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Preface

My father started his biography at age 81, probably the fall of 1999. Both Doris and I encouraged him to write his life’s story as we felt that he lived in historic transformative times and his life’s story would be important to preserve for successive generations of the family. We finally persuaded him to undertake this arduous task by offering to have him record his life experiences on a tape recorder, which I would transcribe and Doris and I would edit. It was a difficult undertaking, but he kept at it and it was a finished product nearly a year later.

I realized that I too had an interesting and somewhat unique set of life experiences and had lived in a similar transformative era. Accordingly, I felt compelled to undertake the task of writing my biography.

While Dad experienced the migration of American life from a rural, agrarian-­‐based economy to an urban, industrial-­‐based economy, I lived through the cold war and technological revolution that has brought radical changes in every imaginable facet to our way of life. Throughout my Bio, I have attempted to draw attention to events that I have directly encountered throughout my life within the historical context.

After Dad finished his Bio, he confessed that there was much he wished he could have put in it, but didn’t remember the details adequately. I was fortunate to have great clarity of detail in my Bio, as I was able to draw on numerous written sources and fill in a lot of blanks by doing Internet searches to prompt my memory. My early experiences onboard the HS Vandenberg missile-­‐tracking ship was documented weekly or more in Mary’s and my letters. Likewise, Mary’s annual Christmas letter was a great source to prompt recall of the more significant events. Old résumés, family letters, trip diaries and the many pictures of family events and travels were valuable resources as well.

I am thankful for the help provided by my close friend Nick Nichols and cousin Glen Blesi, for their expertise and yeoman efforts in editing over 300 pages of the Bio, sister Doris, for her help in filling in some of the blanks of my early childhood, Brian, who designed the cover and enabled the Bio to be electronically navigated, and Mary, who had documented many of our trips in detail over the years. She was also a handy resource to correct my sometimes-­‐poor grammar and punctuation.

It is my intent to update the Bio periodically to reflect new travels and experiences, which will be created in a separate edition. My hope is that this will serve as an interesting history for future family generations.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Forebears−A Brief History ....................................................................................................... 5 Family Alexander 5 Family Blesi 8 Early Childhood Life .............................................................................................................. 10 Seminary District 1941−1948 10 Clifton Hill 1948−1949 16 Spring Bluff 1949−1950 18 Transitioning from Rural Life ................................................................................................ 24 Sullivan Grade School Years 1950−1956 24 Sullivan High School 1956−1959 28 Uncle Sam 1959−1963 .......................................................................................................... 36 Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy (MSM) 1960−1964 ............................................... 40 Early Professional Life ........................................................................................................... 46 Control Data Corporation 1964−1965 46 Univac 1966 50 Courting Mary ...................................................................................................................... 51 My Car Wrecks 51 Engagement 53 RCA International Service Company 1966 to 1968 ................................................................. 55 Missile Test Project (MTP) 55 Orientation 57 Tracking Missiles 58 The Wedding −April 15, 1967 ................................................................................................ 69 Back on the Range 72 Tragedies Onboard the Arnold 72 My Final Missile Test Missions 74 The Great Northwest 75 Control Data Corporation 1968−1991 ................................................................................... 80 Systems Management 1968−1971 80 My Injuries 81 Starting the Family ............................................................................................................... 83 Terminal Systems Development (TSD) 1971−1974 87 New Business Development 1974−1980 90 Iran − Computer Terminals of Iran (CTI) 91 Building our First Home 100 Slovenia−CDC Mini Computer Technology Transfer 104 2

107 109 111 115

CDC/Iskra Joint Business Committee Minor Projects Brazil−Docas de Santos Peoples Republic of China (PRC)

Business Management Office (BMO) 1980−1982 ................................................................ 130 International Operations 130 Large Disk Division 133 Oklahoma City-­‐Small Disk Division 1983−1991 ................................................................... 135 Life in OKC 135 Oklahoma Weather 137 Post Office Massacre 141 Family Travels 142 Oklahoma City−Small Disk Division (SDD) 148 SDD Marketing ................................................................................................................... 155 Seagate’s Acquisition of CDC’s Disk Drive Business ............................................................. 158 International Data Corporation ........................................................................................... 164 In Search of a New Career 1991−1995 ................................................................................ 164 Emulex 166 Consulting for Digital Equipment (DEC) 167 Cherokee Data 1995−1999 .................................................................................................. 173 OKC Murrah Building Bombing−First Terrorist Attack on American Soil 173 Operating Cherokee Data 176 Real Estate−I Could Have Been Swindled 178 Family Matters ................................................................................................................... 181 Sports & Activities 181 Financial Advice 181 College 182 Sunset Years 183 Jennifer’s Family 185 Family Travel ...................................................................................................................... 187 1993 Inside Passage of Alaska−August 19th to 30th 187 Albuquerque Hot Air Balloon Festival 1994 Australia−November 20th to December 9th 1995 Ireland−June 20th to July 8th 1996 New Zealand−November 22nd to December 9th 1997 African Safari−Kenya & Tanzania-­‐September 3rd to 20th 1998 East Europe−June 11th to 28th 1999 Scotland and England-­‐September−1st-­‐20th 3

188 188 190 193 198 205 210

Business Brokerage ............................................................................................................. 216 Remodeling our Home 220 Pursuits and Travel ............................................................................................................. 223 2000 Alaska Small Adventure Ship & Land Tour−July 9th to 24th 227 th th 2001 Spain, Portugal and France−August 24 to September 17 229 • September 11, 2001 ...................................................................................................................... 235 2002 Mexico−June 15th to 22nd 238 th th 2003 Italy−June 20 to July 5 239 th th 2004 Scandinavia−August 26 to September 11 245 2006 Alaska−July 16th to 30th 249 th th 2007 Canadian Maritime Provinces−June 28 to July 14 251 th th 2008 Iceland−June 25 to July 4 258 th th 2008 Costa Rica−November 15 to 25 262 Various US Short Trips−2005 thru 2014 264 Decorative Arts International ............................................................................................. 272 More Family Travel ............................................................................................................. 292 2009 Ireland−July 5th to 15th 292 2009 Peru, Ecuador & Galapagos Islands−September 23rd to October 14th 295 st st 2010 Nevada and West Coast-­‐July 21 to August 1 305 2011 Idaho and Wyoming−June 26th to July 11th 307 2014 Chile, Argentina, Brazil−April 19th to May 1st My Involvement with the Justice System Health Scare 2015 Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia, April 30th to May 28th 2015 Lake Placid and Adirondack NY, July 28th to August 1st 2015 The Baltics & Finland, August 25th to September 19th 2015 Eastern Oklahoma, October 27th to 30th

310 319 320 322 347 350 369

Appendix ............................................................................................................................ 371 CFA Birth Certificate 371 MEA Birth Certificate 371 Marriage Certificate 373 Family Travel Log 374 Century Travel Club Log 378 Résumé of Chuck Alexander 381 Résumé of Mary Alexander 384 Mary’s Mothers Family Genealogy 386 Christmas Letters 388 CFA Transcripts 401 US Army Discharge Certificate 405 4

Forebears−A Brief History My father, Charles Forrest Alexander, Sr., was born September 6, 1918 near Clifton Hill, Missouri. He died October 22, 2002, at age 83. He married his high school sweetheart, Elda Florence Blesi, on September 10, 1938. They had two children, my sister Doris, who was born December 21, 1939, and me. Mom passed away June 4, 2002 at age 83. Mom and Dad are buried in the Crow Cemetery, which is in the Seminary neighborhood where they started their married life together.

