The Way We Are
Comments: So we graduated from Yorktown High School forty five years ago?
That seems like a very long time ago but I do remember leaving Arlington for Blacksburg and Va Tech with dreams of being employed by the US Forestry Dept. All I needed was a degree in Forestry.
That degree never happened, however, because I soon discovered that studying was necessary in college. So after a year of partying I was asked to take a year off by VA Tech so that I could discover myself.
But it was the sixties and a war was on so what I soon found out was that if I wasn’t in college the draft board would quickly became aware of it. Three months into my self-discovery, the US Army selected me and asked, no told me, to join them on a great adventure. Which I did.
I worked hard at not going to Vietnam though, especially after they decided that I should specialize in communications rather than fighting. I volunteered for every school I could. After all there is only so much you can do in two years. But after the 6 months radio school, six weeks in air borne training and some time at a secret base in Penn. they sent me. A little less than a year but it was enough to change my outlook on life
Coming home, I found my friends with college degrees and husbands or wives and some even with children. So I jumped into life, taking a job with the Post Office and starting back to college, first it was at the Community College and then UVA night courses and then finally George Mason who granted me a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. Such a long way from Forestry.
But I guess I was out to save the world and so I took a job that Dorothea Dix Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Raleigh NC. For the next five years I worked with psychiatric patients, incarcerated men and women and slow learners, helping them to find jobs so that they could rejoin their community. I met a lot of special people.
And then my dad called. He was dying and wanted to know if I would take over his business that he had run for the last twenty years. I said maybe and left North Carolina for Washington DC and started working with him. Now, over thirty years later I am still there and still enjoying it.
And of course there was family and adventures. My wife has stayed with me thirty-six years, way longer then I deserve. And our two children have grown up following their dreams. My oldest, a daughter, left for St Kitts in the Caribbean after graduating from Gilford College to work on her veterinarian degree. Three years later she finished up at Cornell in New York. She now lives in Fremont CA and is a successful veterinarian
My son, not to be outdone, decided to travel to Austria for his degree and ended up with a business degree from Monash University in Australia. Coming home he found the country in a recession and worked hard to find a job. He is currently in Charleston SC working for a benefits company.
I enjoy visiting places and have managed to visit two thirds of the USA via motorcycle. Unfortunately my wife decided in the beginning that while she did enjoy traveling she did not enjoy doing it by motorcycle. But there were other methods of travel and we have enjoyed trips to Mexico, Canada, Alaska, Hawaii, China, Australia, and Thailand. We now travel a lot between Fremont CA and Charleston SC but our next adventures point to South American in case any of you are interested.
So I hope all of you are well and I miss those of us that have already left us. And yes, it has been 45 years since graduation!
Current Photos:
Thanksgiving 2010
Thailand Elephants
Amy and Julie
