My Family:

Father, John T. Ryan, attorney. Son of Thomas H. and Molly Murray Ryan. Dad was thrown out of the University of Wisconsin for rolling a piano out a sorority. Dad had a brother, Dinty (now dead) and a sister who was never discussed and whom I met for about 5 minutes at some point during college. Dad never talked about what happened to his family - all parents, grandparents, etc. were dead by the time I came along. Apparently there was some money, and booze and hard living wasted it all up.Dad died a couple years ago, after battling senility and deafness. Apparently he got really messed up during W.W.II, but our family never mentioned anything which might have reflected badly on the “family name” or some such. Only once did he mention the war, and that was to say the women were throwing their kids over cliffs because they had heard that the Americans would hack up the babies. At least I know where my ADD comes from. And my memory too... It is pretty good to be king 

Mother: Diana Stueland, daughter of Fritz and Helen Stueland. Grandparents lived 3 doors down from us as kids in St. Joe. My poor mom and dad! As kids, we liked it. Mom had a brother, Joe, who along with many of his family were killed in a plane crash. Survivors were Sam, Sarah, and Penny. Mom had a sister, Helen, who married Robert McCloskey and they moved to Harvard’s neighborhood. Cousins from McCloskeys - John (too smart for school); Laura who now teaches at the place her brother Donald nee Diedre McCloskey.works.

Half-brother Phil, from my mother’s first marriage and adopted by my father, so Dennis and Jen and Phil were all the kids of the house. At some point I learned that my dad had, on some impulse while down in Alabama got married and had a child and got divorced in a pretty short period of time, and then quit seeing his daughter there. My mom finally started getting my half-sister Sally to come up north during summers to visit.

Dennis and Jen were my sisters. They were older than I was. I think the worst thing Jen did as a kid was to ride my bike after dark without a light, and getting my bike grabbed. Jen liked acting in plays a lot. She also liked swimming. Dennis was not a perfect angel but got very good grades and always gave whatever it was she was doing 100% all the time.

My wretched life:

I was born in St. Joe, Michigan in 1953. I am a baby boomer from an all-white city across a river from an all black city. My hometown was an industrial area until he 80s, when everything closed down. Everything included 3 of America’s largest foundries, Whirlpool Corp., Caterpillar, Bendix, the Whitcomb Hotel, etc. A town without jobs is not much of a town. When I occassionally go back to St. Joe, I am awed at how crappy it is. The basic house there is about 3 rooms, the center of activity is drinking, and the only good thing is Lake Michigan.

I learned from another kid in my grade around 7th grade that blacks couldn’t swim because their bones are solid. I am assuming that he learned that from his parents. I knew better. As a grade-schooler our mailman had been an Olympic swimmer. While he wasn’t black, he was a swimmer. But I did realize that blacks couldn’t swim because they couldn’t belong to either of the country clubs, or the yacht club, in St. Joe. Growing up, the town joke was that if one merely incapacitated 3 bridges St. Joe would be totally protected from Benton Harbor. Because blacks couldn’t swim. I guess that the city planners figured that blacks couldn’t swim either. They weren’t very good ice skaters either. Or golfers. Or sailors. Or lawyers, bankers, doctors, teachers, or lots of other things. It wasn’t a lack of opportunity but a lack of ability. They really weren’t able to live in St. Joe either, not because they couldn’t afford the homes, or because the realtors wouldn’t show the homes to them, but because of the lack of financial ability to permit the purchase of St. Joe property.

I have an unusual conception of the development of the problem. Sometime I’ll expound.
St. Joe faces Lake Michigan, and the home I grew up in looked out over the lake. In high school my room looked out over the lake from the 3rd floor of our home. I used to love to watch the lightning storms coming over the lake. I also loved the beauty of the frozen winter waters. The house we lived in was a big old house. And I emphasis both.

