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Warren Richards
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Last Updated: |
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July 23, 2010 |
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Residing In: |
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Mesa & Kayenta, AZ |
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Occupation: |
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East Valley Senior Services, Inc. |
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Children: |
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My partner Dewayne is Native American, of the Navajo Tribe, and he and I have been planning on having one of his relatives be our surrogate mother, so our child or children will be from both of our genuine bloodlines. My mom, of course, is thrilled. Lately I've been reconsidering the whole "fatherhood on the Rez" idea, though. Kayenta is beautiful and the Navajo Nation Reservation is spectacular. When I'm up there, the beautiful rock formations and brilliant sky reminds me of growing up on Bald Mountain Road in rural Clarks Summit, up on the other side of Bald Mountain from the West Side of Scranton and Taylor & Old Forge, but it's way too isolated from the rest of the world. Anyway, one weekend morning my mom was hugging Dewayne and she said to me "I like my son-in-law." Even though, of course, there's no legally-recognized "in-law" status about Dewayne yet, I bet she never predicted those words coming out of her mouth when she was raising her three sons. Ha! |
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Birthday: |
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February 27, 1970 |
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Comments: |
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After repeating my senior year at A.H., I graduated from Keystone and then transferred to Univerity of Pittsburgh. While at Pitt I got involved in politics and worked at the William Pitt Union, met & talked with Geraldine Ferraro briefly at the WPU, and worked on both campaigns for the Clinton-Gore Administrations, and spoke pretty extensively at area high schools for MADD, and also spoke and wrote for the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force. My old friend (totally Platonic friend, despite any possible "guilt by association" projection from goofballs) Kevin Ruppenthal can back me up on all of that. Since he and I had sat next to each other in the majority of our classes from Fifth grade 'til my crash in late-February 1988, running into Kevin unexpectedly when I transferred to Pitt was a fantastic surprise. I was continuing my studies at Arizona State University years later and but had fled to San Fransisco to forget about life for a while once I had learned that Laura Lee (DeFazio) Morribito was a passenger on the first jet which flew into the World Trade Center on 9/11/01. As a boy, I had played Abington Astros football for years with her brother Craig DeFazio ('87 alumn), and we had sat with her parents Larry and Bev DeFazio all the time during Comets football games, plus Larry and Bev once owned the tavern across the highway from Keystone, where I had gone often with Keystone staffers. That was years after they had owned that bar which probably is best remembered as John K's Pub, across from the C.S. post office. I can only imagine Laura Lee's final moments AND the emptiness felt by her family. Words are, I'm sure, little consolation for them, or for her very own family.
I have not been involved with Phoenix's Democratic Party Headquarters in the last few years, and I didn't even try to go see President Obama address the 2009 graduating class at Arizona State University. We did see Air Force One flying away from Sky Harbor Airport that evening, though, which of course wasn't as thrilling as meeting President Clinton after a speech of his in Pittsburgh, but it was pretty cool. For much of this summer I was in Tucson with Dewayne while he was doing his internship at the University of Arizona Medical Center. Plenty of current Info and Photos are on my facebook profile, but before you go there, I need you to finish reading this profile here. Okay?
After I had moved to AZ to be part of my brother Frank's kids' lives in 1997, we pooled our resources together and got this house here in Mesa, near Phoenix. Frank's exwife went all crazy with hypocrite religious zealotry and had brainwashed the kids against us and finally fled the state again, against court orders again, which was totally unhealthy for the kids. It's funny how there's the Seperation of Church and State unless religious zealots need their Glorified Mythology interjected into the legal system. Am I bitter? No, seriously, not at all. And people who are not obsessed with religious mythologies in any of their different flavors should not take offense to my accuracy there. Are we back in the 1700s or earlier? Hello? I still find myself amazed and stunned at how SOME people rationalize their narrow views and bigotry by supporting the class warfare and racism of the Republican party in these sometimes-not-unified United States of America.
Google Warren G. Richards ('advanced search' and 'for exact phrase' for my full name) so you can see more of my social & political commentery. This is a great big pluralistic world, and wouldn't it be creepy if we were all living examples of The Stepford Wives or some other drones?
Anyway, currently I volunteer at the front desk in the Mesa Active Adult Center, where a healthy atmosphere of togetherness is provided for socialization and a nutritious lunch each weekday. There are various activities including a big-band-style dance each week, fun blood-pumping aerobics and also a mild excercize group, plus social bingo AND "Big Game" bingo, various arts and crafts and an exercize room with top-notch equipment and a billiards room and plenty of other activities.
I'm enjoying all these profiles and pictures while revisiting so many memories with everyone. Thank you.
Remember the days of our youth, everyone. Even though they might have been rough sometimes with the growing pains of life, those were the days when our matters made no difference and our differences did not matter. |
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School Story: |
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My best memories were probably the art students' and the music students' trips to Broadway or the Museum of Modern Art & the Metropolitan Museum, or from skipping classes and entire days with Dobbs or Kate or Elisa or Michele and/or other friends, going down to King of Prussia or wherever, and of course Lucille Collins's rehearsals for the concerts, etc. (onstage under the lights: "Why do I feel like a french fry?"), or from Ellie Hogan's art classes and from all our field trips and home visits at Ellie's, et al.
I'm still in touch once in a while with Deb (Dobbs) Dembral and with former A.H. student Lori (Garber) Leary, and with my lifelong friend (since Sunday School nursery equals lifelong, wouldn't you say?) and former neighbor Michele (Bigar) Plunkett, and it's so nice getting in touch with the rest of you currently, both here at abingtonheights88.com or regular email or on facebook.
Those years of were some of the best years of our lives (and of course that is not discounting our plentiful lives now), and I'm very glad all of you helped me, even if indirectly, become a caring, compassionate, realistic man.
Take care, everyone.
Big hugs,
Warren
Warren G Richards
Mesa AZ |
Warren and Dewayne just south of Flagstaff AZ
Dewayne standing to the Right of a San Juan River waterfall in the southern Utah desert
An awesome shot of Dewayne standing where I took the other picture at the San Juan River
In front yard in Mesa with 101 degrees in Phoenix
A goofy picture of us by the rock formation in Window Rock AZ
A better image of the "window rock" there
At the 2004 Phoenix Renaissance Festival
There was a picture of Michele (Bigar) Plunkett & me when we reunited at Grandma Richards's 5/08 funeral in Old Forge PA, but I removed it b/c I know Michele does not like that picture.
Church Rock, roughly the size of our school on Noble Rd in Clarks Summit PA, just outside of Kayenta AZ
Newly fallen rock by Kayenta after light tremors near Navajo Mountain the previous night in 7/09
Approaching Narrow Canyon, Dewayne was saying, "Go ahead --picture this!" So I did.
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