Some Information About

Michael P. Garofalo

 

 

Michael P. Garofalo, Red Bluff, California

September 2004

Michael P. Garofalo, Red Bluff, California

April 2007

February 2010

Our summer garden harvest in
Red Bluff, California.
    Bandon, Oregon, at
the Pacific seashore. 
McMinnville, Oregon, Willamette Valley
wine country.
     
     
     
 

February 2012 November 2014 November 2013
Somewhere in Oregon at the oceanside. My daily walking path in Red Bluff, California, from 1998-2017. Corning Elementary School ID Photo
    I worked part-time as the Technology and Media Services Supervisor or District Librarian, from 1999-2016, for this K-8 elementary school district serving 2,200 students.
     
     

 

2018
At our home in Vancouver, WA

Mike at the Klickitat River,
Washington, 2019

 
     
       
              
 

 

  
    My wife, Karen, and I lived and worked from June of 1998 until April of 2017 in a rural area south of the City of Red Bluff, Tehama County, in the North Sacramento Valley of California.  Since April of 2017 we have lived in the suburbs of the City of Vancouver, Clark County, in the Columbia River Valley, Washington, Northwest USA.  I retired in July of 2016. 

    Karen and I have been married since 1967.  Karen retired in July, 2014, after working 16 years as a Special Education Instructional Assistant for the Tehama County Department of Education.  She enjoys gardening, reading, cooking, computer software, genealogy, and family activities.  We have two children: Alicia June and Michael Delmer. Alicia and Sean Flinn live in the City of Vancouver, Salmon Creek Area, of Washington State.  Both Alicia and Sean graduated from California State Polytechnic University at Pomona.  Alicia is a employee of the school district, mom, homemaker, and active in community support groups.  Sean is employed in the insurance, bonding, and finance business.  They have two teenage daughters.  Michael and April also live in Vancouver, in the Minnehaha Hazel Dell area.  Michael graduated from the Western Culinary Institute in Portland; and, has worked as a restaurant owner, chef, caterer, restaurant manager, bartender, cook and waiter.  He is now the restaurant manager, executive chef, at the Ferral Heathen in Vancouver.  Michael married April Scott in 2005, who is a shift manager at a busy Starbucks coffee house in downtown Main Street Vancouver, and is a Washington Master Gardener.       
 

         
                              
Alicia, Karen, April
Sean, Michael, Mick
2006


 

    In the past three decades, I have worked as a librarian, supervisor, grant writer, webmaster, yoga and taijiquan instructor, blogger, teacher, public library administrator, workshop leader and lecturer, and fitness trainer. 

   On July 1, 2016, I retired from my employment as the Technology, Libraries, and Media Services Supervisor for the Corning Union Elementary School District (K-8).  I had worked part-time for this school district for the previous 16 years.  I also retired on July 1, 2016,  from my employment with the Tehama Family Fitness Center in Red Bluff where I had worked since 2002 as a fitness instructor teaching yoga, taijiquan, qigong, spin cycling, weight lifting, and mat pilates. 

    My personal interests, spiritual path, and hobbies include: gardening and landscaping at our home, blogging, internal martial artsfitness and sports activities, developing Internet web sites, walking adventures, poetry, Buddhism, Taoism, research and writing, computer software, qigong, natural history, piano playing and listening to music, taijiquan, string figures, travel and outings in the Northwest, and enjoying activities with family and friends. 

    I was born in 1945 in Los Angeles, California.   My mother, Bertha June, was born in Akron, Ohio, and her ancestors came from Germany to the U.S.A., to Ohio, in 1854.  My father was Michael James Garofalo.  He was born in Los Angeles, California, and his parents came from Sicily to the U.S.A., to Los Angeles, in 1905.  My mother was a homemaker, and my father worked as a mechanical engineer and manager for the Fluor Corporation.  Our parents, Karen's (Alice and Delmer) and mine (June and Mike), have all passed away and joined the Ancestors; and, we now have one sister and two brothers remainding.    

    My genetic and racial heritage, as per my 23 and Me DNA test results: Germanic/French/Northern European and Greek, Baltic, Sicilian, North African, and Southern European.  Also, due to a good healthy upbringing, and good fortune in America, this gave me a strong and healthy body.  I am now 6'6" tall and weight 245 pounds.  Up until I retired in July of 2016, I still exercised daily and had the energy for working three part-time jobs, walking, weightlifting, teaching yoga, and lots of gardening.  Karen and I are fortunate to have had very good health care options in Los Angeles, Red Bluff, and Vancouver, and use them regularly.  In June of 2017, I had a Pacemaker implanted at Peace Health in Vancouver to help correct my severe Barycardia.  In 2020, I walk daily, garden, and practice Tai Chi Chuan and Qigong at home. 

    My brothers, Paul and Philip, and I grew up in unincorporated East Los Angeles - in the Bandini neighborhood (barrio).  Karen and I lived in Biloxi, Mississippi, from 1969-1973; Bell Gardens, California, from 1973-1983; in Hacienda Heights, California, from 1983-1998; in Red Bluff, California, from 1998-2017; and in Vancouver, Washington, since April of 2017.   

    I graduated from St. Alphonsus Catholic Grammar School, Cantwell Catholic High School, California State University at Los Angeles (B.A. Philosophy), and the University of Southern California (M.S. in Library Science).   I have also studied part-time for a Master's Degree in Philosophy (1974-1978) at CSULA; studied for a Elementary Teaching Credential at CSU Chico (1999-2004); and, have participated in scores of classes, workshops and training sessions about business administration, supervision and management, education, computer software applications, health, Zen, yoga, qigong, fitness, and T'ai Chi Ch'uan.  I minored in business management at Gulf Coast Community College in Gulfport, Mississippi. 

