User:Jwpurple

John Wakeley Purple - Louisville KY.



I was born in Richmond,_Virginia in March 1945 and lived in Victoria,_Virginia for about ten months with my mother and her parents until my father returned from WWII and we moved to his hometown of Newton,_Massachusetts. I now live in Louisville,_Kentucky.

I went through the Newton public school system, including Underwood Elementary (website), Bigelow Jr. High before it was torn down and rebuilt as Bigelow Middle School (website), and Newton High School before it was torn down and rebuilt, and I'm proud to say I have a BA in Math from the University of Louisville, but it took me 32 years off and on, starting at Transylvania College in 1963.

I've had an eclectic working life starting in the 1960s, including stints as a
 * Retail Tobacco store clerk (Leavitt & Pierce - Cambridge MA)
 * Bank Clerk (Boston Safe Dep & Trust)
 * Typewriter technician (IBM Corp - Boston MA area)
 * Ironworker (Northeastern Mass)
 * Electric Utility Lineman (Kentucky Utilities)
 * Computer programmer (Louisville KY)

I am a prostate cancer survivor, after having a Radical Retropubic Prostatectomy at age 58. Since then my PSA levels have been <0.10 (good).

I'm an avid runner. I qualified for and ran the Boston Marathon in 2005. I belong to the Iroquois Hill Runners. I enjoy Barefoot running.