I have not shot a gun since target practicing with my grandfather in Reno, NV around 1980. Most who knew me would probably describe me as rather quiet.
I do remember being stuck in a developmentally disabled camp while a pre-elementary student in Wisconsin. My parents claim that this was because I was diagnosed as autistic. I did have to struggle with co-ordination problems all through childhood and still have speech problems when under stress.
I got 4 degrees though one of which was a Law Degree from what that the time was one of the Top Twenty Public Law Schools in the U.S.--the University of Minnesota. (Class of 1989)
A teacher in high school, Mrs. Mitchell at Wooster High School in Reno, NV., saw something in what was a very marginal student and made him read many of the classics like Anna Karenina. The marginal student was me.
I graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno with two BAs with a 3.71 and 3.73 GPA. And did almost as well with MA in Librarianship from the University of Denver. (Class of 1984)
Law school was a real struggle though as I tried to hide my speech problem and was a real misfit with respect to the social gamesmanship that seemed a big part of being a law student. I did find a number of good friends while in law school that got me through by helping me snag a job at the University of Minnesota Law Library as well as to become a Student Director for Legal Assistance to Minnesota Prisoners.
I got side tracked with my passion for helping survivors of violent crimes which was also inspired by Mrs. Mitchell after graduated in 1989 from Law School. That was through a tragedy that happened to her daughter Michelle while I was in her English class at Wooster High School in Reno, NV. Her daughter Michelle was murdered on my birthday of 2-24 in 1976 by three or four conspirators who tried to make it look like a serial killer was terrorizing Reno so that they could collect on a life insurance policy interest they had in another woman they murdered in February 1976. Michelle was a random victim.
I was introduced as the cataloger of all the WESTLAW computer files at a Law Library convention in Reno, Nevada in the Summer of 1989. The fate in the Law Library convention being in Reno, NV kind of seemed like a message. I am deeply religious in outlook so I took it as a sign that I needed to do something to help survivors of crimes get better access to practical information to heal.
There are more than one people on TOTV who have been diagnosed at one time or another as autistic.
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