Shady Grove

Shady Grove was born Eugene Wojohouski, May 9th, 1965, in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. As a young boy, he had a penchant for shiny objects and colorful stones. His claims of being able to look into the stones and see the future, as well a being able to find buried treasure, were met generally with great skepticism and an occasional tight wedgie. He attended Hicksville High School on Long Island where he excelled at spending the day locked in various school gym lockers, day dreaming, and organizing show tune ensembles with his friends. While in high school, he met his soul mate, Whimsy Goldblatt. After graduation, Eugene and Whimsy were wed in a civil ceremony and left New York for the sunshine and carefree shores of California. This pissed their parents off something awful. Eugene took a job at the docks in San Pedro, California, for a tuna canning company, while Whimsy waited tables in a longshoreman’s diner. Eugene soon earned a reputation as a “shady” character after swindling several of his coworkers with his treasure stones. One afternoon, Whimsy brought Eugene some lunch. They slipped into the canning plant for some privacy and while making passionate love on a suspended steel girder, Whimsy slipped and plunged 40 feet into the tuna steaming vat below. Eugene, fearing that he would lose his job, and maybe worse, did not report the incident to anyone. Whimsy became a small part of 10,000 cans of tuna. Eugene put the incident behind him, did a stint in the military, where he changed his name to Shady Grove, and then moved to San Francisco where he opened an open mic nightclub for poetry and show tunes. He later became a saucier at the posh Bourges Hotel and wrote a regular column for the “Bay Area Breeze”, a publication dedicated to the preservation of show tunes and those who love them. Though he never remarried, he has been in a long term partnership with a woman pretending to be a man, pretending to be a woman. He is now retired somewhere in Gold Country where he spends his time raising two puppies, boating in the cool waters, tending his herb garden, and writing freelance reports for several news agencies. Reach Shady at: ShadyG@TheNetSpies.com