The Home Page of
Lyle Francis Padilla
Turnersville, New Jersey USA
(Use of this photo does not indicate involvement with or endorsement of this website by the US Army or any other government agency. It just happens to be the best picture I have of myself!)

Welcome. I am currently retired as a School Psychologist (as of October 2008), formerly with the public school system of Camden, New Jersey. I am also (as of October 2003) a retired Major, Armor Branch, from the US Army reserve components; although I retired from the Individual Ready Reserve section of the Army Reserve, I spent the bulk of my service time in the New Jersey Army National Guard.

I was born in Manila, Philippines in October, 1956. I moved with my family to Deptford, New Jersey in 1970, and graduated with a BA in Psychology from Rutgers College in 1978. I received my MA in Educational Psychology from Glassboro State College in 1984 and completed the state School Psychologist certification program at Glassboro in 1986.

In addition to my careers as a school psychologist and a military officer, I have also kept busy with creative writing; I have a small collection of novels, short stories and screenplays. Although none of them have been published for profit, I almost got one of the novels/screenplays produced as a movie by an independent producer a few years back, but the financial backer bailed out while we were in preproduction. In any case, having been born in 1956 and growing up in the typically American middle-class suburb of Deptford, New Jersey, I was quite amused and quickly became absorbed when, in 1988, a new TV series premiered which was about a man born in 1956 reminiscing in flashback about his coming of age 20 years in the past in an unnamed typical American middle-class suburb. As with many of my contemporaries, the series frequently struck me in such a way that I found myself nodding and saying, "Yeah, that was me twenty years ago." As the series progressed, by 1992 I had diverted my creative writing efforts into a few "spec" scripts for this series. (A "spec" script is one which is written on speculation, unsolicited by the producers of the show but done in the hopes of being sold to the producers.) The main effort went into what started out as a one-hour special episode, projecting the main characters to 1975 and based on some of my own experiences in my freshman year at Rutgers. When it was announced that the series would likely end in 1993, two years short of the projected air-time of my special episode, I quickly expanded it into a reunion movie script, and then expanded that further into a miniseries-length revival of the show. So without further ado, I hereby present

Lyle F. Padilla's Proposed Reunion Scripts for
Originally posted 25 November 1997
(Last updated 28 April 2013 with new feature:
Soundtrack added!)

These scripts were first posted on a website owned by Miss Ayako Tanaka of Yokohama, Japan, which was the first, and still remains the best, website dedicated to The Wonder Years. Links to this and other websites of interest to myself and, hopefully, to you, are located at

Other Links
New as of 9 August 1998 (last updated 8 December 2020):
History, Legend and Myth:
Hollywood and the Medal of Honor
by
Lyle F. Padilla
and
Raymond J. Castagnaro

This is a reference site that my friend Ray and I have been working on. We have always held in awe and esteem the heroes of American military history and, by virtue of being combat arms officers in the reserve components, have always considered ourselves semi-professional military historians. As such, we did a study on the various recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor whose acts of valor have been depicted in the movies, taking note of the fact that in nearly every case, even when much of the rest of the movie has been fictionalized or romanticized, the depictions of those acts of valor have been quite historically accurate. Truth is definitely stranger, and more entertaining, than fiction!

Also, a link to Ray's website containing photos from our visit on 23-25 June 2001 to the Little Bighorn Battlefield, Montana, for the 125th Anniversary of Custer's Last Stand.

New as of 6 October 2003 (last updated 13 February 2005):

Well, it seems like every decade or so, a TV series comes along that impresses me enough to write a couple of spec scripts for it. So in the tradition of my 1990s proposed reunion scripts for The Wonder Years linked above, for the 2000s decade I present without further ado:

Lyle F. Padilla's Spec Scripts for

New as of 29 May 2020
On the Banks of the Old Raritan
(Faculty version)

In April 1978, a month before I graduated from Rutgers College of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the university faculty and staff presented a talent show as a charity fundraiser. The finale of the program was a rendition of the Rutgers alma mater On the Banks of the Old Raritan, but revised to present the faculty and staff's viewpoint. The program was presented twice, on successive Friday and Saturday evenings. I was there for the first night and, for this song alone, I decided to return the second night and pay admission again, this time with pen and paper to write down the lyrics. I knew this would be a rare event.

As far as I know, this version has never been published anywhere until now. I don't know if anyone in the faculty/staff saved a copy, so this may be the only remaining record of that version. It's been 42 years, but better late than never!