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Email Perry: pryfos AT cs.com (replace the AT with an "@" symbol)
Childhood
I
was born and raised in a small farming community a few
miles east of Indiana, Pennsylvania. I have fond memories
of Indiana, but it certainly was a different era—crowded
sidewalks and bustling shops and stores along Philadelphia
Street; Friday evening and Saturday morning gatherings of
local farmers on the courthouse steps; lines of weekend
movie-goers at the Indiana and Manos theaters; Saturday
night sock hops at the Armory; and I recall large
Hollywood posters of Jimmy Stewart, some in his military
uniform, displayed in the big bay window of his father’s
hardware store—and, inside, the rich smell of western
saddles draped over wooden sawhorses.
College
I
graduated from Lyndon State College in 1971. Standing on
Lyndon’s campus, gazing down upon a quaint postcard New
England village scene, I fell in love with northern
Vermont. The college’s main building—a 19th
century mountain top mansion once owned by T.N. Vale,
Alexander Graham Bell’s accountant—had a magnificent view.
New Hampshire’s White Mountains were twenty-five miles
away. After completing my undergraduate work, I taught
junior high English in St. Johnsbury, Vermont for two
years.
Northern Vermont’s long winters, however, sometimes lasted until
May. In l973, during a summer stopover in
York, Pennsylvania on my way to visit my parents, I
perused the yellow pages and stumbled upon a high school
English teaching job. After I agreed to help coach junior
high football, the superintendent hired me. I later
received a MLA degree from Johns Hopkins University,
evenings and summer courses.
Jewelry Business
Looking for a way to earn a little extra on the side, I
called a friend in Vermont who crafted pottery. He
recommended that I look into Jewelry. In 1975 my wife and
I attended an arts and crafts festival at
Penn State, State College,
Pennsylvania. The event inspired me to enroll in an
evening silver smithing course, learning how to construct
sterling silver jewelry. After hours of practice, I
showed samples of my work to gift shop buyers in
Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They liked the simple designs
and several buyers placed orders. I had accidentally
stumbled upon a thriving tourist market for inexpensive
teen jewelry. The fledgling wholesale business prospered.
And I liked it. It was fun, and we certainly needed the
extra income.
Still teaching, I borrowed $4,000 from a local bank, and
in time the small investment paid off. Two years later, I
resigned my teaching job to concentrate on the business.
Then I faced another decision: to continue making jewelry
in the basement of my home, or purchase it for resale. A
kind old Jew with a twinkle in his eye, whom I had met at
a New York jewelry trade show, helped me make the
decision. “You can’t do both and grow,” he said with a
Yiddish accent, “manufacture or sell.” So I began buying
sterling and costume jewelry from importers and
manufacturers, later, adding gold and gemstone jewelry to
the line. Two years later, my wife resigned her teaching
job to manage our first of five small retail stores.
Coronary Problems
Eighteen years later, I was diagnosed with coronary artery
disease and required bypass surgery. After an
exceptionally difficult recovery, I liquidated the
business and retired. I had always had an urge to write
and having taught English for several years, I knew I had
the skills to do it. Following my surgery, I began
wondering how many people who had suffered coronary artery
disease and bypass surgery had the time, the skills, and
the inclination to write a book for the lay reader about
the traumatic experience. Now, a few years after I first
began jotting down notes, my story is complete.
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