What the hell did I know about that. I was less than ten years old! I remember Kennedy being shot, I was next to the telephone pole in front of our house talking to my friend Tom. I recall that both our moms were crying. I can remember the earthquake in 1969. We had a blackout earlier in the day, I was taking a bath by candlelight. Then the earth started going wubbawubbawubba, there were waves in the bathtub! My mom was running down the hall yelling "A-bomb A-bomb". I spent a lot of time at my grandparents house. They were building bridges for US101 behind their house. I would watch the big machines all day. Sometimes, my grandma (The Goose) would take me down to the "rummage sale part of town." She would would buy me a dead radio for a quarter and I would take it to their backyard and proceed to take it apart. I had to go to catechism. (non-Catholics: this is bible class on Saturday mornings, when everyone else gets to sleep in and watch cartoons) I didn't like that. I would pick prunes at my grandfather's ranch during the summer. I didn't like it much at the time but now it's one of my fondest memories of back then. I learned how to drive my grandfather's (Pop's) truck, it was a manual clutch, three-on-the-tree and he made some blocks for the pedals so my feet could reach.
We moved four times in the seventies. In '73 from Santa Rosa to Stockton. In '74 from Stockton to Salinas. In '75 from Salinas back to Stockton and finally, in '76 from Stockton back to Santa Rosa. My mom screwed around on my dad, my dad screwed around on my mom, they got divorced. I stayed with my mom, I was not impressed with my dad's choice in women and chose the lesser of two evils. Or so I thought. My dad passed away on 9/9/76. I knew it happened before anyone told me. I just knew it happened somehow. I was an angry teenager. I made bombs, did drugs, defied authority, got arrested, cut school... I was a total pain in the ass. My mom never forgave me for these tumultuous years. I endured the disco craze (blecchh), the Bicentennial, and Jimmy Carter. I adored the new-found freedoms of becoming a young man, the music, the parties. I had a lot of fun, I went to a bunch of rock concerts, and got into a lot of trouble. By the early seventies my interest in electronics was also my chosen career choice. I always had time to experiment. It also tied into the teenage competition of "whose stereo is better than whose." Electronics was the only class I attended regularly in high school. The one year in a Stockton high school seemed to put me two years ahead of Santa Rosa so I was bored most of the time. I took the test to get out of school early and passed with flying colors. It was way too easy. I tried going to college right after high school but I couldn't stand it. At least the draft had finally ended just a few years before! I dropped out and I worked as a dishwasher, a silicon saw operator and a busboy. By the end of the seventies, I realized I needed to go to college if I was to get a good job in my chosen field.
I went to Santa Rosa Junior College. I graduated in 1982 with a Certificate in Electronics Technology and Highest Honors. I could not find a job in Santa Rosa and I really needed to get out of my mom's house. I went to Silicon Valley with my good friend Bob. We toured all over the place and dropped our résumés everywhere. I ended up at a place called Watkins-Johnson Company. It was a fairly large place (more than 2000 people) and they made missile guidance radars and radar cloaking devices. It was some really cool stuff to work on and during the Reagan years, the company was booming. I met most of the people I know now through this company one way or another. Through the whole time I was in school, (1980-1982) I didn't have any real girlfriends. The years from 1982 through 1987 was the time to make up for that. One-nighters, four monthers, a couple of years here and there dating all kinds of women. Blonde, brunette, redheads, older women, younger women, even married women. Then I met Ro. Ro had birds, I was converted from a cat person to a bird person. We got married at the end of the Eighties and I still think it was the best thing I ever did. I went back to school to finish off my degree. I didn't take any of that liberal arts requirement crap the first time through. It took me almost four years of part time night school to finally get my degree due to changing requirements and academic BS that only a tenured idiot could think up. I remember after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, I had to make sure the school was closed because I had a paper due that night. Ro, typically a very strong person, did not handle the earthquake too well. She is native to Chicago, the only tremors there are from the people shivering in the cold. Not too long after that, I found this comic in the newspaper. [note to self: find comic, put image here.]
Married life was wonderful and I acquired a whole new, very loving family in the process. I was still working at WJ, the place just never seemed to get boring, it was always in a state of flux. I was promoted to an Engineer in 1991, something I have wanted to be since I was about seven years old. We went to war that year too, one of my co-workers was worried about getting drafted. Looks like I was too old now. I get to work on the leading edge of technology, with very expensive equipment that I call my toys. These toys can cost upward of a quarter million dollars and I am responsible for making them automatically test the products WJ makes. We purchased a house in the 1996 and it has been the continually unfinished project. We met our neighbors, Larry and Reggie, soon after moving in and we have all become friends. We spend a lot of our time (and money) fixing up the house just the way we want it. Ro turned out to be a real trooper in the home improvement department. She is a good helper and when she dressed down the doofus in Home Depot for not knowing that "one-by" lumber is really only 3/4" thick I was proud. We remodeled our kitchen, installed a spa, insulated the attic and a host of other projects.
Redid the bathroom, kitchen floor in 2000. 2001 sucked. 2002 sucks less than 2001 but so far? It still sucks .
Saturday May 23, 2009 02:35:28 PM -0500