It was one of those nice surprises in life, where you think for so long, “I’m going to do this after I get out of school. I’ll be in this kind of role, in this city,” and that’s not how it ended up for me. With a lot of people, what you think you’re going into, it doesn’t end up being that way.

  My dad was a supply corps officer in the Navy, and we moved frequently when I was growing up. We lived in six states and Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, and every time we moved, we drove across the country, so I got to see a lot of national parks.

 
As far as the coal business goes on the railroad, I’ve had some experience from mine to market. 

I worked with JAG at the naval operating base in Norfolk. I decided to get out of the Marines because I wanted to settle down and I didn't want to do so much traveling. I wanted to get married and have kids. I decided to stay here and worked with a legal firm. There was an overabundance of paperwork. Its cases were stacked; they had rooms full of paper.

When I was a kid growing up in Chicago, I wanted to be a singer but just didn't have the voice. So when someone offered me $15 to dress up as a clown at a picnic, I jumped at the offer. I was 13 then, and I have been clowning ever since.

I enjoyed clothing. It appealed to me all the way through high school. Not from a sales stand point, but just from wearing it. We wore jeans to school one day a week just because it was different. No one wore jeans in those days.

 I became certified as a lifeguard in January 2007. At that point in time I was interested in entering the work force again and I just didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was regularly lap-swimming here, at the Northside Pool. That’s when I found out they offered American Red Cross lifeguard training courses.

 I love to work here. Everybody’s friendly. We all treat each other like family. My boss is awesome, him and her. They’re both so nice to all of us and treat us not just as a  worker . Like family, you know. Very friendly, very caring. They make it very easy for me, because I have two kids and I come to work late all the time.

I got into physical therapy because I was a ski bum/surf bum and my ex-wife wanted me to get a real job. So I went back to ODU and got my master's degree in physical therapy. It was tough because, being a philosophy major with a sociology minor as an undergrad, I had zero science classes.