I was born June 25, 1941, on my grandparents Blesi’s farm near Sullivan, Missouri. My forebears were immigrants, and I am part of the seventh generation on the Alexander side and the fourth generation on the Blesi side of the family of direct descendants who immigrated to America.

Family Alexander John Alexander Sr., my great-­‐great-­‐great-­‐great,-­‐grandfather was born in Northern Ireland around 1769.

He, his wife, and son immigrated to the United States around 1795, eventually settling along Big Cedar Creek in Russell County, Virginia in 1803. John Alexander raised a family of at least eleven children, six girls and five boys, and lived past the age of 90 years. His first wife died about 1835 and he then married Mary Garrett, a woman forty years his junior who survived him. John’s will was probated November 4, 1862, and the slaves he owned were given to various heirs “to have and to hold forever”.

John Alexander Sr.’s fifth child, Mitchell Luke Alexander, was born in Russell County, Virginia in 1805.

Mitchell married Nancy Burke Alexander and they had five children, four girls and one boy. Nancy Burke was born in Virginia on September 4, 1808. In 1834, they pioneered to Northeast Township in Adams County, Illinois. Nancy passed away on Christmas day in 1839 at age 31. Mitchell then married the widow Patricia Jane Jarvis, and they had four boys and one girl. Patricia was born in Ireland on August 2, 1807.

Mitchell Alexander became the first Justice of the Peace in 1848 when the Northeast Township was officially organized. Patricia died October 2, 1869 at age 62 and Mitchell passed away July 1, 1866, at about age 61. Mitchell and both wives are buried in the Mt. Horeb Presbyterian Churchyard near LaPrairie, Illinois.

Mitchell Luke Alexander’s oldest child, David Marion Alexander, was born in Adams County November 30, 1841, and he grew up in Northeast Township. During the Civil War, David enlisted in the Union Army, 84th Infantry, Company I in 1862 for three years. This was about the same time that his grandfather was giving his slaves to various heirs. David was a first lieutenant by the time he was discharged, and he later drew a pension as a Union Veteran. David studied for the Presbyterian Ministry for a while and taught at “Hog Jaw” school in Adams County, but he was mainly a farmer. David married Emmaline Pettijohn on October 3, 1867 and they moved to Randolph County, Missouri in 1869. Emmalie was born October 2, 1844, in Brown County, Illinois. She died March 11, 1880 at age 35 of a ruptured appendix in Randolph County.

David and Emmaline raised six children, three girls and three boys.

David Marion Alexander died May 19, 1932 at age 90. He gave my grandfather, Charles Mitchell Alexander his rifle with the instructions that it was be handed down to the eldest son of each generation.

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When my father handed the rifle to me, it was in terrible condition and I did my best to restore it. In speaking to old timers about how to recondition it, I learned that the old muzzleloader was most likely hand crafted sometime around 1820 and was a design similar to those done in St. Louis, Missouri. It is a plains rifle with a 40 to 50-­‐caliber octagon barrel accurate enough to hit a twelve-­‐inch target from 300 to 375 yards. Originally, the walnut burl stock was full, but along the way someone reduced it to half-­‐length. The use of pewter in the stock trim indicates that it was an expensive firearm. The old timers I talked to thought it cost around $30 based on 5 cents an hour labor cost. Unfortunately, the damage to the rifle as well as the dry rot in the stock was too extensive to allow me to restore it to firing condition.

The rifle was used to kill a bear, and David loaned it to a neighbor who participated in chasing the Mormons out of Illinois. David and Emmaline are buried in Thomas David's Muzzleloader Hill Cemetery in Randolph County, Missouri.

David Marion Alexander’s oldest child, Charles Edgar Alexander, was born January 7, 1869. He married Lucy Mildred Anderson on May 1, 1894. Lucy was the daughter of John Miller Anderson, who made the trek to the California gold fields in 1849. He kept a detailed diary of his travels. Mom and Dad transcribed the diary and the typed transcription of it was copied and given to my children, among others and me. A copy of the transcription as well as a copy of the handwritten diary was also given to the St Joseph Missouri Museum. Lucy was born February 17, 1869, and died December 21, 1953, at age 84. Charles and Lucy raised six children, one girl and five boys. Charles Edgar Alexander died January 17, 1911 at age 42 from what was called creeping paralysis at that time. Lucy remarried to Ira Potter about 1926. He died around 1944 or 1945. Lucy was crippled one dark night when she went to open a gate for Ira to drive a tractor through. She did not realize that Ira was also pulling a wagon with the tractor and went to close the gate as the tractor passed by. The wagon knocked her down and ran over her, breaking both legs in several places, leaving her severely crippled for the rest of her life.

Charles Edgar Alexander’s oldest child, Charles Mitchell “CM” Alexander, is my grandfather. He was born May 1, 1895. Charles Mitchell Alexander married Ola Maude McLean October 27, 1917. Ola was born April 29, 1899 and died May 25, 1992 at age 93. She was the direct ninth generation descendent of Charles McLean who came to America around 1720 and settled in Phildelpha, Pennsylvania. Charles Mclean’s son, Col. Charles McLean, married Susan Howard Allison, who was born in Philadelphia and died after 1810. Col Charles McLean was born in 1728 and died in 1810. His son, Ephrim McLean, was born in 1763 and married Elizabeth Byers, who was born in 1765 in the York District of South Caolina. She died in 1852. Ephrim died in 1813 in Logan Co., Kentucky.

Ephrim’s son, Charles McLean was born in 1794 in Burk Co., Kentucky. He married Mary McKinney who was born in South Carolina in early 1800’s. The couple moved to Randolph Co., Missouri. Charles McLean died in 1846 and Mary in 1870. Charles McLean’s son, Dr. William Byran McLean was born in Missouri. in 1820. William married Julia Ann Dameron February 10, 1846. Julia was born in South Carolina in 1829.

She died before William’s death in 1870.

William’s son, John Kirtley McLean married Cordelia Rowe December 14, 1871. She was born in Monroe Co., Missouri in 1850 and died April 14, 1880. John Kirtley McLean was born June 7, 1849 and died April 6

27, 1930. His son, Charles Finis McLean, my great-­‐grandfather, was born August 29, 1874 and he married Mary Gertrude Cobb on August 29, 1890. Their daughter, Ola Maude McLean Alexander is my grandmother. Gertrude was born July 17, 1876 and died March 26, 1910. My great-­‐grandfather Charles McLean died June 16, 1957. As a point of interest, Mary Gertrude Stamper Cobb McLean is a descendent of Hiram Stamper, who married Sallie Cobb. In 1855 Hiram Stamper moved to Missouri, where he bought 300 acres in Clifton Township. The history of Cobbs and Stampers through the last two centuries is documented in “The Cobbs of Owen County Kentucky” by Edgar Morgan.

