Bonnie MacKinnon MacKinnon

Yes

I was a rock 'n' roll journalist in my 20s, writing for the Pasadena Star-News, the Glendale News-Press and Burbank Daily Review, as well as BAM Magazine and Music Connection in LA. It was fun, and I'm glad I did it (I still have all my articles), but I learned over time that I actually spent more money pursuing rock journalism than I was making. Not a good recipe for success.

So, I jettisoned the rock 'n' roll life to pursue sales in various areas like the staffing industry, real estate investments, securities, and finally executive recruiting for the insurance industry. I work in the Bay Area, where I live. And I've found that recruiting is the only job where I can dress casually and can work from any location, and still make a good living. I'll likely be doing it until I retire in 6-7 years. Then I'm going to adopt a couple horses and head out on the range.

I sort of floated between the circles of sports (tennis, volleyball, and basketball in the freshman-sophmore years) the under-the-bridge crowd, and the journalism and radio groups. It was a nice variety of friends.

I played an original guitar piece for the annual junior-senior Talent Show one year (Dang. What was the name of that show)? During the week we performed, I had some good performances and a couple horrible ones. It's all about crowd connection, I found. My best one, of course, was on Friday, when I was totally baked, after returning from Sheryl Conley's house where Sheryl treated Beth Rohman, Karen Nicholi, Brent Ekland, and Bob Breshears and I to her incredible new album, "Blow By Blow" by Jeff Beck. It was/is an amazing album. Still today, every time I listen to Jeff Beck's melancholy song, "Because We Started As Lovers," it takes me right back to Sheryl's house on that Friday in May in 1975. It's the memory I love the most of my many fond memories of LCHS.