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Like most children, Ray was born. His father (aka),Verne Gagne (Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame Class of 2004.) & Shirley; a Slovene ski jumper and older sister to Vinko Bogataj (Agony of defeat fame). Ray attended school sometime later. Fueled by the rare combination of intense ADD, rampant insecurity, and the desperate need for attention, the young master Ray received D's and F's on homework assignments with such regularity that his poor performance nearly caused him to drop out of grade school. When he finally reached the upper grades, he often skipped school to work at the local rodeo. During mind-numbing extended math sessions, he practiced copying his mother's handwriting in order to forge notes from home. “Dear Miss O'Conner”, one note read. “Ray couldn't attend school yesterday. He had a bad cough.” After his frequent absences were finally tallied up, it took him six years to complete high school.
After high school one of the oddball jobs Ray took was at Topps Bubblegum Company, where he was responsible for removing from the packs of bubble gum, baseball and football player’s cards who had been traded to new teams.
Ray was an athlete back in the day. He played football and drew attention from several pro teams...if by attention you mean that they ignored him completely. Ray’s speed and agility were often compared to a half back with lead pants. Ray enjoyed an uninspired professional career with the The Chicago Wind, the World Football League's ill-fated 1975 successor to the Chicago Fire.
He thereafter went sulking off to work in the trades, taking a shipbuilding job which taught him that steel was too heavy to lug around.
Ray was outgoing, a drinker, a smoker - very extroverted and gregarious. He loved entertaining, having a special flair for women, parties and people.
His days of womanizing were over, when he proposed to his wife to be, efficiently by telegram which read….
MUST MOVE GRAND PIANO. HEAVY. NEED HELP. COME IMMEDIATELY. ...RAY
If you can call that a proposal. Ray and Renee were married in the summer of 1974.
The partnership resulted in four kids howling around like an empty refrigerator. 3 followed their dad into the trades, 1 became a lawyer. 3 outa four ain’t bad.
Encouraged by his ravishing beautiful wife, ("Go back to work, you bum!"), Ray borrowed a necktie from a neighbor and asked Art Gustafson for a job. Art betrayed me and gave me one as a Medical Packaging Sales Associate..
Naturally, Ray became a howling successful, and as anyone who knows the glamorous Packaging business can well imagine, it soon took four stalwart men to help Ray tote home his sales commissions.
Hobbies include collecting rare earth magnets, meeting new people with special talents – Ray’s first supervisor could bulge his eyes way out of his head. They looked like big eggs coming out of his eye sockets. Ray enjoys light reading having just completed, Quantum Mechanics The Uncertain Principle of Light Particles and eagerly looks forward to devouring Integrated Nano-Technologies.
