Comments
Updated for the 2026 reunion.
The highlights: Developed my math and science skills at Brigham Young and the University of Utah, and took 2 years out for the obligatory proselytizing trek. (Mine was in Hawaii – pure luck of the draw.) And a high-enough draft number kept me from the horrors of Vietnam. Then became a lawyer. Moved to Washington, D.C. to work for the government, convinced a woman there that I was a decent marriage prospect (Yes, even I finally developed the courage to risk rejection and ask someone for a date.), and stayed for about the next 40 years. We raised our sons there.
Along the way, I learned a few things. I got reasonably competent at environmental law – something that combined my science skills and legal training. (If you've heard of dioxins, it can probably be traced to a leak I made to a reporter early in the Reagan administration--I ran the national dioxins programs while at the EPA.) But that is what I did to keep food on the table: it never became a vocation (in the true sense of the word). My career was more a slog than a sprint. Government work, corporate law, government contracting, private law firms. Nothing spectacular. Too many job changes – thank heavens for 401(k) portability!
Concentrating on the requirements of an engineering undergraduate curriculum, and proceeding through law school, I somehow missed the advantages of a liberal arts education. I've discovered that I enjoy history, although high school was my last formal history course. And I've learned to read for pleasure. Fiction & biographies, mostly. I've not tried my hand at writing prose, but the muse occasionally strikes for poetry.
Raised a Goldwater republican, I've migrated to the left (Latin: sinister) side of the political spectrum. (Hence, I didn't vote for Trump. Those of you who did – I hope that your consciences will be forgiving. If you did it twice, you probably don't have a conscience--sorry.) I've found that I enjoy helping people, and so volunteer with the Coast Guard, am president of our homeowners' association, and otherwise hope to continue to be a good citizen in my dotage.
I still have most of my health and my height (but the red in my hair is long gone). I enjoy hiking and backpacking and can report treks across England, the Cornish coast, and the circumnavigation of Mont Blanc. We learned to sail while on the East Coast, and we charter a sailboat annually for a week to play in some saltwater location (this year: St.Vincent and the Grenadines--look it up). I'll keep doing as much of that as I can. For fitness' sake, if nothing else.
