After graduating from ML, I attended Pitt where I majored in Asian
Studies, and swam on the swim team. In the fall of 1974 I was injured
playing racquetball that put me in and out of the hospital for the next couple
of years. (This isn't the part about losing body parts that comes later). After
I put all that behind me, I accepted a position in Chicago managing an
insurance organization, but soon left to take a position with AT&T, that my
1st wife's (lasted 6 months she was crazy- really) brother-in-law set up for
me, as he felt pity for the bizarre situation I was in. I took a couple
of positions within AT&T in Chicago and then was offered a position in the
International Department in NJ to run their business development in the Far
East, and then in Europe, and finally for the entire world. From 1983ish to 2002, I lived and travelled around the world
supporting various organizations within AT&T International. I lived
for 2.5 years in Japan, 2.5 Years in France, with stints in Australia, Czech
Republic, Germany, Ireland, and Singapore. In total I have visited over
100 countries and have actually slept in over 90. Some I left pretty
quickly for a variety of funny and not funny reasons including being shot
at in El Salvador by mistake (They Missed LOL), and almost bombed in the UK
with Margaret Thatcher.
My personal life did not suffer. I met my 2nd and last wife in an
elevator in Orlando while I was touring telephone executives from around the
world in our various call centers in the US. We married 18 months later
and actually started our family on our wedding night. Having just come
back from Japan and with my wife and her Georgia Family doing all the wedding
arrangements, we finally got some alone time on our wedding night. My
daughter, Amelia was born 40 weeks to the day (my mother was counting), and 18
months later we had the twins, Alex and Austin, 40 weeks to the day I returned
from a trip to Australia.
As the children got older, sports pretty much dominated our
lives. My daughter became a level 10 gymnast traveling the world, and the
boys took after dad and started skiing professionally. When
the company let us go (Angela also worked for Lucent), I took a year off while
starting my business and skied on the USSA Master's
Ski Team with Alex and Austin. Angela and Amelia were going to
warm sunny places for gymnastics, while the boys and I were skiing the mountain world. When Angela accepted a job
out east (We actually were living in Washington St. and on Mt Hood.), we moved
and decided that the children needed to focus on their education and a
sport they could do in the east. Amelia played volleyball, Alex tennis,
and Austin golf. This is why we ended up on Hilton Head, as this island
has great development programs for these sports. The children are now in
college or grad school. Alex is Pre-vet at Clemson (and doing a surgical
internship in Maryland), Austin is a sophomore at Winthrop majoring in Clinical
Psychology, and Amelia starts grad school at the Arnold School of Public Health
at USC-Columbia in the fall. I guess the kids wanted to focus on
healthcare (maybe to take care of me in my old age??), as dad has spent a considerable
amount of time with broken and lost body parts. It's ugly losing it
at 75 MPH on a 60+ degree pitch. I am still looking for some teeth
and ski equipment lost over the cliff.
Our Bischoff Family Life! Look forward to catching up!
And as an aside, every one of the girls were/are absolutely beautiful,
sorry I didn't see it then, but I sure do now!!