In my early years, just after graduating from high school with very high grades, I attended college at the University of Minnesota. Unfortunately, after just two quarters I found that my poor memory was unable to retain the information in the books we were given to read. With my best efforts I could only achieve C’s, D’s and for the first time in my life — an F. I dropped out of college and hitched-hiked to California where I lived out of abandoned cars and occasional apartments with local acquaintances. After a year of this homeless life, and I found out I was called up for the draft. So, I found a ride back home in Minnesota and took the physical. Because of a surgery in my knee, I was unable to pass the draft physical and avoided the military.
I was now 20 years old with no talents and no future. So, I got a job as a janitor at United Mailing and started my life. I swept and cleaned around drawing boards every day and told myself that I wasn’t going to end up this way. I decided to learn to draw cartoons. At first, all I could do was draw stick figures — I was terrible. So, I spent the next two years pushing myself. I studied the cartoon pages in the newspaper and anything I could find became my teacher. I worked eight hours at work and another eight hours at night for two solid years until I actually had a decent ability to created cartoon concepts. With all this practice, and an inventory of line drawings, I met a friend who helped publish and market my first advertising clip book. The sales were decent but the return was very high. This started my believing in myself.