    I first read classical and modern Western and Eastern philosophers when I was fifteen, and have since considered myself a "Philosopher."  I am a person with a humanistic, pragmatic, secular and philosophical outlook on most matters.   I have been content to use reasoning, reading, science, technology, practical skills, effort, advice from experts, groups, common sense and luck to understand my world, survive for 74 years, and help me solve most of my problems.  I am an Independent voter.   Like most people, I make room for mystical, mythical, poetic, and symbolic viewpoints when dealing with many artistic, psychological, humorous, symbolic, fictional, and spiritual issues.  My "spiritual" interests are biological, scientific, mystical, and Mind-Body Movement Arts; and being an independent and solitary seeker.  I have little interest in and negative views about the value of most institutionalized religions.


 

Michael P. Garofalo 1993

Mike Garofalo in 1993
Hacienda Heights, California


 

    In 1998, I retired as a Library Administrator for the County of Los Angeles Public Library, after thirty two years of public library service in Los Angeles County.   I was a leader in the introduction of new audio-visual media, library automation, and management information systems for one of the three largest public library systems in the United States.   I wrote many grants during my long career, e.g., the Chicano Resource Center and the La Verne Library Building.  I was the Regional Administrator for 22 very busy libraries in the East San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles County

    From 1963-1969 I worked as a Library Services Supervisor and then Technical Services Librarian for the City of Commerce Public Library. 

    From 1999 - 2003, I worked three days each week as the District Librarian, Library Media Teacher, for the Corning Union Elementary School District (K-8).  I have also taught other classes in Tehama County (e.g., string figures, webpage design, Internet for writers, GATE classes, and substitute teaching work).  During this time I completed all coursework at California State University at Chico for a multiple subject teaching credential.

    In September, 2003, I began part-time work (24 hours each week) as the Technology and Media Services Supervisor for the Corning Union Elementary School District.  I managed five school libraries; coordinated textbooks, workbooks, and consumables; acted as the first webmaster for the District; provided educational software media support; and wrote and managed many grants.  I was the project manager for four Enhancing Education Through Technology grants at the Corning Union Elementary School District.  I have successfully written many grants that have brought in $4.3 million in grants to our school district from 2003 to 2013.  

    As of July, 2016, I had worked in public (city and county), college, or school libraries for 49 years. 

 

    Since moving to northern California in 1998, my community service efforts have been concentrated in the educational field.  I have taught adults to read in adult literacy programs at the Tehama County Library; and, have taught in public schools in grades K-12 as a substitute teacher.   I was elected by the voters to serve as a Trustee on the Gerber Union Elementary School District Board in Red Bluff, California; and, served from January, 2000 until November, 2004.  From 2005 until 2009, I served on the Tehama County Commission on Aging, as a TCCA representative at large, the webmaster, secretary, and for two years as the TCCA chairperson; and also served on the general board and executive board of the Area 3 Agency on Aging (PASSAGES) in Chico.   

    In the past,  my community service efforts have included working in public libraries, volunteering to serve in the United States Air Force (1969-1973: honorably discharged as a Staff Sergeant, E-5), Friends of the Library fundraising and volunteer efforts, AYSO soccer refereeing, and providing free information to millions on the Internet.  

 

    I have been interested in gardening since 1954 after my parents purchased "the ranch" - two acres in Hacienda Heights, California, nestled in avocado and orange groves.   I raised bonsai in the 1960's.   Karen and I have cultivated vegetable gardens since the early 1970's.  I have enjoyed landscaping and gardening around all of the five houses I have called home.  We gardened extensively in the North Sacramento Valley, and owned 5 acres of land.  We cultivated both winter and summer vegetable gardens, had a 100 tree orchard and specialty gardens, relaxed in a sacred circle garden, and enjoyed two small ponds fed by a solar powered pump in a 125 foot deep well. 


   On April 10, 2017, Karen and I moved to the City of Vancouver, Washington, Northwest USA.  We now live in a respectable looking fifty year old suburban neighborhood, in a very nice one level 1700 square foot home.  We are now 600 miles north of where we lived in Red Bluff; and across the Columbia River from Portland.  It is noisier here in Vancouver as contrasted with rural Red Bluff, but much cooler with more clouds and rain.  Vancouver is the largest northern suburb of the Portland Metropolitan area, and Vancouver has a big port along the Columbia.  Native Americans have lived along the Columbia River here for 10,000 years (e.g, Cowlitz), and Europeans established Fort Vancouver in the 1820's.   

   Since 1992, I have greatly enjoyed sharing my interests with others and meeting others with similar interests via the Internet.  
My Internet activities have been diversified:   


 

Mike's Cloud Hands Blog

Mike's Facebook


The Spirit of Gardening

Virtue Ethics

Green How to Live a Good Life: Advice from Wise Persons

Cloud Hands:  T'ai Chi Ch'uan

Valley Spirit Qigong, Chi Kung, Daoyin, Chinese Yoga

Green Way Research Index

Poetry by Michael P. Garofalo

Pulling Onions

Ripening Peaches: Taoist Studies and Practices

An Old Druid's Final Journey: Notebooks of the Librarian of Gushen Grove

Zen and Taoist Poetry

Walking

Way of the Short Staff

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

Resume of Michael P. Garofalo

Gardening at Our Home in Red Bluff, California

Homepage

 

 

 

This webpage was last updated on September 9, 2020.

Send Email to Mike Garofalo

 

 

 

 

 

Mike Garofalo at the Klickitat River,
Southwestern Washington, 2019

 

Cloud Hands Blog of Michael P. Garofalo       

Facebook of Michael P. Garofalo    

 

 

 

Return to the Alphabetical Index of Mike Garofalo's Hypertext Documents
 

Green Way Research