"And where have you lived?"

I first lived in a converted one room school house on Log Road in Smithfield RI.

Then my parents split, and I moved to a third floor apartment on John St in Providence followed by a move less than a year later to an apartment a block away at 106 Williams St.

In the early 60's, my mother bought a house at 11 Nisbet St, where I lived until I went away to college.

At Lafayette, I lived in the Marquis Hall dorm my freshman year and then the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity the next three.

At Syracuse, I lived in a rodent invested apartment at 106 Standart St. I understand it is now part of the Carrier Dome complex.

There were many short lived rooms at hotels during my hospitality career, but these count as places I slept, not places I lived.

On returning to Providence, I first lived at 367 Benefit St where I met many of my current friends, followed by my first house at 10 Lockwood St in Cranston, and then a return to 106 Williams St for 15 good years.

I became a homeowner again in 1998 at 29 Eleventh St, and then we moved in 2001 to 75 Irving, our current home when Hank came along, so he wouldn't have to share a room with his brother.

And this morning he asked "What jobs have you had?"

My first was at the Lincoln School for girls on Butler Avenue. I was 16. They paid me a $1.00 an hour in 1966. My weekly paycheck was around $35 after taxes and social security. I worked there for 3 summers, cutting grass, painting, and prying the gum out of the bottom of waste paper baskets. The second summer, the superintendent (Sarah Grace Rush) increased my pay to $1.25 an hour. "Don't tell anyone." she said.

My second job was due to my father's determination that I should do something "interesting" with my summers. Without my knowledge, he mailed around 20 letters to summer hotels on the Northeast coast offering my services. I was pissed off when he told me. Two weeks later I received an offer to be a dishwasher at the Narragansett Inn on Block Island. I took the job. Shortly after arriving I took a reduction in pay to $25 per week from $45 per week to be a bellhop. We worked 7 days a week from Memorial Day to Labor Day. I did this for four summers, advancing to desk clerk the next year at $65 per week.

I had several other hotel jobs over the next few years. Desk Clerk at the Biltmore Hotel in Providence, Desk Clerk at the Yodler Inn at Stowe VT, Desk Clerk at the Catalina Inn on Catalina Island, California, and finally, weekend Desk Clerk at the Holiday Inn at Exit 39 on the New York Thruway while I was attending Syracuse.

After getting my Masters at Syracuse, I started work at the RI Budget Office where I continued on for 17 years, quitting when a new boss and I didn't see eye to eye. Then I was a consultant for a few months until I turned a consulting job into a real job as Director of Research at the RI League of Cities and Towns. A year later I moved on to be Finance Director in the City of Warwick for 7 years, followed by 2 years back with the state heading up the municipal unit.

I then had a reversal in fortune, returning to work for Senator Lincoln Chafee (and also my boss as the former Mayor of Warwick) running his RI Office. It never worked for either of us, and I was able to return to the state two years later where I have done well for the last three years.

"How many jobs is that?" asked Skipper as we pulled into his school.