Ever Ask Yourself, How Did I Get Here From There?
Ever Ask Yourself, How Did I Get Here From There?
Patrick Hicks
Born during the Great Depression, August 1st 1934 I burst on the scene a mover and a shaker, a daring risk taker.
We were poor. My father had TB and couldn’t work. I was the youngest of 5 children living in a tiny home in North Hollywood, California, lovingly cared for by our stay at home mom.
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley pretty much a latch key kid. By the 1940’s my father was dying of TB in the VA hospital while my mother worked for the post office sorting mail for a meager salary. If I wanted something like a toy or a ball, I’d think of ways to make money. I sold ice cold bottled Pepsis to construction workers from my wagon. I picked green onions from fields deserted by Japanese farmers put in internment camps during WWII. I sold diluted Kool Aid to neighborhood kids. It was always on my mind to figure out a new way to make a buck. The entrepreneur spirit emerged in me. I have lived a charmed life under Grace, cheating death 11 times as a boy. At ten, I fell 60 feet from a Ferris Wheel and walked away with nothing more than a sore hand and a lump on my head. I have been doing my best to pay it forward ever since.
My penchant for speed and risk came from my Marine Corp brother Sam. Disgusted with his nerdy, little brother, he broke his guitar over my head and hollered, “Damn it do something with your life! Play the guitar or race motorcycles!” I did both, racing motorcycles and playing the guitar, music became my life. My wife once said: “You are like a pin ball being swatted around and bouncing off bumpers but coming out with a record breaking score!”
After a checkered life of different jobs trying to support my family, Grace descended on the scene and led me to start my school. Against all odds; no money, no building, no curriculum, no instructors, no students, it somehow came together as Musicians Institute in Hollywood in 1977, thank you God. Becky, my wife at that time, and I were Mom and Pop. The students were our kids. We were like a big family, since then there have been 40,000 grads, 1300 current students, and many success stories.
Currently I‘ve written four books with Cynthia Richmond, author of Dream Power, coaching and editing, and Jodie Wilson, publisher of www.DiscovertheRegion.com, managing my website: www.PatHicksAuthor.com
Running my life thinking it was my high school dropout pea brain doing it, like a small wave thinking I was the ocean, I finally came to an awakening: God’s Grace was always in charge, like a third base baseball coach looking over my shoulder running toward home, to an outfielder throwing the ball to the plate, and saying to me “go ahead, you can make it!”
Pat Hicks will be sharing his thoughts on all manner of things monthly.
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