Attended Cornell for two years with a nominal major in engineering Physics -- while actually concentrating on Crew and Sage Chapel Choir. Grades were only fair and interest lagging -- and to top it off, our crew missed the '56 Olympics by .7 seconds being beaten by a crew we had previously beaten twice that same year. Since I couldn't bum around Australia, I opted for the Florida keys for several months (the dual stage SCUBA regulator had just been invented) until Uncle Sam sent me greetings. 21 months in the Army and I was back in school in NYC -- Columbia Univ. With not much money. Went to school on and off, nights and days for the next three years -- off times working in industry making money to return to studies -- Philco, Minneapolis Honeywell, Bell Labs, IBM. Each time I returned to Columbia, it was more difficult since the money was harder each time to leave behind. Worked and lived in NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago during these wandering years.

Ended up working for the Dept of Defense for 35 years both under contract and as a federal employee. Spent much of that time on the coast of SC with the last 20 years in Texas. While at these locations I traveled extensively to various places around the world. Probably on the road six months of the year -- two to three weeks at a time. This did not please my wife, Edie, of almost 42 years. Who wants to hay the cows in the snow when their old man is skin diving in Cuba?

An expert is a guy with an attache case, fifty miles from home -- so I guess I was an expert for DOD. I specialized in airborne systems -- com, nav and weapon. When an activity had a problem they could not solve, I was dispatched to see what I could do. Let me tell you, you haven't lived 'till you get asked "Can you help us?" and you stroke your chin and say "Turn it on and let it warm up" because you don't know how to turn it on. Fortunately, complex systems have a lot in common, so I usually did get our war machine rolling again. Err, flying again.

From about '63 to '73 lived at Beaufort, SC -- halfway between Charleston and Savannah. While on the SC coast had a beautiful place on deep water and owned both sail and power boats. My two daughters were born here, Lynn '68 and Rebecca '69. I worked nights much of this time so got to spend lots of quality father/daughter time. Yeah, I know, Edie, When I was not on the road.

In '73, moved to Dallas. Lived in a subdivision for several years but after the isolation and privacy of our island on the SC coast, moved 25 miles south of Dallas to Waxahachie to a working cattle ranch. Not too large by TX standards, but with Dallas expanding to the south, all we could afford. Still own the ranch and did still run it after retirement in '92 but with retirement came travel, pleasure this time, so four years ago in '98, sold my cattle and leased the land to another producer. Still live there but with wintering south and summering north, spend less time there each year. Back to ranching! In 2009, my leasee went belly up - cattle prices had bombed - and together with my son-in-law - we started running cattle again.

While in TX, Edie became a braillist, first as a volunteer, then running a group of volunteers for a service agency transcribing textbooks for the state of TX. When I retired in '92 we started our own business as braille producers. About this time, the PC was getting started, and braille production software was just getting off the ground. So that's how I became a nerd.

All in all, a great life, great wife and great kids. Not too many things I would have done differently.