indexff
Friends and Family
of Roger E. Bissell
This is the doorway to web pages featuring my close friends and immediate family -- blessedly overlapping categories, I am happy to say.
I am going to gradually expand the number of pages, in no particular order, but beginning with my good friend and ex-father-in-law, songwriter-storyteller, Danny Dill.
Here are links to active pages and an indication of pages I hope to set up in the next several months. (Note #1: the links for Andrew and Daniel Bissell were updated in January 2002, and additional notes for people through Dean Brooks, were added in December 1999.)
Danny Dill -- my good friend and former father-in-law, he is (let's just say) a septagenarian actor, story teller, and song writer par excellence and has acted in television and theatrical release movies, as well as television programs and music videos. His two country mega-hits from the 60s are still being recorded by major artists like Mick Jagger and Dolly Parton. In one of his more adventurous undertakings, he even ran for mayor of Metropolitan Nashville (Tennessee). Click on the bold, blue link for more on this remarkable guy!
Becky (Beals) Bissell -- my current wife, she and I will be celebrating my 12th wedding anniversary in April of 2002. We met 32 years ago at the University of Iowa and finally got around to tying the knot after 20 years of trial-and-error with other folks. Better late than never!
Rachel Bissell -- our little 7-year-old powerhouse just celebrated her birthday in December 2001. She says that when she grows up, her job will be "phonics."
Charles Bissell -- 34 years old in October of 2001, a son from my first marriage, he is currently working in Lexington, Kentucky for KTV (Kentucky Television Network). Charles has a rich bass voice, shown to good advantage both in vocals and in voice-overs and narration, and he is an excellent bass and guitar player as well. In addition, he has done quite a bit of creative web-designing and investigative journalism. As soon as I can determine the new URLs for his various projects, I will post them below.
Andrew Bissell -- 22 years old in November of 2001, a son from my second marriage, he is currently a major in music business at University of Middle Tennessee in Murfreesboro. Andrew is one of the most phenomenal young drummers I have ever heard, and he has an excellent ear and a very deep, intuitive way of looking at life and art. I am frequently amazed at his creations, whatever medium they happen to be in. He helped organize an alternative rock group named Icabod (now disbanded) and more recently is focusing his efforts on a group named Popular Genius. Here are links for Andrew's and Scott Van Dusen's Popular Genius and Andrew's personal music projects at mP3.com:
Daniel Bissell -- 19 years old in February of 2002, another son from my second marriage, he graduated from Fairview High School last spring. Daniel has a vivid imagination, which he puts to good use in cartooning, script writing, acting, directing, and web-page design. He has had films accepted to the Nashville Film Festival for two years running, his video alter ego, Dr. Klumpus, is second only to Dr. Evil for sheer nefarious fun, and his song parodies rival those of Weird Al Yankovitz (or however you spell his name!). His baritone voice and acting abilities suggest him as an ideal choice for the lead in "The Fred Astaire Story" -- if only he could dance! Daniel has a number of web pages worth looking at -- especially his South Park page. Here are several fun links:
Rebecca (Bissell) Cunningham -- 23 years old in September of 2001, the daughter from my second marriage, her husband Adam is an electrician and was a guitarist-vocalist in the now-defunct alternative rock group, Icabod. His older brother played a large role in tutoring Andrew on the drums. Adam and Rebecca married in 1998, and their daughter (my first and, so far, only grandchild) will be three years old in January 2002. Rebecca has strong skills in the language arts area, as well as a very nice singing voice, and she finished two years toward a Mass Communications degree at University of Middle Tennessee, before taking time out to be Josie's mommy. She has sung on a number of tracks on brother Andrew's two CD projects, and she co-wrote several songs with him.
Julie (Bissell) Tupker -- my baby sister, born in April of 1952, she is an excellent cake decorator and still sings and plays piano great after all these years. Thanks to the Internet, Julie has been my partner in (genealogical) crime for the past several years. Another hobby is barbershop quartet singing, and she is a member along with Susan Schellenberg (the older daughter of our mom's brother, Ray) in a "Sweet Adelines" group in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Her husband, Allen Tupker, with whom she will be celebrating her 27th anniversary in July 2002, is an employee of Collins Radio, a division of Rockwell. He is also our second cousin once removed, our great-granddad, Richard Pierce Bissell, being his great-great-granddad. He's a fine fellow, as is their son, Michael.
