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Call me Stork. I was born in Hollywood, California. Couldn't make it as a baby stand-in or a child actor so I stayed with my parents and was raised in the Los Angeles area. Both my parents came from Canada, and I still have family there, but I do speak American and don't say eh? at the end of each sentence. Unlike most of our illustrious class, I went to Midland for the last 2 years only -- and unfortunately got out before they started accepting females. I went to Palisades High in Pacific Palisades for a year, before coming to Midland.
After graduating from Midland I went to UC Santa Cruz for all four of my undergraduate years. For those of you who know Santa Cruz, I went to Cowell College (the Liberal Arts one). Selman and Clumeck were there (at Crown College) so we'd run into each other with some regularity. Lacking any post college work goals at the time, I majored in Anthropology, (with a minor in Nude Beach Studies) which I enjoyed a lot, and that's what I got my BA in.
After graduating I had no plans for graduate school, but still no definite "work!" plans. In what is in retrospect a very clever move, my parents offered to give me about $2000 as a graduation present to travel to Europe. This turned out to be "Le Grand Tour" for me. I went to London on a one-way discount ticket and kept on exploring Europe. By living and traveling cheaply I stayed there for 10 months and it turned into a once-in-a-lifetime experience. During those 10 months I visited Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Turkey and Israel.
Once I came home I got into the 2 year MBA program at UCLA, and actually did get an MBA, (Might Be Anything) with an emphasis on Real Estate and Marketing.
However, life can have it's little twists of fate, and a major twist for me was that about 6 months before I graduated I met Susan Pinsky. I was actually looking for a gift for a woman I was dating -- but not dating too seriously. Susan had an antique shop on Wilshire Blvd, in LA. I was attracted to her right away, and stayed in the shop for 2 hours until she closed.
I'll spare you the long version of this story, but within a couple months we were living together, and 3 years later we got married, and are still together. We both thought it would last 2 weeks and are still amazed it's lasted so long.
That Reagan era, recession year 1974 turned out to be a bad job year for MBA graduates, so there was virtually NO on-campus recruiting. In the end, I didn't really want a suit-tie-office job. Susan had to close her shop due to slow business, and the two of us worked together for a year with her parents, who had been importing containers of antiques from England for wholesale sales.
That lasted about a year until that business got too competitive, so we both got Real Estate Licenses and tried that for a year. We didn't do well at that time, so this is when we decided to get married (we had an agreement never to agree on that subject, but during a Mexican meal one night we both accidentally agreed to get married and it seemed like a good idea at the time. It still does!). Separately, but mostly together we went through a number of different jobs. Along the way, we discovered 3-D photography, and in 1978 we started publishing a newsletter called "Reel 3-D News". This was a sideline while we were working at other jobs.
In 1980 we stopped publishing the newsletter, but continued selling bound back issues of our own newsletter. By then we had also started selling a number of other products. 3-D Viewers, 3-D glasses, and other 3-D accessories. By 1984 we had enough products that we decided that we could publish a catalog and pursue this as a full-time business, and this is just what we have been doing ever since. Since 1995 we've been on the Internet, and you can find our web site at www.reel3d.com.
The business is also connected to our hobby of taking 3-D photographs. Through this we have met many interesting people, and it has given us an excuse, and a reason, to travel. We belong to a local 3-D photography club, which meets monthly. A national club that meets once a year, and moves all over the USA for it's annual convention. There is an international club that meets in a different country every two years, and in 1985 we joined a British club that has a great annual convention. So we have had an excuse to go to England almost every year since 1985! It's been a lot of fun, and we have met a lot of fascinating people.
We enjoy working together, and having our own mail-order (now mostly Internet order, thanks to our web site) business has given us some flexibility in our work schedules. Susan has MS, which is mostly in remission, and has been the very slowly progressing type. I've been in pretty good health, but got one of those reminders of age about 5 years ago when I was diagnosed with a large tumor near my heart. This actually required open-chest surgery, and a tumor the size of a tennis ball was removed along with my thymus gland. (Susan will be glad to show you photos of the tumor if you're interested -- she loves anatomy). Fortunately, this was not malignant, and the faint scar is the only reminder that I have of this 5 years later. However, going through this sort of thing makes you really wake up and appreciate each day even more. Course, so does chocolate, and that's a lot more pleasant.
We never had kids, but have two 14 year-old Burmese cats (our last cat died 15 years ago at age 17), and have a growing number of nieces (all of my siblings have had girls, so now we have 6 nieces).
We still have to work to make a living, but we both are trying to slow down a bit to appreciate and enjoy all that we have -- our health, friends, family and everything!!!
Over the years we have visited Midland for Thanksgiving quite a few times, so Susan knows all about that unique place that we all went to. She loves it, too.
I can only look back on Midland as a place that I may have complained about a bit at times, but that I really enjoyed, also! The "separate your wants from your needs" philosophy has never left me, and I think about that every day. Remembering chopping wood, shower fires, running laps, panabodes, 2 footers, small classes and sometimes pretty tough teachers are good memories. I think that my Midland experience influenced me to go to UC Santa Cruz, which was also somewhat unique in the UC system, and I really enjoyed that experience, too.
Susan and I are looking forward to seeing all of you on June 7. It's hard to believe that it has been 35 years since we got those hand-written diplomas at Midland. If it weren't for our names on the walls of the Chapel, and the telephone sign at the side of the Main House that I carved in 1967, I would sometimes wonder if that memory was just a crazy dream.
Visit our web site at www.reel3d.com to see what we do. There is also a 3-D picture of us at the bottom of our Home Page.
Best to you all!!!
-David Starkman (aka "Stork"). (and Susan Pinsky aka "Pinsky")
PO Box 2368
Culver City, CA 90232
Tel: 310-837-2368
Fax: 310-558-1653
email: [email protected]
URL: www.reel3d.com
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