I had a bike that I rode everywhere until I got in Junior High.  From then on it was either walk/hitchhike or get a ride from someone with a license. I was always home by 5:30 every day because that was when dinner was. We always ate as a family. Our dining room had a foot switch so the maid could be rung to come in from the kitchen to help or serve or be a slave or whatever it is Mrs. Ellis did.

I graduated from St. Joseph High School, which was across the river from Benton Harbor High  School, in 1971. A stark black and white difference there. Bill Crow and I as kids used to walk downtown BH to play pool and go to the movies; by Jr. High BH was really deteriorating; by the early 70’s white flight had taken its toll together with job closings and government funds which kept people where the jobs were not.

One day I and quite probably Mike Gast were returning from a breakfast at HoJo’s in Benton Harbor, and we decided to start a rumor that the Benton Harbor blacks were on their way walking up to St. Joe High to riot.     And you know what? People bought it. The word spread. Soon the exterior doors were locked shut, There was an assembly of I believe a hypnotist from whom I learned that day how to hypnotize. 

Chronologically, I was born in ‘53. I graduated in ‘71. Go figure... In 1965 there were race riots in Benton Harbor, which pressed the “white flight” from BH to SJ. St. Joe did have a couple blacks, including a cab driver who got a ticket for not wearing his hat while on duty. In 1970 I was taken into custody by the St. Joseph Police Department for wearing an American Flag patch on the back pocket of my jeans, or as it was technically referred to, desecrating the flag. Apparently upon being put in a holding cell someone at the police department determined that there might be some sort of constitutional issue involved. While they were figuring that one out, my sister Dennis came to get me out because my mom had a reaction to some medication in anticipation of her trip with one of Dr. Hill’s daughters through Europe. I couldn’t go because I had skipped too much and had too bad a grade point. My loss, but I didn’t really miss anything as my dad was home part of the time and then I was home alone, which is a decent movie I think.

Our family had no accountability. Dennis and I were repeatedly thrown out of school for smoking. Dennis and I both drank in high school. (At least she did well in high school). As far as I can tell, I never got in trouble for any of the bad things I was doing. Lack of parenting+ADD=Problems! Oh well. I’m sure my parents meant well, and I’m sure they tried as hard as they could. Jen didn’t do anything so she never got in trouble.

Dennis went to Kemper Hall in Wisconsin, but got thrown out for the heinous crime of smoking. She was addicted by about 14. Wasn’t everyone? Dennis went to Wisconsin and after 4 years she was done although she was some 2 credits short of graduating. She was admitted to law school somewhere but didn’t go. She wisely chose to get married to one of the persons who had lived on one of the communes she lived in at Madison. She rioted with the best of them, I am sure. Dennis was married to Roger until her death in 2001 I believe. 

Jen spent about 5 years at Arizona State and got a teaching degree and a husband. I graduated in 4 years after that year off working at Modern Plastics, and spent my 3 years at law school at Notre Dame. While as a kid I didn’t do very well, as soon as I got away from St. Joe I blossomed.

After the year I took off to work at Modern Plastics where coincidentally Joey Johnston also worked, Doug DeRidder and I took a trip starting at Pocono Speedway for a rock festival, then through Canada and the Great Northwest. Got to see guys shooting up in Gastown in Vancouver, Canada. What a trip. I discovered King Crimson that year. Here are some of the groups we saw together with a couple hundred thousand other kids, including Bartley... 07/08/72 - Long Pond - Pocono International Raceway - 'Concert 10' Festival - w/ Black Sabbath, Humble Pie, Three Dog Night, Emerson Lake And Palmer, The Faces, J. Geils Band, Badfinger, Cactus, Edgar Winter, Bull Angus Mother Night, Savoy Brown, Ground Hog, Claire Hamill & Ramatam (I got the names from a google search.)
That’s quite a list of groups to see, eh?I still remember vividly ELP and the Faces.