My grandfather, Charles Mitchell ”CM” Alexander died of Hodgkin’s disease March 15, 1973 at age 77. At the age of fifteen, CM’s father died and he had to shoulder the responsibility of taking over operation of the family farm and being a major provider for his mother and four younger siblings. He had a saying that he wanted to be able to have all of the milk he could drink. Until he was physically unable to milk, he always had a milk cow, even when he retired in Clifton Hill. CM farmed in Randolph County Missouri, which is located in Northern Missouri near Moberly. He relocated to a farm in Southern Missouri near Sullivan where he and Ola raised their three Children, Charles Forrest, my father, Helen McLean and Shirley Maud. Sometime in the early 1940’s CM, Ola Maude, and their young child Shirley relocated to a farm in Northern Missouri near Clifton Hill.

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Family Blesi According to a letter of transmittal of Extracts of the Genealogical Books of Canton of Glarus from Dr. Jacob Winteler, dated May 12, 1959, the Blesi are an old Swiss Family of Canton of Glarus named in documents of the 16th century. It is thought that the first settlers were from Canton of Grisons, with the first known man being Ludwig Blesi in the time of reformation in 1528. Later Ludwig was Landvogt or governor at Gaster. The family settled in the communities of Schwanden and Sool in the Canton of Glarus. The family tree shows that the earliest of our known ancestors was Fridolin, who died in 1655. The Family Crest is a blue and silver horse. From 1600 to 1959 there were 281 families Blesi.

The first direct Blesi ancestor who immigrated to the United States was my great-­‐grandfather Johann Heinirch Blesi, son of Peter Blesi and Katharina Tschudi Blesi. He was born March 19, 1851, in Canton Glarus, Switzerland and immigrated in 1872, initially working on a dairy farm in Dayton, Ohio. He went by the name of Henry Blesi, and in 1878, he moved to Franklin County, Missouri where he married Margaret Jenny in 1880. Margaret Jenny came to the United States, as a young girl of sixteen or eighteen, with her Father, Johann Heinrich Jenny, her stepmother and younger sister, Sabrina. Henry and Margaret moved to a farm ten miles north of Sullivan, Missouri near Spring Bluff where they raised seven children, five girls and two boys. Margaret Jenny was born April 6, 1859 and died May 30, 1940 at age 81.

Henry died May 6, 1914, at age 63. They are buried in Dutch Hill Cemetery near Spring Bluff, Missouri.

Two of the Johann Heinirch Blesi’s children, Henry, my grandfather, and Emma, his sister, each married a sister and brother of the Daniken family; thereby making a double relationship in the next generation as well as a similar background in ancestry. My grandfather, Henry Blesi, was born March 28, 1890, and died June 30, 1977, at age 87. He married Elizabeth Catherine Daniken in St. Louis in 1915. Elizabeth’s parents were John Daniken and Lizetta Cecelia Dalhaus Daniken. John’s father, Jacob von Daniken, was from Bern, Switzerland and his mother, Appolnia Dommert Daniken, was born in Germany. They both came to America early in life and were married in Illinois. Lizetta’s father, Frank Dalhaus, and mother, Catherine Rudolph Dalhaus, were both from Germany and came to America in their youth. They were married in either St. Charles or St. Louis, Missouri. Elizabeth was born September 21, 1894 and died on June 6, 1973 at age 78. My grandparents Blesi spent their life together on their farm that was previously owned by Henry’s father and raised six children, two boys and four girls. They are buried in Dutch Hill Cemetery near Spring Bluff, Missouri. My mother Elda was the second child. Based on what is described here regarding national lineage, Elda was 62.5% Swiss and 37.5% German.

Henry Blesi was a leader in Soil Conservation throughout the state of Missouri. In preparation for writing his obituary, Madelyn Roussin Warnhoff researched some newspapers that Grandmom Blesi kept. The following are her notes concerning dates and facts about Granddad Blesi: 8

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Early Childhood Life Seminary District 1941−1948 My parents started married life in the country near Sullivan, Missouri in the Seminary School District. They bought an 80-­‐acre farm with an old barn there. Dad built a small home of 336 square feet and acquired some livestock, milking cows, sheep and chickens. Later, he added on to the house and built a chicken house and a nice barn that accommodated 10 milking cows, some heifers, a team of horses and some farming implements.

At the outset, there was no electricity and water was First Home in Seminary District drawn from a cistern or from Boone creek, which was less than a mile from their home. 1944 was a year of drought and the cistern dried up, so Dad had a well drilled, which greatly improved the quality of our life. My parents and Doris and I lived in this home until mid-­‐1948.

In the early 1940’s, the Rural Electrification Association applied for funding for Crawford and Franklin Counties to build power lines in the rural areas. When it was approved, Dad helped survey and clear the right-­‐of-­‐way for the power lines. The people who lived along the power lines right-­‐of-­‐way were hired by REA to clear it.

REA paid them about what it would cost to have their homes wired. Dad attended classes in the engineering department at the Missouri School of Mines in Rolla, Missouri to learn how to become an electrician.

CFA on Horse 1942

The United States had not yet entered World War II before June 25, 1941, when I was born. That happened December 7, 1941, when Japan attacked our naval fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii with their air force. Dr. Royse, who was taking care of mom during her pregnancy with me, was in Canada fishing and a substitute, Dr. Garner, had to deliver me. Mom gave birth to me at her parents’ home in the country near Spring Bluff, a small town with a General Store and a few homes, about 9 miles North of Sullivan. Mom and Dad named me Charles Forrest Alexander, Jr. They decided to call me Forrest, which is the name I went by until I went to college, except by my high school friends who called me Alex. When I was less than five, my Dad often called me Sonny Boy, and my sister called me Forrest Man. When I left home, I went by Chuck for new acquaintances.

Dad supported the family with farming and wiring homes in the area. The economy at that time was in the throes of the Great Depression, and life was difficult. I remember there were times that having meat on the table for supper depended on Dad going out and shooting a rabbit or a squirrel. My parents raised a large garden, and we had plenty of eggs and milk from the livestock. I was always terrified of the rooster who must have sensed that, as he would chase and scare me.

We didn’t have any neighbors within several miles that had any kids to play with. Doris and I played together, and we would take off and spend endless hours alone exploring the meadows or woods and picking wild flowers. During the winter, a small pond near our house would freeze over and we would 10

slide on the ice. We had another pond that was suitable for swimming, and Dad tried to teach me to swim, but I couldn’t be persuaded to jump in the pond by myself. I didn’t learn to swim until I was around 12 years old.

When my parents wanted a little private time together, they would tell Doris and me to go into the woods and search for polk, which grows wild and can be used as greens in a salad. Finding polk was not difficult, but it got Doris and me out of the house for over an hour. We always seemed to return with a small bucket of polk. Mom would set it aside, and tell us that she would use it later. Of course she never did, and, would complain that it wasn’t fresh enough when we would ask her when she was going to use it.

Dad had a friend from St. Louis who owned a registered quail dog named Check. He boarded that dog with us and would hunt quail on the farm with old Check on weekends. Check was a great quail dog that loved tomatoes. She would go in the garden and select the biggest and best tomato and eat it. We also had Buster, a dog that killed chickens. Mom would beat him, and Doris and I would call him to the back of the house and cry and console him. Consequently, Buster never learned to not kill chickens. Mom and Dad ended up taking Buster for a long ride and dumped him. We also had a family dog, a little terrier by the name of Porky.

