SLO LIFE Jun/Jul 2017

Phill, I just have to thank you. I don’t know what you said to my son, but
he’s going to tryouts tomorrow!” I mean, it’s moments like those that make
me come back to Junior Guards every year.
And, what do you do when it’s not summertime? So, the rest of the
year, right now and for the last six years, I’ve been operating an in-home
preschool with my wife. We have ten to twelve preschoolers a day, two
to five years old. It’s called Meemee’s Little Rascals. I go from sixteenyear-olds
on the beach to two-year-olds the rest of the year. I’m kind
of the teacher of the group. I guess you could call me the Director of
Entertainment and Redirection. [laughter] My wife does more of the
arts and crafts, and we mutually watch over the kids and do a structured
learning program. I like pushing kids to their limits. They’re capable of
so much more than they ever think, regardless of age. I mean, I’m doing
lessons on the Mesozoic Era, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous periods, and
I’m taking them through carnivores and herbivores and identifying and
kind of analyzing the planets, you know; the solar system; and teaching
them Spanish. It’s intense, but, yeah, I have to say that it’s probably one of
the more involved jobs I’ve ever had in my life.
How did you and your wife meet in the first place? I was going through a
hard time and about to hightail it out of town. The transmission on my car
just went out. I was between jobs. Out of money. It was raining and my
friend picks me up. We go to Starbucks and there’s this girl working there
who’s handing out samples. She comes up to me and says, “Would you
like to try a Chantico?” Which is a kind of hot chocolate. And I’m like,
“Oh, I’ve never had that before.” And she says, “Oh, have you not?” I’ve
got this thing with words, and when she said, “Have you not?” It struck
me as different, interesting. So I’m thinking, “Oh, Hello! That sounds like
the right potential.” It was totally weird. Totally different. Interesting. We
walked outside back into the rain and get into the car and I tell my friend
about her. He says to me, “You need to ask her out.” I’m like, “Dude, I am
not asking anybody out. I’m in the last place in the world to be able to do
anything like that.” My car just broke down; I don’t have a job. I’m like a
country song. Dark clouds were hanging over me. But, he stayed on me.
“No, man, you need to go back in there.” So, finally I said, “Alright.” I go
in and get her number. I think it was two weeks later, the day I finally
produced a car, that we go out on a date. We’re married now; Jamie’s eight
generations deep here in San Luis Obispo, which I guess that makes
Curren, our two-year-old son, nine generations here in town.
And what about your dad? It sounds like you never knew him.
I snuck up on my biological dad when I was 32. It was around the
same time I met my wife. I was at a point in my life where I needed
to figure things out, I needed to get rid of the ghost that I had
in my closet. I hadn’t had any contact with him through my life, >>
42 | SLO LIFE MAGAZINE | JUN/JUL 2017