LFS: The Storyteller

©2014 by LeeZard I arrived in soggy Seattle February 9, 1974 to become News Director for the brand-spankin’ new KZOK-FM, “OK102-and-a-half.”  It was a hokey tag line then and it still is today. Wouldn’t you want to be more than just OK? As usual, I digress.  I left Renton, WA, just east of Seattle, on August 11, 2014, relocating to Colorado Springs, CO where, I hear, they have four seasons each year.  Garden of the Gods, a city park in Colorado Springs Has it really been 40 years?  When I arrived in Seattle I was just shy of my 27 th birthday, newly married to (I thought) the love of my life and riding the crest of success as a broadcast journalist in the nascent Progressive Rock format on the FM band (can you say Hippy Radio?). Back then you could use the words “broadcast” and "Journalist” in the same sentence with a straight face and we used the burgeoning commercial FM boom to pioneer a style of journalism heretofore unheard of on the airwaves. ...

©2007 by LeeZard I am a walking, talking miracle. By the end of 1997, I was clinically depressed, stuffing more than 220 pounds onto a frame built for 175, struggling to breathe when I walked up a short flight of stairs and suffering intermittent internal bleeding. At 51, I was virtually unemployable and emotionally alienated from my family and friends. I was a late stage alcoholic. Had I continued down that path I certainly would have died a lonely and ugly death if I didn’t kill myself (and/or someone else) first while driving drunk. I would’ve been in and out of jails, hospitals and perhaps a mental institution or two. Instead, I decided I couldn’t live that way anymore. I also knew I couldn’t stop drinking on my own so I turned to the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. That was the beginning of my miracle. I’ve been sober since June 10, 1998. I weigh 190 pounds, power walk 3-5 miles nearly every day, have a challenging and well-paying job and an overall sense of peace and gratitude....