Dad had a partner who wired homes and farm buildings with him, Frank Klein. The Kleins had some kids about the same ages as Doris and me, and on weekends during the summer, the two families would go on picnics together along Boone Creek. I remember one of the picnics when I went into Dad’s car looking for something and got into the glove compartment and found a small paperback book. Dad and Frank had wired a building and found it hidden away. It was my first exposure to porn, albeit a short-­‐lived one. I showed the other kids what I found and Dad immediately detected what was going on, and confiscated it.

I must have been 3 or 4 years old when Dad would take me with him when he would go fly-­‐fishing on Boone Creek. I was really fascinated with his fishing equipment, especially the fishing flies. There was a General Store that sold just about anything a person would need, including fishing equipment. The store was in Sullivan and was owned by Mr. Crowe. Mom and Dad would shop there and would bring Doris and me with them. I remember one such visit very vividly as I engaged in a criminal act. When we got home, Mom discovered that I had stuffed my pockets full of fishing lures. I was told of the dire consequences of stealing and was convinced that I was going to jail and that terrible things would happen to me. The next time we went to the store, I had to surrender my stolen goods to Mr. Crowe. He reluctantly agreed that he would not call the cops if I promised to never to do it again. Life lesson learned.

I don’t recall whether or not I received one of the punishments administered by Dad for the shoplifting episode. If I did, it was overshadowed with the fear of going to jail. Dad had a leather strap about 18 inches long with a handle cut out for gripping it and a hole drilled through it for hanging it on a nail in plain sight of Doris and me. You didn’t want to incur Dad’s wrath and suffer punishment with that strap. It really hurt.

One time, Doris messed up a new stick of lipstick that Mom had bought. According to Doris, Dad thought I was the culprit (I don’t understand why Dad assumed that I would fool with lipstick). Anyway, Sister Doris did not admit her guilt. I remember seeing her on the swing, a rope tied to a tree limb at one end and a 11

tire at the other end, swinging back and forth and doing her best to look innocent as Dad administered the many lashes with the strap on my bare bottom with me screaming at the top of my lungs. After all, those straps really hurt, and, better me than her, even though I was innocent.

My parents would take Doris and me to attend church, which was held in the Reeds Defeat schoolhouse about 5 miles from where we lived. They also attended Saturday night dances held in a building in Japan, a small town about 3 or 4 miles from where we lived. I remember a lot of neighbors coming to the dances. On Saturday afternoons, my parents would occasionally go to Sullivan to shop and park on one of the downtown streets. They knew most of the people who lived there and around the area. They would sit in the car and people would come up and talk and gossip with them. Sometimes they would take us to an evening movie. Other social activities included various functions held at the Seminary District schoolhouse. There would be plays, bake sales, and the like. I remember being teased by one of the neighbors there. He would ask me what I would name my kids when I grew up. One of the names I thought was pretty cool was spit in the bucket. He teased me a lot.

We didn’t have television, but we often listened to the radio in the evenings. There were a number of programs that Doris and I listened to. Baby Snooks and the Lone Ranger are the ones I can remember.

One of our neighbors, the Bells, were one of the first families in the area to get television. I don’t remember much about it, except it was black and white with a tiny screen. It was connected to a tall antenna that was attached to their house so they could get reception from the TV broadcast station in St. Louis.

Our home was heated with wood that Dad cut from trees around the farm. As soon as I was old enough, one of my jobs was to bring in the firewood to heat the house or for cooking. The wood stove in the living area was very popular on a cold winter morning, and I had to be careful not to burn my butt on it when I got close to it to warm up. I wasn’t always careful, and sometimes I got burned. When it got really cold, Mom would fill up a hot water bottle, a rubber bladder with a screw top on it, with hot water and put it between the sheets to warm up the bed before we got in it. That really felt good.

We didn’t have much indoor plumbing. After the well was drilled, we had running water in the kitchen sink, but had to heat it on the stove if we needed hot water. We used an outhouse when we had to go. I believe we had a Sears Roebuck Catalog for toilet paper. I can still remember taking our Saturday night baths in a big washtub. Water had to be heated on the cook stove, and the whole family took turns in the tub using the same water. We did have an outside cold water shower hooked up after the well was put in.

It was not enclosed, and I think Mom and Dad used it after dark. It was quite a chilly experience. The soap we used for bathing was usually store bought Ivory soap, but occasionally homemade lye soap was used. Mom saved bacon grease until she had enough to make a dishpan of lye soap that was mainly used for laundry.

In 1943, Dad’s car was on its last legs, and he needed to get a better one in order to continue wiring.

Someone told him about a 1936 Chevy that hadn’t been driven for several years. It was in good condition, and he bought it for $150. He was lucky to get permission from the government to buy four new tires.

After the war was over, cars were scarce and someone offered him a $1000 for it, which he declined.

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We had telephone service, which used a party line. If you wanted to call someone on the party line, you had to crank a series of long and short rings that corresponded to the series assigned to the party you wanted to talk to. Everyone on the party line could hear the rings, but only the party with the assigned combination of rings was supposed to pick up. Of course, that was not always the case. Nosy neighbors loved to pick up and eavesdrop, known as piking. If you wanted to call someone not on the party line, you had to ring the operator, central, and place the call through the switchboard.

Granddad Alexander’s Home Near Sullivan

Dad’s parents lived on a farm near Sullivan, Missouri, and we would visit them at times. Dad smoked cigarettes and didn’t want them to know about. I remember that he would always put out his cigarette and throw it away before we arrived at their place. Sometime around 1943 or 1944, they moved back to Northern Missouri near the small farming community of Clifton Hill. They were having some problems with their marriage and I remember that Dad took off and drove up to see them and help them work out their issues, preventing them from separating or getting divorced.

In October 1944, World War II was dragging on, and Dad was about to be drafted as his farming enterprise wasn’t sufficient to justify continuation of his exemption. In preparation for going into the Army, Mom and Dad sold all of the machinery and livestock, except for one cow.

Shortly afterward, Dad went into Sullivan where he happened to meet some recruiters for the Merchant Marines. They encouraged him to apply for a position. He did, and took some test, and passed a physical and was accepted.

He was to be an electrician with the rank of Warrant Officer on board a new ship, the Robert W. Bingham, which was in the final stages of being fitted up in New Orleans. It was not until after Dad passed away that we learned this ship was part of a top-­‐secret program called Operation Ivory Soap. This program consisted of a fleet of ships operated by the Merchant Marine that repaired damaged aircraft. The ships were a force multiplier as a plane or helicopter could be rapidly repaired right in the Family Photo 1944 war zone, thereby avoiding the time consuming transportation of the aircraft to a land based depot. The Robert W. Bingham was the most capable in the fleet, and could manufacture any aircraft part right on the ship. If the Japanese knew of this capability, the Ivory Soap ships would have been designated as high value targets.

Dad’s tour of duty took him to the South Pacific near New Guinea via Cuba and the Panama Canal. Mom had to take care of everything while Dad was away. She did have a little help from a lady who stayed with us when she was ill. I remember Mom complaining that the woman insisted her sheets be ironed. Mom did more work to take care of the hired woman than the woman did for us. Mom had a thyroid condition and was not in good health. We stayed for a time at Grandma & Granddad Alexander’s, and then with the Blesi grandparents. Mom had blood poisoning while we were at the Blesis. Doc Royse and sometimes a 13

doctor from Beaufort would come by, as they did house calls then, and take care of Mom, and also, I believe Granddad Blesi may have had a broken arm or some other ailment at the time. Doris and I had whooping cough and whooped all winter. At various times throughout our life in Seminary, Doris and I suffered the usual childhood ailments typical of that era; mumps, measles and the like. Mom only got one letter from Dad the entire time he was away in the service. Dad didn’t receive any letters from Mom or anyone else. It was a very dismal winter.