Schools attended:

Jefferson School; Had my first cigarette as Ryan Fowler held my hand to a grinder and told me that if I didn’t inhale his Camel cigarette he’d grind my hand up. If you knew Ryan, you know why I inhaled. I never exhaled. This was like 4th grade.

St. Joe Jr. High (the old one 3 blocks from my home). Smoking suspension. Lots of tennis, some golf, and learning how to be an alcoholic by binge drinking with my buddies (many of whom are I am sure still binge drinking).
Rumsey Hall, Washington Connecticut. Met lots of nice folks. First “real” kiss (Abby Van Buren or some such). [In looking at some web page following up on the Cherichevski name (or some such) I learned my sister Jen’s name had been entered as going to Ms. Porter’s. Must have been when I was in law school! ] Oh well. Smoking suspension for Tom.

St. Joe High. Blech. Worst years of my life.The Hippie Years with all that that implies. You can’t trust anyone over 30. Except Dr. Leary. Smoking suspension. Fred Upton came back to St. Joe High for his senior year, then went on to work for Dave Stockman and now he’s a congressman. His cousin John is a lawyer in NYC, and his cousin Dave has created some U of M CDs for fanatical alum.(Now, of interest, Fred isn’t in the classmates.com list for ‘71 grads, but John is. Weird.) Becky Roberts was the Apple Blossom Queen. I wonder if her life ever got any better after that! Vicky Ryno and I were always right next to one another in home room.

My high school classmates are somewhat keeping in touch in a brief unobtrusive messaging format.

From Jr. High on, at least 1 of my friends was killed each year in a drinking and driving situation. Drinking and driving were the main things kids could do in St. Joe. It’s what the parents did too. Maybe it was just the 60s. I don’t know. Some names of some of the deceased: Tom Mix; Rory Beckman; Maty Stelzer (I think...); Dean Aslin; Someone Romeo; Judy Somebody; 

Was there a pattern while I was in school of smoking? Gee. Mom smoked; I have never seen a picture of her father without a cigarette in hand. Addictions are soooooo tough ......  Although when I started it was advertised as basically safe if not good to smoke, and no store ever told my friends or me we were too young to buy smokes.

During high school, Phil Helmrich and I drove around Canada and the Western US. I got to spend an evening in Calgary with a drunk Indian waving a pistol around bitching about how tough the Indians got screwed by the man. Did you know Calgary has the world’s largest rodeo? We went with some girls who ditched us as soon as we got there. We saw the movie Woodstock in Calgary; loved our week at Banff, and got robbed at knifepoint by some heroin addicts in the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco. All told, quite a trip for a couple kids. Loved it.

During the formative years Benton Harbor had several spots, such as Hullabaloo (sp???) which had most of the top groups of the day for a couple bucks admission. The group that did all the Snoopy songs; MC5, and probably 40 other really top notch entertainers/groups.
Arizona State. Loved the sun. Loved the study. One of the only kids there working hard in school to get good grades.

Arizona State University 1972-1974 Tempe AZ  Sun Devils. Think Danny White and you’ll remember the football team. I really liked Arizona, and what with it being my first time away and I could be whoever I wanted to be, I flourished. I got basically all As with a good GPA. I have to admit that George W. Bush and Al Gore were proof that GPAs were lower then without any particularly bad connotation. My GPA was good. During my second year I decided and my dad helped me transfer to the U of M in Ann Arbor.

University of Michigan. Latin, Latin, Latin. Too much Latin for a classics degree, so I took Greek as my foreign language and majored in Latin (not classics). Saw several musicians, including Leo Kotke, Spirit,  I got my degree in Psychotics in 1976 which was the bicentennial year. (Did you know year is not of Latin origin, but America is?) A Roman cartographer named Luigi Vespucci gave America it’s name, hence it is of Roman origin, n’est pas? We read Playdough in 2nd year Greek. He sure had a lot of gadflies.

I took French but have forgotten most of it now. I hope one day to visit the Tower of Pizza so I can use what I can remember. N’est pas? Et vu? 

