In Brookpark, Ohio in 1969 I had a great science teacher at Ford Junior High School. Mr Dafffin hosted a campout/sleepover in the school's enclosed courtyard and we looked through telescopes. I got to see Uranus for the first time and I was hooked. I got a 3 inch refractor telescope shortly thereafter. It was also the time of Apollo 11, and a lot of us kids were crazy about space at the time. I was 12 years old.

The three inch refractor on an alt-az mount. It was marketed by K-mart at the time. I have no idea who the original manufacturer was, but it had serviceable optics. I got to see the moon and planets with it, and it worked great for partial solar eclipses as I used the projection method.

Later I joined the US Air Force and ended up selling the telescope to a sergeant after the 1977 solar eclipse. I was too busy with the military and a part time job to do astronomy.
I was also busy with model rocketry at the time.

I gave up rocketry in 1984, and family responsibilities kept me from doing any hobbies until 1997, when I purchased a serious telescope, a 10 inch Schmidt Cassegrain.
Shortly thereafter I became a volunteer at Mt Wilson Observatory, and worked there as a telescope operator from 2002 to 2007. I got to play with some serious equipment there, far beyond what I could personally afford: a 24 inch telescope with an SBIG ST-11 CCD camera, a 14 inch telescope with an Apogee CCD camera, and a Meade 16 inch LX200.

From 2000 to 2008 I became involved with a local astronomy club that has over 800 members. I learned a lot from that association, and after moving to New England, I have found the climate here to be not as good for observational astronomy.

So, a lot of the astronomy I do now is virtual, on the web...