Anyway, to make a long story longer, I am including some excerpts from his correspondence. Since many of you have not heard from him in a while, I thought you might be interested. As you will see, Jim has certainly proceeded down the road less traveled. And while we may never hear from him again, he wanted me to remind you that there will always be little bit of Jim Steele in each of us. As a matter of fact, you might say that together we all made up Jim Steele.....

Taken from correspondence dated September 16, 1994:

"....If there is one thing that college teaches us it is how to make the most of our natural talents. I mean, just look at some of the fine examples which can be taken from the Screamin' Otter class of 1990. Tom Zidar flipped pizzas at Foodsales and landed a job with Tombstone Pizza. Joe DiMaria was once a model hall treasurer and now (as I have since learned from the last edition of the Otter Periodical), the guy has gone on to become a CPA. Similarly, Brian Murray was never successful as a mailman but was very successful at copying Pink's Intermediate Accounting homework and now finds himself a respected member of the accounting community. Thus, it should come as no surprise to you that upon graduation I too decided to make the most of my talents.

In September of 1990, I realized that I had a gift. My gift dealt not with the physical sciences or the written language but instead with the spoken language. I could "rap"; not the Easy-E/boom-box supplemented kind of rap, but the somewhat less profitable "Hi, come hear often?" or "Hey baby, what's your sign?" rap. My big break came when I started a fledgling business named "Phone Dates". The concept was simple: you call me, I'll

Business boomed. Branch offices sprung up across the country, but that was only the beginning. Later that year, opportunity once again reared it's ugly head. Looking back, the concept was simple. The U.S. had just deployed hundreds of thousands of military personnel to the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Desert Storm. It was a masterful deployment of America's resources. Nothing was overlooked (well, almost nothing). I mean (and maybe you Snakestock fans will back me up on this one) nothing could be better than a bunch of guys hanging out with a little alcohol and a lot of guns. Heaven, right? Heaven, that is, until you realize that the only available thing with two humps within a 200 mile radius is the sheik's camel. To quote Kondracki, "Oh the horror...".

Armed with a 900 number, I set-up camp in Saudi Arabia and provided U.S. Soldiers with a full menu of services from dating to escorts. My connections spread from Baghdad to Kuwait City. This was BIG business. More than one general could be heard saying, "Boy, that Steele is one heck of a guy. He's saved our butts many a time. And whenever the chips are down, we can always count on Steele to keep our missiles smoking." But all good things must come to an end, and the end of the war meant the end of my welcome so I returned home, sold my business to Great Expectations Dating Service, and (with my telecommunications and dating experience obtained in Desert Storm) landed a job designing and running sophisticated audience vote-tabulation software used on Love Connection. Ahhh....Those were the days: lots of cash, lots of desperate women looking for a good time, and a rigged system. You thought Quiz Show was bad? Heck, you stack the odds against one of those girls long enough and they would even go out with Dice. Maybe. If the show was canceled the following week.

Then came the Senate hearings. Seems they think that some of the practices I employed during Desert Storm have been identified as one of the primary causes of Gulf War syndrome. Wanting to stay out of the spotlight, I fled the country. Now, my life is in disarray. Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling won't return my phone calls and I fear that I'm losing my rap...."