Notre Dame University. I got my Juris Doctor degree in 1979, and got married the day after I successfully completed my bar exam in Michigan. My wife is Maureen Barbara Ellen Foran Ryan, daughter of Phil and Peggy Foran.

While at ND, I got to see lots of politicians. Jimmy Carter. George H.W.. Bush. That dark guy from Minnesota, Mondale.

Grand Valley State University. Web design classes ending 3 days before the “dot-com” bubble burst. I received a bunch of certificates ensuring that I can do html work.

Western Michigan University. Secondary Teaching Certification.

Grand Valley State University. Study in ESL while our state goes through the largest budget deficit in history. No schools are hiring and even bus drivers are losing their jobs. During this period my breathing problems are accelerating and it isn’t worth the hassles to continue in school. At this point any school had better be for fun, and taking classes from English Department members isn’t my cup of “fun”.

I have been invited to a meeting of the International Society of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and have been invited to attend a conference in Carpentersville, Illinois (pronounced ill-a-noy). “It is are annual Bring a Friend Night” is what the message says, like he owns it. I think it is not unlike Mensa but without all the hoopla and braggadocio. I think that I am independent enough to make my own mind on that, though.

Jobs I have had:

Before I got the JD at ND.

I worked as a busboy at Tosi’s for a couple nights at some point during some summer in high school. I took a year off between High School and College and worked at Modern Plastics as a compression plastics molder. Actually I started at Modern Plastics during the summer of ‘71 as a scab, when Doug DeRidder, myself, Wayne Madison, and Norton. One night we stopped to get some beers at a bar nearby; Norton went in, got hastled by some striking workers, grabbed a pool cue had hit the striker over the head. We were chased at high speed from BH to SJ where the police had set up a road block. Ahh, good times. 

Then, after starting college I worked one summer for 2 1/2 days at Emlong’s Nursery, where we were driven by truck some 40 miles to the middle of nowhere, and were told to sit all day in the dirt, plucking dead leaves off new plantings. Quite a crew I worked with there. The Emlong son allegedly was placed in a relocation program after ratting out his fellow drug dealers on some major event. Worked again at Modern Plastics for a summer. Worked at Whirlpool for a summer. Worked at the Prosecutor’s office for a summer during law school; worked for my dad’s firm for a summer.

Post-JD Jobs

Right after law school I went to work with my dad’s office in St. Joe. Ryan, McQuillan, VanderPloeg and Fette. That office went from 8 to 22 lawyers in about 2 years as it went through several mergers and changes, including Ryan and Facenda in South Bend, Butzbaugh and Ryan, and I left in around 85 or so. The office was basically totally dissolved within a year, splitting up to several smaller offices.

While in St. Joe I did a lot of med mal defense work, I came to GR to do plaintiff’s work for Murphy, Burns and McInerney, which broke up some 6 months after I started there. Gary McInerney and I went off together and worked in the People’s Bldg. and then on Fulton. Chosing marriage over working together, we split up in around 89, and I continued with the Plaintiff’s PI work in GR. I had this real knack at smelling money in a file - I took files that had been rejected by Charfoos, Schwartz, and who knows who else, and turned them into cash.  I shared office space with Tom Dewitt, then with Pat Devlin. After Pat, I never shared expenses with anyone, and moved my office from the People’s Bldg to the Trust Bldg to the very floor Jerry Ford had started out on. I kept my office there until 1/1/2000, which was the date my wife and I had set for me to quit doing a job I had come to hate so very much... During the last year is when I started having problems with breathing, which was ultimately diagnosed as emphysema.

Taught at Forest Hills 2000-2001 school year.Latin.

Taught at Kalamazoo Central for a year in 2002-2003 or thereabouts. Latin.

Have substituted from time to time and from place to place. While not at a job, I continue to work hard around the house and with and for my family. Speak without pronouns.Like 41. Like to talk like that. You?