Gordon Clark

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Biography

Come dance with me. In the Sacred Circle, we are all great dancers and great spirits.

I grew up in a newspaper family. During all of my growing-up years, I figured I would continue the family tradition. After all, I began working as a printer's devil at my family's newspaper, the Edmonds (WA) Tribune-Review, when I was about eight years old. A year later, I started writing for it.

From my Dad, Earl Clark: "Gordy . . . signed on as a Tribune columnist not long after his ninth birthday. 'Gordy's Corner' became one of the editorial page's brightest spots. With an occasional assist from his parents by way of ideas, Gordy wrinkled his brows over a weekly essay that usually ran five to six inches of type. It was the only thing that went into the paper without benefit of editing. 'Gordy is doing things to the English language that should have been done years ago,' one of my colleagues told me after chuckling over the young columnist's unintentionally simplified spelling."

I attended Missouri University's famed School of Journalism still expecting to go into the weekly newspaper field, although a four-year stint in the Navy came first (the Vietnam War was in full swing). But by then, weekly newspapers were beginning to disappear and evolve in ways I distrusted. Instead, I spent my adult years (that's a joke!) in California's Silicon Valley doing technical documentation for high-tech companies.

Three decades later, my family and I moved to Asheville, Western North Carolina. Now I'm mostly retired. I have two step-kids (neither of whom will speak to me) and some grandkids (one of whom used to speak to me, before he killed himself in 2020). I like gin-and-tonics, Democrats, the Outer Banks, Hawaiian music, Senior Day at Ross Dress for Less, the occasional toke and a good joke (but I can't remember 'em to tell 'em). I weigh more than I used to, but I'm about a half an inch shorter than I was: everything is succumbing to gravity. I have almost all of my teeth, most of my hair, and some of my eyesight. I need a lot of aid to get around: hearing aids, eyesight aids, heart aids, knee aids. Still, life is good because I'm on the right side of the dirt. For the moment.

Residences: 1946-47: Deshler, OH; 1947-53: Port Angeles, WA; 1954-68: Edmonds, WA; 1964-68: Columbia, MO (Missouri University); 1968-72: San Diego, CA & Subic Bay, Philippines (US Navy); 1973-77: Whidbey Island, WA; 1977-78: San Francisco, CA; 1979-2003: Boulder Creek, CA; 2003-Present: Asheville, NC.

Sources

• Entered by Gordon Clark.
• Recollection of Earl Clark.