Life's Learning Curve

Paul revisits the beginning of Summer with a look back at the people and events that made Summer go great! Phil, Sue, his mom & dad and RUDY! The swim instructor with a permanent tan! In the end, Paul learns a couple thing: He learns how to swim AND He learns that nothing TOO GREAT in life lasts forever. Support the show

Paul's guest is a stand up comic, a graphic artist, a puppeteer, a photographer, a voice artist, and a TV producer/performer, Paul welcomes TV’s John DiDonna. Life stories range from humorist innovator Ernie Kovacs to Chico Marx to a manic bus driver. John’s life is a shared comedic tone poem, His show called TWITS ran in the late 1980s and included some of these elements: Crazy Kenny, Mr. Friendly, Manny Moe and Jack, impersonations of Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood and MORE! This show...

Guest Dave Wormington has a super-talent. Since birth, Dave has inspired others to excel and do their best. Taking a step further, Dave provided an unexpected volume of encouragement, or as Paul calls it, tubthumping. Stories of bands, writing music, nuns, 70s hair for guys and the bass guitar fill this episode. Many people inspire and encourage, but Paul believes Dave’s uncanny ability to extend his passion for helping others that makers the difference in this unique man. Guest David...

This episode takes Paul back to camp within two different time frames. Enthusiastic and engaged Rusty and Hilda June directed the field campus and helped create the magic of outdoor education when Paul’s class spent a week there as a twelve year old. At age 20 Paul returned as a part of his teacher training. But the second time, things were quite less magical and of- putting. Something had happened to Rusty and Hilda June that upset the balance of the camp. A blizzard, an offensive set of...

From the moment 16 year old Paul entered high school that spring day, usually an invisible student, he had some celebrity, but did not know why. Someone named Joey Malone was looking for Paul. Joey had spread the word that he wanted payback, and that Paul had done something really bad to him. Joey meant to get even with Paul, and he wanted to fight! Until the punch hits its target, Paul’s mouth, Paul STILL had no idea why Joey or anyone else was angry with him. Miscommunication, ego and...

At age 18, it was the first summer Paul took a summer job that was different from the others. This job quickly became awkward, demoralizing, nightmarish and yet, somehow funny to him. It was as if Paul was participating in a Hitchcock film with a guy named Anthony. Paul’s sense of humor and lack of life’s experiences collide as he is trapped in a fight or flight situation. Getting a summer job was necessary for Paul. But what was NOT necessary …Working with a man with an intent to harm. This...

WHAT A RIDE?!?!? How did you choose your career? Did you choose it? Did it choose you, or was it fate? As we enter Season Four of Life’s Learning Curve Paul finally shares one of the MOST embarrassing stories of his life: Just HOW he chose his career field. Paul also explains where that career took him and how adding new technology to education probably saved him. In this episode mentors, losers, winners, motivators, Inspirers, great students and a national award or two are episode...

Ed not only delivered children from school to their homes daily on good ol’ bus 39, he also delivered kindness, patience and friendship. People just like Ed came into Paul’s live on occasion. For a brief time, Ed was a living legend to Paul, but do legends truly live on forever? Do you know anyone exceptional like Ed? Everyone deserves some deserved appreciation; a smile & a kind word back to them. It may make their day. Proactive small steps of regard can turn someone’s life around. Let...

It wasn’t the soft breeze and tropical sunny warmth that hooked Paul on St. Martin, it was the adventure. That is, until that adventure went off the rails. Break ins, theft, corruption, and organized crime, and bunco schemes all existed in the dank underbelly of the tropical island. Hangers on from the last hurricane rebuild had stayed on the island and now hid out and pretended to be locals. NOT GOOD. ADVICE: When you go on holiday to the Caribbean, exist on the surface of the beautiful...

Life threw Bob a curve ball, misleading him at a young age. You can’t control the curve balls life throws at you. so you have to learn how to change or adapt, sometimes quickly so that life’s curve balls don’t take you too far down the wrong path. Bob always knew the man he would like to be, so throughout his life he found role models and mentors for himself, but NONE OF THEM had immediate impact of a colossal world event. A man never gets so old that he forgets what it was like being a...

