My Life in a Nutshell (A Quick Bio)

It has occurred to me that this quest to "write my life's story" could use a short synopsis. This is to introduce myself to my OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) classmates, and to provide some info to those readers who don't know me very well. Other entries have provided or will provide more details and anecdotes about the various specific subjects or time periods that I mention.

I was born in October of 1950 in a hospital near Cincinnati, Ohio. I was the first child of my parents, who had married a little over a year earlier. They lived on a farm about 30 miles from that hospital, and I was in the first generation that was usually born in a hospital, rather than at home. My father was born in the house I grew up in. He took over the farm after his father died, just a few years before marrying my mom, and he lived in that house all his life.

I had two siblings. My sister Patricia (Patty, now Pat) is two years and 4 months younger than I, and my brother Chris was around seven years younger. Pat now lives with her family in Connecticut, and Chris died from pancreatic cancer in 2011. We are still very close to his widow Cindi and their three daughters. I had quite a few cousins on my mother's side (there were 19 of us); most of them lived in the Dayton/Wilmington area, so we all got to know each other. I was particularly close to cousins Diana and Brenda, who were nearest to my age, and to Steve and Phil, who lived closest and whose mother was especially close to mine. My cousins on my father's side lived in New York state, in the Syracuse area, and I saw them much less frequently.

Back to the subject of the farm, it was (is) about 160 acres, about 45 miles northeast of Cincinnati. My father's mother, widowed before I was born, lived next door. I remember that as a young child, it was a general farm, with a few cows, pigs, chickens, and field crops. Later, Dad got rid of the pigs and chickens, and he developed it into a dairy farm, with field crops for cow feed and for cash.  As I grew older, I spent many summer hours driving tractors and got lots of sunburns doing so. I also spent a lot of summer time indoors, reading books (often biographies of sports heroes) checked out from the bookmobile that came nearby once a week. 

Unlike my city cousins, whom I envied, I did not have playmates on a daily basis other than my siblings. I remember getting very attached to certain animals. I seem to have had bad luck in that regard, as pups that I adopted as "mine" invariably got hit by cars on the highway on which we lived, and my favorite pet cow died as a result of ingesting hardware.

I always got good grades in school, and science and math were particularly fun for me. It got me into a bit of trouble in elementary school, as there was a period of time when I was tortured by other classmates for being the "teacher's pet." That was also around the time I got glasses, so "four eyes" was another name I was called. I so wanted to be athletic, but was both young for my class and small for my age,

I graduated high school as class valedictorian of about 125 students. In my senior year, I had a rock / pop band in which I played guitar and sang harmonies. At one point a rumor went around that some friends and I were into illicit drugs, although I had never even laid eyes on them, much less used them at that point in time. Music has been a constant activity of mine throughout my life, and I've just about always been a participant in making music of some kind.

I went to college at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, which was the biggest city in the state at that time and was about a four-hour drive away. I started out majoring in management science, but became disillusioned when I had to take what I believe was the most boring class I ever took, called "Introduction to Operations Research." I switched my major to mathematics, as a matter of finding the path of least resistance. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I figured that math would be a good background no matter what.

The Vietnam War was going on, and many of my high school classmates were drafted into the army. I got a student deferment. When there was a draft lottery and I luckily got a high number, I dropped my deferment and never had to go. I have always felt some degree of guilt about that, and I appreciate the sacrifices that military people and families have made.

After college graduation, I stayed in Cleveland - first working for a publishing company, and then teaching high school math. I married a girl whom I had met at age 19, and she 16, there in Cleveland. We were 19 and 22, respectively, when we married, and it lasted for only two years (no children). I left Ohio both disappointed and excited to begin a new life as a food truck proprietor in Tucson, Arizona. I have written about that in an earlier post.

I surprised myself, from what I had had in mind for the past several years, when I decided to go back to school. Tucson had an excellent department of atmospheric sciences, and I was pleased to be accepted and to be given a research assistantship. I loved my classes and research, and I got a Masters Degree in atmospheric sciences and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics. I also met my wife-to-be, who worked at the food co-op. We moved in together and then got married a few months later. I also became a step-parent to Theresa's daughter Stacy, with whom I often butted heads but whom I grew to love very much. I felt so honored when, years later, she asked me to walk her down the aisle rather than her biological father.

Shortly after Theresa and I were married, I finished my Ph.D. and was offered a job in Huntsville, working for NASA. Just a few weeks after we arrived, our twin girls, Vanessa and Allison were born. Talk about instant family! I now had responsibility for supporting a family of five, as I was the single breadwinner at that point. Beginning with a post-doc position, I was offered a permanent civil service job less than a year later, and I remained an employee of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center for the remainder of my career, until I retired in 2013.

Collectively, we were a pretty lonely bunch when we first moved to Huntsville. I had a few work friends, Stacy quickly made some school friends, and Theresa had a friend across the backyard fence. I had heard of the Unitarian Church back in my college days, so I suggested to Theresa that we try the Huntsville one. We have been active members there for over 33 years now. We have made a lot of good friends through church and through other connections in Huntsville. This city is now our home, and I don't think we'll ever leave, unless one of is left alone and goes to live near our kids or grand-kids.

Oh, yes, grand-kids! All three of our daughters have gotten married, and two of them have had children. Stacy has just one daughter, Avery (nearly six years old). One of our twins, Allie, had twins herself, and now has 3 boys and 1 girl (ages 2, 2, 5, and 7). We are five-fold blessed! We do wish they lived closer, though - Allie is in Raleigh, and Stacy is in Birmingham. They are both Registered Nurses. Vanessa lives nearby, is a music teacher, and we often get to enjoy the company of her and her husband. Theresa teaches art to elementary and middle school students in the Madison County system, and she plans to retire at the end of next year. I'm hoping that we still have many adventures and pleasures to indulge in before it's all over!