In 1974, I was a 37-year old attorney unhappy with my job and looking to find a way to escape. I was taking my work home with me at night and I could sense my health was being adversely affected by the stress of solving other peoples? problems.On weekends, just to get away from matters legal, I began learning to write confession stories for pulp magazines. I had always enjoyed writing (as a humor columnist and cartoonist in high school and college) and thought it sounded like fun — also the 10 cents per word remuneration for doing something I enjoyed beckoned. When I grew up, the traditional path to happiness and riches included a college degree?for me it was San Francisco State University?followed, ideally, by graduate school?University of California, Hastings Law. A career in the law looked okay on paper, but eventually I realized I had less in african mango common with Perry Mason than My Cousin Vinnie. I dragged myself to the office in Palo Alto (a suburb of San Francisco that would become the heart of Silicon Valley) for what gradually became a daily grind. Then, one day, while I was exploring the depths of my professional doldrums, the Comedy Fates suddenly and unexpectedly tilted their golden scepters in my direction. By accident while researching pulp magazines that were looking for writers, I ran across an article in “Writers Digest Magazine” written by a TV comedy writer named Gene Perret which suggested writing jokes for a local performer or speaker. I began sending material to a San Francisco disc jockey named Don Sherwood who liked my lines and performed them on the air.About six months (and dozens of submissions) later, I noticed Perret’s name among the writers of the “Carol Burnett Show.