Paul retells about a time a whipped cream bomb exploded in a nearby park, but the concussion was nothing next to Captain Video, a bright, yet self-centered man still wrestling with a basic childhood trait… Sharing. This Life’s Learning Curve episode spans almost 26 years to explain two sides of the coin. Rules, duty and respect meet a self-centered arrogant man called Captain Video. Support the show (https://lifeslearningcurve.org)

If you go where you’ve never been, you MAY just find yourself. The desert can be blazing hot, the desert can be freezing cold -A challenge to the human spirit. The human spirit needs to be challenged and to recreate. On this remote episode, Paul talks with a couple of brothers in the Mesilla Valley area of New Mexico. It’s good for our souls to work with our hands. Their innovative talent for maintaining and modifying minibikes takes the brothers on an adventure in the deserts of the...

This episode presents Paul’s life adventures peddling a two-wheeler. -Just recently, riding his bike put Paul in a satisfied state of mind. Mentally Paul felt 18 years old again. Soon Paul began to assume he looked that way as well. Feeling healthy and upbeat, Paul I stopped to let traffic pass. As he did, he glanced up and saw himself in the reflection of a local bakery. “Who is That???!?!?!? Oh, no! That’s an old guy. That’s …ME. What happened?” Time happened. “I thought growing older...

We are so busy being busy that along the way we sometimes might loose ourselves in the process. What do a lineman, a weather event, and a power outage have in common? Episode 51 finds Paul deeply imbedded in a learning curve involving a weather event, a lineman, and finally connecting with neighbors all because of an unexpected microburst over his small mid-midwestern town. This episode centers around the storm and the damage, but look deeper and it’s easy to discover an episode of genuine...

Celebrating episode number 50, Paul reminisces about times he was overcome with devastating creative / writer’s block. This allows Paul to look back on some favorite clips from the past three seasons. He tells of the shows process of inception for each episode and shares what works for him. -The quote, ”You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” AND Terry Pratchett’s quote: “There’s no such...

It was all of ninety-five years ago, when the world was the street where Gramma Ruth lived, and a young man named Harold sailed on a ship at sea carrying a picture of my Gramma Ruth. Ruth had that carefree mind of her own, and a very particular delicate look in her eye, which made one misunderstood blink, look like a wink, and with that another generation of Wilkinsons came to be. Throughout two world wars, three children, six grandchildren Gramma Ruth was the foundation. She was thoughtful,...

“Change is never easy for me. You fight to hold on. And you fight to let go.” This episode is Paul’s very recent self-indulgent take on a wedding that came off with love, happiness & fun. Paul marries off his first child Heidi and faces all the joy and emotion of the day. During the wedding Paul’s subconscious kept reminding him, Change is okay. Life can be lucky AND often we get good things in return, such as this wedding, equipped with a post dinner rainbow. Here is a time Paul gets back...

After this encounter, Paul never skied again. There was a time when at the age of 19, Paul and his ski buddies rode a bus and headed out to Montana to Big Sky country. Their purpose: Skiing the fresh white powder, or COLD SMOKE packed ski trails. This episode finally reveals the embarrassing way Paul finally learned coordinate himself to ski. Bar talent competitions, great friends and even a worthless gang of ski bullies combine to make this episode 'in your face' real. Find out just why...

This episode unfolds like a classic Bogart cinematic movie. Have you ever been with someone so inspiring that their enthusiasm rubbed off on you? In today’s episode this happens to Paul during a very delicate part of his life. Escaping a failing documentary and personal threats left Paul in shreds. He needs an escape. It was the summer of 2013 and Paul attends a film festival in the Florida Keys: The Humphrey Bogart Film Festival. Desperate for a Bogart style adventure, Paul cynically...

What took place on Waterman Road made Paul's life change. “Horses WILL step on your feet. You will work harder than you’ve ever worked before. You will rise at 4AM. You will be given real responsibilities that effect this business.” At age 10, Paul is relocated to a farm for a week. Even with all the rules and regs, he embraces the farm run by his Uncle Art, Aunt Virginia and his cousin Tommy. Paul embraces this new and diverse environment, until the horse show…Oh… The dreaded horse show....