More of My Story

People call me T.S.  It is a nickname given to me by my mother, because when I was in high school I used to carry around a book of collected poems by T.S. Eliot, my favorite poet.  T.S.also happens to be the initials of my first and last name, so it stuck with some of my friends and teachers, and it went from there.  I'm called other things too: Thomas, Tom, Tommy.  It depends on who I knew at certain times in my life and what my relationship was, or is, to them.

I was born on the south side of Chicago and grew up mostly in the suburbs that surround that wonderful city.  After I got married I lived in the city near Wrigley Field for a number of years in a 100-old house until the needs of my children suggested we needed to move back to the suburbs.  For the last 17 years I have lived in the largest small town in America, Naperville, and I have not regretted moving here once.  It is marvelous town.  Because I traveled a lot with my work, it took me a lot to get to know it as well as I do now.  There are some positive outcomes that happen when you find for certain reasons you have to slow down.

Last summer, when I lost my job through a corporate restructuring, I saw that my kids and their friends, who are very creative, had nowhere to go where they could work, talk, and share in a safe environment.  I decided to take one part of my garage and turn it into something like a Paris salon.  We now have carpeting, furniture, easels, cubbyholes full of supplies, and a lot of really cool stereo equipment. Kids are here every day drawing and painting, listening or playing music, writing and reading, or just discussing things that are important to them.  They inexplicably named our space the Underground Art Farm, which I like. There is a method in my madness. If all kids are here, then I can see them and don't have to worry about them. 

You will hear a lot about my life, my family,our friends and community in my blogs. To paraphrase James Thurber, this is my world and as shaky as it is, and you're welcome to it.  

T.S.

P.S. If you want to understand why I am called the Rain King view my first blog called "Origin of the Rain King" which was posted on May 28, 2013 and is in my archives.



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