Rex Peer -- my trombone teacher during my grade school and high school years, later my colleague on numerous music jobs in the Midwest and the Nashville area, he and his wife, Barbara, have been living in Hawaii for several years now. Rex was an incredible teacher and role model and introduced me to the world of jazz.
Gary White -- my college mentor during the late 60s, he later asked me to co-author a chapter on jazz ensemble for his 1991 book on instrumental arranging (Little-Brown). Gary taught me a great deal about harmony and composition, not only in college, but also later in his fine textbooks.
Eldon Bissell and Deloris (Schellenberg) Bissell -- my parents. Dad, a farmer for years, suffered heart problems that caused his retirement, finally succumbing in 1984 to "large-cell lymphoma" (probably caused by unprotected use of weed spray back in the 50s and 60s). He was my genealogy buddy during the 70s and 80s, and he drove me to many of my music jobs during the 60s. Mom, a retired bookkeeper, has finally gotten the genealogy bug -- at least to the point that she will go on fact-finding excursions with my sister to eastern Nebraska.
Fred Schellenberg -- my mom's father, a fiddler and harmonica player who entertained "senior citizens" 20 years younger than him and knew more jokes (practical and otherwise) and stories than anyone I ever met. He died in 1988, shortly before I (re)met my current wife, Becky.
Royce Bissell -- one of my dad's brothers, big on genealogy
Olin Bissell -- another of my dad's brothers, also big on genealogy
Douglas Rasmussen -- an author and college friend from the 60s, now philosophy professor at St. John's University in New York and seminar leader for Liberty Fund of Indianapolis. His books are available from Laissez Faire Books.
Chris Sciabarra -- an author and Internet friend from the 90s, visiting scholar at New York University. He has published several books on dialectics, including Ayn Rand: the Russian Radical, which I reviewed for Reason Papers (see the review posted on Mind Matters) and his most recent book, Total Freedom, which contains a diagram and numerous footnotes containing comments I submitted during a pre-publication reading of his manuscript. Chris is also the editor of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies (JARS), and several of my essays and rejoinders have been published in it, including "Music and Perceptual Cognition," in volume 1, issue 1. Here are links to Chris' personal web site and to JARS:
Tibor Machan -- an author and friend from the 60s, now editorialist for the Orange County Register and business ethics professor at Chapman College in Orange, California. Tibor published my very first journal article in 1974 in the first issue of his journal Reason Papers, and he subsequently published several of my book reviews in its pages, as well. Here are a couple of web sites with photos and essays (if you are not yet a member of msn, the process of joining is very simple and will give you access to a great number of essays by Tibor and others):
Dean Brooks -- Dean is an Internet friend from the 90s, currently living in the Pacific Northwest and working on a novel. He recently helped me get some of my aesthetics work published in ART Ideas, and I am assisting him in writing a book entitled Ontics: the New Science of Cooperative Success. For details on the subject of "ontics" and a link to the web site for Dean's corporation, Ekaros, click on this link:
Milo Schield -- Milo is a professor at Augsburg College in Minnesota. Becky and I have known Milo since our days at the University of Iowa at Iowa City, where Milo was a physics professor. He has worn a lot of hats in the intervening years, and he currently teaches statistic at Augsburg. Milo also is director of a project on Statistical Literacy for the William Keck Foundation, and I am serving as his assistant on various writing projects and conferences. Here is the link to his Statistical Literacy web site:
Gayle Dean -- Gayle is one of my cyber-buddies from Objectivism email discussion lists. She is very bright and insightful and is a jim-dandy constructor of crossword puzzles (along with puns, and not coincidentally, one of my few addictions in life), having recently co-authored with Richard Lederer Word Play Crosswords, a collection of such puzzles that is available from Amazon.com.
George Lyons --
Bill Dwyer --
Tim Chase & Moira Russell --
Dennis Edwall --
Alice Fairhurst --
Susan Putney --
This is a partial, off-the-top-of-my-head listing. I welcome suggested additions!
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