Biography: Randy Downs

[Randy Downs]

Due to an unfortunate accident i suffered a semi-crippling injury in the lumbar region of my back, i've been on SSI Disability since then.

Prior to that i worked as a tutor (in various subjects).

I was also a student-interpreter for the Deaf working to become an official interpreter (the code of ethics requires that you specify your interpreter status).

And i was also an assistant at pre-schools for the developmentaly disabled.

Sign Language and Child Development were my 2 majors in college. And i loved every minute of all of that. It has hurt me deeply to lose all of that. It still does.

I'm a passionate advocate for the disabled (before i became one of them), for the education of the Deaf and for all abused children.

In 5th grade i read at a 12th grade level, i don't know if it impresses anybody else but it certainly impressed me when they told me, i'll always remember that. I graduated high school early at age 16.

Which was around the time i was reading a tome called "The People's Almanac". Most people hear the title and assume it has to do with trivia, which it does not. It was there, in a section on "banned books" that i read about the JFK assassination for the first time. It was an excerpt from "Farewell America" which, as stated in the Almanac: "is one of the few books not allowed to pass through U.S. Customs". No, we don't ban books here (i was only 15 or 16 and i'm very non-political). So i called the local Customs office and the Almanac was correct. But of course, nobody believes me when i tell them that the U.S. bans certain books.

I've been researching the JFK murder ever since. I'm a very good researcher, and there's quite a variety of subjects under my current scrutiny. Which is how i found the Forum. I was so pleased when i read the stated nature/purpose of the Forum and perused through the contents, my first thought was: intelligent discourse, this will be nice. And that's my interest in the Forum: to learn, share, and discuss new ideas. I enjoy learning, you can put me in any city that has a community college and i'll find something that piques my curiosity. In fact, that's exactly how i began my study in American Sign Language. Which, looking back, created quite a shift in the course my life then took. One never knows where a new idea will lead one. That's part of the joy of learning.

Oh, when i'm doing personal writing such as i am at this moment, i always use the lower case "i" it's a life-long eccentricity, as opposed to a sign of illiteracy. I just wanted to point that out.