Windmill Dinner Theatre in 1970

Honorably discharged from the Navy in 1970, I was hired as an emcee and actor at the Windmill Dinner Theatre on the Katy Freeway outside Houston, Texas. 

Manager Rickie Shevack said she hired me because "she liked my aura."

The Office Rainn and Melora

On NBC's The Office (2009), I was the guy who was pushed aside by a self-important Dwight (actor Rainn Wilson) about a dozen times as he races into a hotel ballroom, so I worked much of the time we were there over two shooting days.

Also, Melora Hardin was in The Office. 

I first met her when she was a baby in 1970 when I worked with her parents in a Houston dinner theater.

KTRH in Houston

While in the public affairs office at the Navy base, I resumed a part time radio career at KINE in Kingsville and at KSIX in Corpus Christi. 

But after my honorable discharge from the service, in 1970, I went to work for Houston news station KTRH. 

That changed by radio career from deejay to newsman.

 

1970 Kent State shootings

May 4, 1970, when the Ohio National Guard killed four unarmed Kent State University students in Ohio, I was still serving in the Navy. 

I had to keep my feelings about the massacre to myself because some sailors believed the students got what they deserved. 

I did not.

Four dead in Ohio

May 4, 1970, when the Ohio National Guard killed four unarmed Kent State University students in Ohio, I was still serving in the Navy.

I had to keep my feelings about the massacre to myself because some sailors believed the students got what they deserved.

Windmill Dinner Theater

I played guitar during my time at Naval Air Station Kingsville, Texas and used the ability to land a job as an actor and host at the Windmill Dinner Theater when I got out of the Navy in 1970.
 

Melora Hardin baby and actress

I was an actor and emcee at the Windmill Dinner Theater in Houston, Texas in 1970.

I worked with actress Bette Ford and her husband actor Jerry Hardin. 

They had a baby girl named Melora.

In 2009, 39 years later, I was in NBC’s The Office with grown-up Melora Hardin.

Melora is an American actress and singer, known for her roles as Jan Levinson on NBC's The Office, Trudy Monk on USA Network's Monk, and Tammy Cashman on Amazon Prime Video's Transparent, for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.