Can I get away with doing this backwards?   – starting at the present.

Not that I hated working, but retirement is offering a wonderful life.  My sister Gina (WHS 1954) easily prevailed on me to move last year from the S. F. Bay Area into her smallish log cabin just outside of the small town of Buena Vista, Colorado (pronounced by the locals “byoona-vista”).  BV lies in a Rocky Mountain semi-arid valley and sports a traffic light, a grocery store, a pretty good hardware store, a variety store, a few others.  Fourteen churches, two bars.  A couple of the streets have curbs and sidewalks.  It’s cradled by two mountain ranges offering more trails than I ever hope to exhaust.  I was already a geology and paleontology junkie before I moved here, and between local hikes and trips to the red rock canyon country in SE Utah I feed my jones by reading John McPhee, Stephen Jay Gould, Edward Abbey and other such suspicious types.   Volunteer trail maintenance work and campaign work with the local Democratic Party occupy what’s left of my time between endless projects (mostly enjoyable) around the cabin.

The road here from WHS was a great ride all in all, though it didn’t include what could be called a career.  Over the years my sight was set in turn on social work, philosophy, Oriental philosophy, and psychology.  I majored in philosophy at Beloit College, junior year in Germany.  Did 3 ½ years in the Army, including a year at the language school in Monterey attempting to learn Chinese, and a Vietnam tour with Army Intelligence.  Then five years of grad school, one of them in Japan.  I dropped out with no degree.  Twenty some years employed by Japan Airlines, mostly in their communications center near San Francisco.  After being downsized out of that world, I found a lot of satisfaction in school again, at a community college where I re-trained in electronics and computer maintenance.  Was hired there and spent 10 years as a technician and then as a computer lab manager, until retirement in December ’06.

Music has been a love and anchor in my life.  I built a kit harpsichord and found that learning to play it was an insurmountable challenge, but in the process what I learned about baroque music immensely deepened and broadened my love for the form.  I got hooked on baroque dancing and for eight years Stanford’s summer dance workshop was an annual high point. 

Over the years I was fortunate to have close and sometimes intense relationships with several wonderful women.  These experiences, including a late and brief marriage, enriched my life and, um, informed me of some of my limitations. 

Finally:  Gina and I plan to add a second floor to the cabin, and when it’s finished about a year from now we’ll have room for guests.  In the meantime there are reasonably priced motels here.  We love having visitors and hope that any of you who come out this way will sojourn with us for a few days.  We’re 90 miles west of Colorado Springs, 125 miles SW of Denver. 

Looking forward to seeing you at the reunion!

I worked in Milwaukee for about 7 years after high school.  Bill and I married in 1965.  Our son was born in 1968 and our daughter in 1970.

I was a stay-at-home mom and volunteered with Cub Scouts and 4-H while the kids were growing up.

I went to work for Kelly Temporary Services in 1989.  In 1995 I took a full time receptionist job in Nashotah and retired from that job in February, 2006.  I have a part time volunteer job as secretary at our church.

We are keeping busy with our grandchildren.  Our son has 4 children and our daughter has 2 and they all live within ½ hour of our home in Eagle.

George studied engineering after graduating from Waukesha South High School.  He earned a BS degree from Marquette University in Mechanical Engineering.  He then entered graduate school and earned an MS Degree in Material Science.  He worked as a research engineer for several years. 

    In 1970 he entered Marquette University Law School and earned a law degree.  He went to work at his father's law firm in Waukesha.  He is still working as an attorney at the same place that his family has been working at since 1902.

    He married classmate, Edith Pavlovics, in 1964.  Edith became an elementary education teacher.  She taught for ten years, until their daughter Melissa was born.  Then she stayed home as a full-time mother and homemaker.

Melissa went through the Waukesha school system.  She earned her BA degree from Wellesley College, and her Law Degree from Marquette University.  She is a legal writing professor at Marquette.  She married a law school classmate and they have a little girl, Olivia.  They live close to us, which is wonderful.  Edith's and George's parents also lived in Waukesha.  Being so close to our parents brought us a great deal of happiness.

    George and Edith have been involved in Waukesha activities, such as the Waukesha Symphony, the library, the historical society, the Waukesha Civic Theater. George is an avid gardener. We have traveled extensively, mainly in Europe, Hawaii, Bermuda and around the U.S.  On a trip to Norway we got together with Bente Vennerod and her husband for a day.  Bente was the AFS student in our senior year.  We had a delightful mini reunion!