5-12-2019

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The chemist once lived a glorious life of financial security and material luxury. However, his life fell apart from a simple period of indulgence and greed. He lived on the streets of Fremont for years, recycling for spare change. Now, he has overcome homelessness and lives comfortably in an apartment. 

 

Where did you grow up? 

I was born in Longswamp, Pennsylvania and grew up in a little town called Macungie. 

 

Have you worked any jobs before? 

My first job was at sixteen years old. I used to caddy at the golf course, worked for a doctor, cut his grass and babysat his children. In 1968 I went into the airforce. Spent years and years overseas in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Taiwan. I lived in Taiwan for more than 10 years. I can speak Mandarin, a little Taiwanese and Cantonese. In the military I was in the security division. I intercepted the messages from the Philippines that were going to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. 

 

And then I came back to the US and started working for Air Products & Chemicals in their cryogenics division. We made little heat exchangers for missiles and laboratory equipment. After that I worked tech data and then I worked for Ciphergen Biosystems. We handled the hard drives for IBM so the distribution and security. After that I went to work for Biorad laboratories in Hercules. I drove from Fremont all the way to Hercules. I worked there for a long time and made a lot of money. 

 

Do you have any regrets?

I got greedy when the equity in my house increased. So, like a fool, what I do is take out a loan from the bank. And I put in a new kitchen, bought a new Mercedes-SLK 350; I did that, I was drinking a lot, and it was the wrong thing to do. And then the realtor came to me because the bank was concerned that I was behind on payments. They wanted to foreclose on me, so like the song says, “go on, take your money and run.'' I took my money and sold my house. I put my ex-wife on the plane and told her to go to Indonesia. I gave her the money, and she went over and bought two houses in cash. I screwed the banks-two banks-and crashed them for $90,000. 

 

I had to do it. It’s like digging a grave, you dig deeper and deeper and deeper. I tried to utilize all my resources. I was living on Stevenson right in front of the police station. I had it tough. But I always found a way to use the buses for resources. I was walking around Fremont, recycling for six years. To this day I still recycle, but not for necessity. I’m retired. I’ve shown my children, my grandchildren, my ex wife, and my wife. 

 

I was homeless six years ago. Now, I make money every month from doing nothing, even though I’m retired. Biorad pays me employee profit sharing. I have just enough. You got to have faith in yourself and you got to trust people. I think there are a lot of homeless people because they give up. 

 

The chemist’s story exemplifies the minute decisions that switch the tipping point of financial security. Everyone is prone to similar mishaps, and it's not hard to become homeless in the blink of an eye. As the chemist likes to say, the moral of the story is “to never be greedy.”