Class of 1964
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Class of 1964 |
Norman Lofthus |
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| What are you doing these days? Shaking & baking. Retired but busier than ever, still playing the real estate game. Tell us about your children. Having made a lousy child, I figured I was unlikely to be a sterling parent and skipped the whole thing. I did, however, briefly consider leasing. Highlights of the past 40 years. I spent the 70's and 80's traveling, making art, working in video and television in the Bay Area, writing screenplays (unsuccessfully) and avoiding maturity (successfully), on track for a seamless transition from adolescence to senility, bypassing adulthood altogether. (I'm convinced that if you don't have children you are destined to remain one.) In the 90's life started sending me a message: "Get serious, Lofthus" In hindsight, I think it was saying "Get cereal, Lofthus," but, having a history of misreading cosmic signs and grocery lists and being between relationships, I loaded up my car and went to seek my fortune. I wound up in Texas where, thanks to lucky timing, the S&L meltdown and self-confidence borne of ignorance, I was able to buy and renovate a large apartment complex. In '98 I was diagnosed with Parkinson's. Unsettled but still heeding the
call to be serious, I bought another, larger apartment complex and started
another renovation. Eight months later I was diagnosed with lupus.
Apparently I was getting too serious. Time to buy a sports car. Leaving
management to my staff, I went home to Berkeley to indulge my love of fast
cars. |