Another memory I have while Dad was away was the shopping trip Mom would make with us kids to the General Store in Japan, which was a country store about 4 miles from where we lived. She would leave us in the car while she went inside to buy supplies. Doris and I had been told that Dad was away fighting the Japs, and how evil they were. We thought Japs lived in that little town and they would get us. We were terrified.

Japan General Store

One of our favorite things that Mom made us for breakfast was toasted homemade bread with the skim from boiled milk. The skim milk would be placed on toast and salted.

Another favorite dish of mine was bananas that had been mashed to a fine paste with a fork and had milk poured on it. I couldn’t get enough of that and dreamed of the day I would have all of the bananas I could eat. At Christmas time, Mom would make a sweet dish called Date Loaf. It was like candy and I really liked that.

Dad only served six months before he was discharged due to medical reasons, high blood pressure and an irregular heart rhythm. Returning to civilian life, he teamed up with Frank Klein and went into wiring homes. In 1945, Dad joined the Masonic Lodge and Mom joined the Eastern Star. They would go to Sullivan to attend the meetings at the Masonic Lodge and take Doris and me with them. While the meetings were in progress, Doris and I often had to wait in the car. Occasionally we were dropped off at the Meramec Theater to watch a movie. I remember meeting Nick Nichols there. His Aunt, Maleta Denny, was also a member of the Eastern Star and she would bring Nick with her to the meetings. We played together. Nick was the first friend I had who was near my age and we have remained friends throughout our lives.

Mom wanted to have a birthday party for me for my seventh birthday and invited a neighbor friend I had, Leonard Key, who was seven or eight years older. Leonard was my hero and in the eigth grade at Seminary. He was the only one that came. I wanted a lamb-­‐shaped cake and Mom baked it from scratch.

She had to get the eggs from the Whitmires to bake that cake since our chickens were sold when Dad went into service with the Merchant Marines.

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The Seminary School was located about a half mile from where we lived. It was a one-­‐room school with an outhouse and a playground with seesaws and swings. Mrs. Marguerite Voss was the teacher, and she taught all grades one through eight, no kindergarten. Doris was two years ahead of me in the third grade when I started the first grade. I don’t remember much about the first grade except the book that was used to teach me to read was about two kids, Dick and Doris & CFA Middle Right Jane, and their dog Spot. There were 13 kids in school, with about three in the first grade and one in the eighth grade. We had to walk to and from school.

I remember an incident that happened one winter day. We had a neighbor family, the Reeds, who had just been treated for tuberculosis and had just returned to their home in Seminary. Mom and Dad, as well as a lot of our neighbors, were afraid that TB might be contracted from them and had forbidden Doris to walk with them. Anyway, Doris was in the first grade and was walking home from school that day. Two of the Reed boys were walking behind her. They were a little older than Doris, and as they crossed a culvert, one of the Reed boys looked down and saw some ice in the ditch. He said, “I can melt that ice from here”.

Doris told him he couldn’t. Much to Doris’s surprise, he proceeded to pee on the ice. When she got home, Dad found out what happened, and out came the strap. He punished her severely. I don’t remember Dad using the strap on me after we moved away from Seminary.

Our Pet Dog Porky

However, Doris did receive the worst strapping of her life after we moved to Clifton Hill. Mom had just cleaned the house that day. Doris was getting ready to go to a Halloween party at a classmate’s home, and had inadvertently dropped her petticoat on the floor and failed to pick it up.

Dad got the strap out and Doris grabbed it in an effort to prevent the spanking. Dad said the longer she held it, the harder the whipping would be. She finally gave it up and was forced to attend the party in spite of swollen eyes from crying. She stayed in a bedroom at the home while the party was going on. At some point after that, Porky chewed that strap up.

It wasn’t replaced.

Dad was the go-­‐to-­‐guy when neighbors had their calves or pigs castrated. He didn’t charge them anything for this service, except he had first dibs on the testicles, known as rocky mountain oysters, and would bring them home for Mom to cook. After we moved to Sullivan the old Seminary neighbors continued to ask him to perform this service. One neighbor, Glen Licklider, would reward Dad by giving him a pickup truck full of watermelons and cantaloupes. In Sullivan, we would come home, open the garage door and there would be melons on the floor from Glen.

The Seminary School building was destroyed many years later by fire. Our Seminary Home ~2000 home in the Seminary neighborhood is still lived in and much larger than when we lived there. Granddad Alexander’s home near Sullivan is still lived in, and the farmland has been mostly converted to housing.

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Clifton Hill 1948−1949 Granddad Mitchell Alexander asked Dad to move to Northern Missouri near Clifton Hill to help him farm. Dad wound up his wiring business and we moved up there in the summer of 1948. Dad rented a small house on the outskirts of Clifton Hill, and, about three miles from Granddad Alexander’s farm. He bought a hay bailer and baled hay for the farmers in the area. In addition, he rented some land and farmed and wired homes in the winter.

The house we had there seemed larger than the one we lived in in the Seminary District. It had a barn and enough land on it to raise a little livestock, some pigs Grandparents Alexander and sheep. We had two lambs that lost their mother, and we raised them. They became our pets, and we named them Little Abner and Black Beauty. I remember sticking my finger in Little Abner’s mouth when he was chewing some grass. I still have that scar. Little Abner and Black Beauty would escape their pens at times and make a getaway, bounding up and down as they ran down the road. I really hated it when it came time to sell them, since I knew they would be slaughtered.

Black Beauty & Liittle Abner

Clifton Hill had a population of about 200 and its elementary school was much larger than the Seminary school. My classroom had the first, second and third grades in it with 29 students and was taught by Mrs. Hauptman. She had lost one of her hands and part of an arm in a farming accident. I was seven and in the second grade.

I had one good friend in Clifton Hill, Carl Edward Sanders, who I played with a lot. My parents and his were good friends, and we would visit them in the evening during the summer. Carl was always getting into trouble with his Dad. He would do something, and his dad would yell at him to stop and Carl would ignore him. His dad would jump up and run after Carl until he caught him and then beat the tar out of him. That was quite a sight and I couldn’t understand why Carl deliberately provoked his dad.

CFA 6 From Rt, 2 From Bottom th

nd

My sister and I attended summer Bible School. I don’t remember much about it, except I thought it was boring and a waste of time. We also attended the Methodist Church at times.

I remember going to town with Dad once. He met someone who he got into an argument with, and a lot of threats were made. I was sure Dad and this fellow were going to duke it out, but they didn’t. I was really relieved. I later mentioned this to someone who knew Dad when he was a young man, and learned that Dad had a reputation for being able to handle himself, especially with his fists.

