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Leslie MacDill
One acquaintance said of him, "You're like Forest Gump, only smart!" - and that description isn't too far off the mark. The unquenchable thirst for knowledge has led Leslie MacDill...view moreOne acquaintance said of him, "You're like Forest Gump, only smart!" - and that description isn't too far off the mark. The unquenchable thirst for knowledge has led Leslie MacDill down a spiritual path that includes esoteric Tibetan healing medicine, Zen Buddhism, advanced energy medicine and shamanism, and into wildly divergent career choices like driving an 18-wheeler and working as a judicial assistant. However, a long-smoldering love affair with music was ignited the moment Leslie heard Sing, Sing, Sing from Benny Goodman's 1938 Carnegie Hall concert playing on the family hi-fi as a child; he still has the three-LP set. Over the years he further indulged his passion by becoming a professional touring musician, an on-air disc jockey, and collecting an extensive library of music. Fellow Tallahasseean Linda Hargrove could easily have been referring to Leslie when she penned the title track of her 1973 album, Music Is Your Mistress.
Despite being a self-proclaimed "Air Force brat," Leslie left the bosom of the South only briefly, the first three years of life, when his father was deployed to Okinawa, Japan. Educated in parochial and public schools, he lived through and participated in this nation's time of great social upheaval, the Sixties, made all the more difficult given his limited worldview as a military dependent. That life changed radically, however, when his father retired from the Air Force and returned to civilian life in north Florida.
Leslie is an alumnus of Florida State University but also attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery, AL, (where he was a member in prominent standing of the anti-fraternity group Fly Delta Jets) and the University of South Alabama in Mobile, AL. Eschewing traditional social organizations, he has also been a member of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Krewe of Pontchartrain and the Tallahassee Parrotheads Club. In addition to being a devout foodie, the author is an accomplished cook and connoisseur of coffee, red wine, and usquebaugh. He performs onstage whenever the opportunity presents itself, employing an African-styled ashika drum and another that was hand-hewn from the limb of a hardwood tree by a fellow Reiki master.view less