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When I was about 12 years old back in Houston, my Dad used to take us to the driving range.

During my pre-college years, I went on many trips with my father into the oil fields to visit their operations. On Saturday mornings, I often went with him to visit the company shop. I puttered around the machine, electronics, and automobile shops while he carried on his business.

I was a horrible limo driver: I ran out of gas with passengers in the back and I used to get lost on a regular basis.

And then after a while he got me a job at the video store next door. I used to lock up the store and go next door and hang out all the time and watch movies and stuff.

When I spent time with my father, it wasn't playing ball in the back yard. I came to his office and listened to him do business or sat in on meetings. I walked job sites. On Saturday, we'd see my grandfather in Queens for a couple hours, and then he'd say, 'Let's go collect rent!'

I was a mechanic at a go-cart place, a deejay at a roller rink, a telemarketer in New York, a grocery bagger.

He used to have a tent show, a little tent show, and I thought I was going to get a job working one year on the tent show, but he closed it down and I never got to go out there, but anyway, he had a sax and played drums.

Sometimes we followed the crops, doing migrant labor. We did several years of tenant farming in Western Oregon starting in the early '50s. Later, my stepdad managed gas stations in a small town near Portland.