I got to meet a lot of my relatives who I hadn’t known before while we were at Clifton Hill. Dad’s sister Helen’s kids, Larry, Squee (Lark) and Lana visited Granddad and Grandma Alexander one summer, and we played together a lot. Dad’s youngest sister, Shirley, lived with Granddad and Grandma and was in high 16

school. In addition, Uncle Buck, Granddad’s brother, visited and stayed with us for a while. He was generous and gave us kids candy. He would carve a whistle out of a tree branch and give it to me. My Great-­‐Grandfather McLean, Grandma Alexander’s dad, also visited and stayed with us. I remember that he thought the best thing to eat was the fat of beef or pork. If anyone at the dinner table didn’t eat the fat, Great-­‐Granddad McLean would ask for it and eat it with great pleasure. There were other relatives of Dad’s who we visited. The Cochran family had a large, very smelly, pig farm that we viisted.

Dad, Mom, Doris, Ola M, CFA, GGD McLean

I spent a lot of time on Granddad Alexander’s farm. Occasionally, I would be given the job of bringing the milking cows in from the pasture for milking. Granddad would saddle up a riding horse and I would ride it out to the pasture and herd the cows back to the barn. One time I was crossing a steep gulley and the horse stumbled. I was thrown over its head and the horse rolled over me and stepped on my back when it got up. The horse ran back to the barn and I got up and limped back. Granddad saw the riderless horse and came looking for me. When he saw that I was limping and had a bloody nose, he examined me and saw the horse’s footprint on my back. I was lucky I didn’t get seriously injured.

I did quite a few chores for Granddad, including milking cows, feeding the chickens, gathering eggs, and churning butter. Granddad had a Case Tractor and I always was eager to ride on it with him. I always looked forward to completing the morning chores and having breakfast that Grandma made. She always served homemade biscuits with white sauce gravy and eggs and bacon or ham.

The winter we lived near Clifton Hill was extremely cold. A good part of it was below zero and Dad had to go to a nearby town, Thomas Hill, with a tractor and pick up coal for heating our home. He nearly froze to death and decided that we would move back to Southern Missouri the next year after the crops were harvested.

One of my favorite pastimes was target practice with Granddad’s semi-­‐automatic .22. After Sunday dinner, the grownups would sit around and talk and I would take the .22 and go out in the yard and shoot chippies, or, sparrows that were perched up in the tall maple trees. I got to be a good shot and Dad instructed me in gun safety. He really drilled the lessons in about how to cross a fence with a rifle and to never point it at anything that you didn’t intend to shoot. I remember killing my first squirrel. I was alone in the woods with the .22 and saw the squirrel running along a tree limb. The adrenaline must have kicked in, and I think I must have discharged around 8 shots before I bagged it.

Granddad was a great storyteller and I liked to listen to the bedtime stories he would tell me. I have fond memories of going into his garden. He would pull up a turnip and peel it and we would eat it together. I remember a funny story about Granddad. I don’t know when it happened, but Granddad had a lot of cats around the farm. One day he was milking a cow and a cat spooked the cow and the cow kicked the milk pale over. Ever since Granddad’s father died, he was obsessed with having enough milk. The cat had committed an unforgivable act. Granddad very calmly walked back to the house and got his .22 and went 17

out on the porch. About that time a stranger, probably a salesman, drove in the driveway just as Granddad was taking aim at a cat. He shot one and then another while the stranger looked on. Granddad didn’t acknowledge the stranger’s presence, and after a few more cats bit the dust, the stranger jumped in the car and drove away in a hurry, and all the while Granddad continued to thin down the cat population.

I don’t think Granddad ever saw the stranger again.

Dad made a good deal of money during our stay in Northern Missouri and bought a brand new 1949 Plymouth before we moved to Southern Missouri. Mom and Dad were quite proud of that car. I believe the house we lived in near Clifton Hill is still lived in, as is Granddad’s farmhouse.

Spring Bluff 1949−1950 When Granddad Blesi learned that we were moving back from Clifton Hill, he asked Dad to help him take care of the dairy. His dairy farm was near Spring Bluff, about ten miles northwest of Sullivan. Granddad made a deal with Dad that they would split the workload 50/50 and Dad was to share in the profits and have every other weekend off. Granddad bought a little house, the Farrar house, for us to stay in, and that would be Mom’s.

None of this ever materialized.

Granddad had a large herd of cows and an electrical milking operation. Meticulous records on each milk cow had to be maintained, and the operation had to meet stringent cleanliness and health standards and inspections. The farm raised a lot of crops to support the dairy operation, including alfalfa hay, corn, and sorghum for silage. The farm also had a large orchard with apples, pears, peaches, and grapes. Granddad made wine from the grapes. I tasted it occasionally and thought it was awful. Grandma kept a large garden with a lot of vegetables and flowers.

Grandparents Blesi

Blesi Farm Buildings

She was really proud of it, and when she had guests, she would take them on a walk through it.

The farm had a lot of machinery, a John Deere Tractor, mowers, hay balers, rakes, discs, planters, manure spreader, and so forth. It had a large Blesi Home silo for storing silage for feeding the dairy herd. I really liked that tractor and loved to listen to its put-­‐put-­‐put sound so characteristic of most John Deere Tractors. I always got a kick out of Granddad driving the tractor and yodeling. You could hear him a half mile away. Granddad and Dad had to maintain and repair all of the machinery themselves.

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Granddad had a parcel of land down the road from his home where the Farrar house was located. It was a little two-­‐story house with an outhouse. We moved into the little house. There were two bedrooms upstairs. Doris and I shared one and Mom and Dad the other one. There were two rooms downstairs, the kitchen and a living room plus a windowed in porch. The house burned down sometime in the early 2000’s.

Our Home on Blesi Farm~2000 The dairy herd had to be milked twice daily, seven days a week, including holidays. Dad ended up pretty much doing it by himself along with all of the other activities required to keep the farm going. I had a lot of chores to do and kept pretty busy every day after school with things I was big enough to handle, slopping the pigs, gathering eggs, feeding chickens and helping out in the dairy by cleaning the milking equipment and mucking the stalls.

I remember Christmas day 1949. I had gotten a Red Rider pocketknife for Christmas and was real proud of that, even though I really wanted a .22 rifle for Christmas. Dad and I went to take care of the livestock late in the afternoon and to feed my two pet pigs that Granddad Alexander had given me when we moved from Clifton Hill as compensation for helping out on his farm. He had also given me a colt that I named Blaze, which had a white streak down his nose. Anyway, when we came to the pigpen we found one of Granddad Blesi’s dogs, Peadittle, feasting on my pet pigs. Peadittle was blind in one eye and didn’t have very good use of one of his hind legs. He had killed both pigs and their guts were all over the ground. He knew he was in trouble and ran away before anything could be done to him. From that day on, I could never get close enough to that dog to take care of him.

Dad taught me a lot about working during our stay on Granddad Blesi’s farm. He always harped on taking care of tools and equipment and thinking about what you were doing to make sure you were doing your work correctly and efficiently. There were also lessons in economics that he shared with me. I remember throwing a corn ear to the pigs that landed in the mud. Dad let me know how much that corn cost and what a waste it was to throw it in the mud. Another time I was having difficulty getting a cow to go where I wanted and picked up a small rock and threw it at the cow. I hit the cow, but the rock ricocheted and broke a glass pane on a barn window. Dad informed me, not only what the glass cost, but what trouble it would be to buy the replacement pane and replace it.

I remember Dad teaching me about the birds and the bees. I discovered Mom’s sanitary napkins in her closet and asked her what they were for. She told me Dad would explain that. He did it in very thorough, clinical detail. I don’t think I understood everything he told me, but I already understood the facts of life, being around animals breeding and birthing.

I got a .22 rifle for my ninth birthday. It was a single shot bolt-­‐action rifle. I enjoyed my time away from chores by exploring the farm and hunting for squirrels, rabbits, and bullfrogs. One of my favorite escapes was a place deep in the woods on a bluff. I don’t think I ever saw a squirrel there, but I really enjoyed the solitude. Sometimes I went fishing in one of the several ponds that were stocked with bass and pan fish.

When I brought game or fish back to Granddad’s farmhouse, Grandma would show me how to skin and clean it and she would fix it for a meal.

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Occasionally, I would visit Granddad,s truck patch and select a nice cantaloupe to eat. One time when I did that, I sat on the ground and proceeded to cut it open with my Red Rider pocketknife. I ended up puncturing my trousers and stabbing my right leg. It really bled a lot. I still have that scar.

One of the events I looked forward to was butchering. This was something that everyone participated in.

Generally, several animals would be butchered on the same day. I was given the job of shooting them with a .22 and was told to draw an imaginary line between the ears and eyes and shoot where the lines crossed. I did that, and the pig or steer would just collapse in front of me. Granddad also had some scobies, odd looking duck like fowl, and when I shot them, the bullet would just part their eyes as they were quite close together.

Everyone had a job on butchering day. The men would skin the animal and cut it up for processing. They would build a large fire and heat big black kettles up with boiling water to render the lard or to cook the fat out. The women would make headcheese and sausage. Everything was used including the intestines, (which were made into sausage casings), hearts, tongues and brains, everything. The meat would then be hung in the smokehouse to cure. I especially enjoyed the liver sausage that was made. We had it for breakfast with eggs and jelly. It was delicious. Years later I tried to find a butcher shop that sold the sausage, but never could. I suppose that is one of those lost family recipes.

Another thing I enjoyed was when the crops were harvested. The neighbors pitched in to help with silage as well as haying. I wasn’t big enough to buck hay bales from the ground to the wagon but did help on the wagon somewhat. Neighbor women would also come and pitch in to provide a big dinner of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas, etc. from the garden and different kinds of freshly baked pies.

Everything was made from scratch using meat, vegetables, and milk produced on the farm. The men would come in when the dinner bell was rung and wash up outside in a washbasin. They all wore overalls and long sleeved shirts—and it was always HOT! A mid-­‐afternoon snack was taken to the men in the field.

The kids liked to play in the silo as it was being filled, getting silage blown on them and taking a taste every little bit.

Two of Granddad Blesi’s kids were living with Grandma and him when we moved down from Clifton Hill, Joyce, 14 or 15 years old, and Virginia, 17 years old. Uncle Paul was married and lived in Sullivan where he worked for his father-­‐in law’s company, Midwest Footwear. He spent a lot of time on weekends at the farm. Uncle John and Aunt Helen lived on part of Granddad’s farm in a separate house south of Granddad’s, which was Granddad’s boyhood home. It was never wired for electricity nor did it have indoor plumbing. At that time they had five children. Later, they would have three more. They had lived in Greenville, Illinois until sometime around 1944. Uncle John was a painter by trade. He loved to hunt and take pictures of the hunting trips he took every year. Aunt Margaret and Uncle Harlin lived on a farm they owned near Catawissa, Missouri. There would be periodic family gatherings throughout the year, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas, at Granddad’s. Almost every one of the relatives that could attend did so.

At school and family gatherings we played a lot of games, some that kids today have never heard of. We enjoyed playing these games with our cousins and kids at school. Some of the games played in that era were hide and seek, blind man’s bluff, Anthony Over, marbles, stink base, Red Rover, softball, croquet, 20

high and long jump contests, badminton, horse shoes, jacks, hop scotch, etc. In the winter we played indoor games such as old maid, Monopoly, hot and cold, and other, games. We also made slingshots using tree branches and strips of rubber from inner tubes.

I recall a fight that Doris had with one of the neighbor kids, Noel Vieten. I think Noel was a bit of a bully. It was in the summer at the Evergreen Baptist Church where Doris attended Bible School. Mom’s best friend from school days, Myrtine Viete McMahan, gave Doris, her daughter and nephew Noel, as well as other kids rides to and from the church. On this particular day after Bible School, Doris went to Myrtine’s car where a couple of others were already waiting and got in. Noel came up to the car and told her to move because he was going to sit where she was sitting. Doris refused, and he proceeded to try to physically move her out of the car. She scratched his arm and he said, “Ow, that hurt!” Doris got out of the car and picked up a rock and warned him not to come any closer or else she would throw it. He did, and she threw it, hitting him dead center in the mouth, cracking his two permanent front teeth. He reached up and discovered he was bleeding. That ended that. The next day Doris heard a short ring for central and picked up the phone to do the customary ‘piking’. She heard Noel’s mother make an appointment with the dentist. I believe the teeth were pulled and a bridge put in. In any event, he has gold backing on those two front teeth.

The schoolhouse was just across the road from Granddad’s farmhouse. It was a one-­‐room school with an outhouse. Mrs. Eva Martin was the schoolmarm and had grades one through eight to teach, no kindergarten. Vora Schatz cooked lunch most of the school year. We would begin each morning singing songs for the first half hour or so. Songs such as Clementine, Battle Hymn of the Republic, Oh, Susanna, Down in the Valley, etc. I’m not sure why, but Mrs. Martin didn’t seem to like me, and I didn’t like her. I don’t remember much about school other than that.

The school was sold to the Seatons after we moved and made into a home. It is still lived in.

Spring Bluff School Grades 1 to 8

After one year of running the dairy farm, Dad was completely exhausted. He worked from sunup to sundown seven days a week with no days off. I’m not sure how much weight he lost, but he sure was thin.

In addition, Dad was poorly compensated and actually lost money during his tenure on Granddad Blesi’s farm. He decided he needed to quit and find something else to do, as his health wasn’t holding up. His plan was to move the family to Sullivan and look for work. Granddad Blesi was not at all happy to lose him. This decision was made in October 1950. Dad was not on speaking terms with Granddad or Grandma for a long time. We were not allowed to open the presents they sent us that Christmas.

Years later, Dad complained on several occasions that he offered to buy Granddad Blesi’s farm, but Granddad wouldn’t sell it to him. I suppose Dad felt that Granddad owed him for the time he worked on Granddad’s farm, and that selling the farm to Dad would have made up for Granddad breaking their agreement.

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Just before we moved to Sullivan, I had a harrowing experience. One of the jobs I had to do before I left for school in the morning was to let a cow into a pen where she could nurse a calf. This cow was really ornery. When I would open the gate to her pen, she would lower her head and run at me. I would then just kick her in the nose and she would back off. This particular morning the grass was really wet from the dew. When she lowered her head, I started to kick her and lost my footing and fell down. She saw the opportunity and charged me. She ran over me and I jumped up and started running away with her right behind me. She would butt me with her head from the back, knock me down, and then run over me.

I was lucky. Dad and Granddad were herding some cows up the road in front of where I was and saw what was happening. I recall seeing them both vault over the fence. Dad headed for me and Granddad headed for the cow. Granddad raised both hands above his head and then crashed his fists on top of the cow’s back. The cow was flattened. I’m surprised it wasn’t killed as granddad had very large hands, and I’m sure the force of that blow was energized by a lot of adrenaline. Dad picked me up and drove me to Sullivan to a doctor, as everyone feared my intestines were ruptured when the cow trampled me. Fortunately, I didn’t suffer that, but the doctor didn’t know for sure and told Mom and Dad that I needed to stay in bed for a day or so and to keep a close eye on me. Since Uncle George and Aunt Annie lived in Sullivan and were closer to the doctor’s, Mom and Dad had me stay with them for a time for observation in case a more serious internal injury became apparent. When I returned to school, Mrs. Martin demanded to know why I was absent. I told her, but she thought I was lying.

One summer after we had moved to Sullivan, I spent a lot of time on Granddad Blesi’s farm helping out. I was big enough to buck bales and do a lot of chores. We were working together putting up hay from the Orchard, which had terraces that contoured the side of the hill it was on. We had just loaded a big wagon full of hay bales and were going to the barn to store the hay. Uncle Paul was driving the team of horses that were pulling the wagon. I was sitting on a hay bale near the front of the wagon next to Paul. The wagon rolled over the terrace and the up and down motion toppled the hay bale I was sitting on and it fell on top of the horses. I was thrown off the wagon and landed face down on the ground just in back of the team. The horses were spooked and started running. I thought I was a goner. I could see the wagon wheels roll by, barely missing my head. It took a lot of effort for Paul to get the horses under control.

Luckily, I didn’t suffer any damage, just some scratches and bruises.

Granddad Blesi was active in Soil Conservation and pioneered a number of measures. He built terraces on his farm on almost any hillside that was used for crops as a means of controlling soil erosion. He was really a conservationist, and I learned a lot from him. Conservation in those days was aimed at doing what was good for the environment but was economically justified. In my opinion, much of the environmental movement today is driven by politics and is more likely to inflict economic damage with little or no benefit to anyone. One big mistake that Granddad did make was to plant multiflora roses as hedgerows around the farm. Multiflora roses are invasive members of the rose family that originated in Asia. They adapted well to Granddad’s farm and grew like wildfire and were indestructible.

Uncle Paul decided he would break my horse Blaze and turn him into a riding horse. I didn’t know about this and only learned of it sometime later when I was given $25 for the sale of Blaze. Uncle Paul had saddled up Blaze and mounted him. Blaze bucked him off and Paul broke his arm. Blaze was sold, and, that was that. I also received several hundred dollars from the sale of a steer that Granddad had 22

earmarked for me as compensation for the work I did around the farm when we lived there. I didn’t know that Granddad had given me anything and was surprised that he had. I put the money in my bank account where it would later be used to help pay for my college education.

I don’t know when Granddad sold his dairy herd, but it must have been in the mid-­‐fifties. I was asked to stay at the farm to take care of the livestock one weekend while Granddad and Grandma were on a trip.

The dairy herd had been replaced with beef cattle. Nick Nichols went out to stay with me, and, one morning Nick and I fed the livestock and chopped a hole in the ice on the pond with an ax so the cattle could get water.

Granddad and Grandma Blesi always took a lot of pride in the farm and made sure that it was well taken care of. In 2009, Mary and I visited Sullivan to attend my 50th high school reunion. I took a drive around the old places I had lived and ended up at the Blesi farm. I was shocked and saddened to see the state of neglect and decay it was in. Buildings were collapsing, weeds had taken over the yard, garden and most of the farmland, and the farmhouse was open, windows were broken and holes were in the roof. The land suffered greatly from erosion that Granddad worked to prevent. Vandals had apparently made off with anything of use, and there were signs that wild animals used it. Uncle Paul had inherited the farm when Granddad Blesi died. He and his son Gene were responsible for taking care of it. They used the property to raise cattle, and that was all they did. I remember Dad being so upset with the way they bred the cows to produce large calves that caused much birthing difficulty and loss of cows. If my grandparents could have The Old Cistern-­‐-­‐A Poignant Reminder seen the gross neglect the once proud and productive farm had suffered they would surely have turned over in their graves. The farm was put up for sale in 2011, and my hopes were that someone who would restore it to productive use would buy it.

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Transitioning from Rural Life Sullivan Grade School Years 1950−1956 In the fall of 1950, Dad bought a small house in Sullivan at 628 Lakeview. It cost $3500 and was the first home we lived in that had a bathroom. We lived in that house for six years, and it is still occupied.

Lakeview was a residential street about four or five blocks long, lined with big maple trees. There was a little store on the corner about a block from our home that we could walk to and buy soda or ice cream. Nick Nichols lived across from the store in a big two-­‐story house with his Aunt Maleta and grandmother. His mother died when Nick was born and his aunt and dad agreed that he would be raised by Maleta as his dad’s job as editor with the Sacramento Bee Newspaper would not allow him time to properly raise Nick.

We became fast friends and Our Home on Lakeview ~ 2000 spent a lot of time playing together.

There were a lot of other kids in the neighborhood, and the Lakeview Alley Rats club was established with a number of them. I was a reluctant member for a short while. One of the Alley Rats was a boy Doris’s age, Darryl Garner, who came down with something, I believe it was polio, and died. That was the first time I remember anyone dying that young.

Lakeview Alley Rats We lived within a 10 or 15-­‐minute walk of school and a short distance from a Baptist church that Mom and Dad had us attend at times by ourselves. Dad didn’t think much of going to church, but he felt we kids should be exposed to it and made us go.

Lakeview Corner Store ~ 2000

There was a young man, Dave Robinson, who had the mind of a five year old and roamed the streets of Sullivan. He frequently walked up Lakeview. He had a really good voice and would sing western songs constantly as he roamed around. He was always dressed like a “towboy”.

He couldn’t say cowboy and was a very good-­‐natured person.

Another neighbor was Mr. and Mrs. Brown. Louie and Pauline lived next door to us and Louie was a street sweeper. One night he was sweeping the downtown streets and found a roll of bills, probably someone’s winnings from gambling. I don’t know how much it was worth, but he felt like he had hit the jackpot. The Browns were really nosy. Doris and I were left alone while Mom and Dad worked and would have a fight about something. When the Browns heard us fighting, they would peak out their window behind the curtains to see what was going on. Doris and I would see them and then pretend to have a really big fight to make life more interesting for them. Sometimes Pauline would yell, “Stop that.”

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When we moved into Sullivan, Dad took several months off to rest up and to fix up our new home up. He then applied for, and got, a factory position at Ramsey Corporation, a manufacturer of automotive piston rings. Sometime later, Mom got a job at International Shoe Company in the wood heel department.

They made good wages and put in quite a bit of overtime, with Mom making $60 to $80 and Dad making $90 to $100 a week. Dad bought a brand new 1953 Chevy, and we got our first TV set, a Sylvania Halo TV, which had a florescent light surrounding the screen. There weren’t a lot of channels offered, and the shows were geared for family entertainment. Wrestling was a big Saturday night show. A favorite pastime was reading comic books. The kids in the neighborhood would trade and exchange them. Mom and Dad had a subscription to Life Magazine. I remember reading a story about poverty in Latin America.

There were a lot of pictures on the living conditions in that article. I couldn’t believe the suffering those people endured. It made a big impression on me.

Dad bought Doris a bicycle to help her exercise her leg. Something happened to her leg in 1944 and resulted in her not being able to put her heel down flat. She could walk and run without any trouble, but her calf had atrophied and remained that way. Polio was thought to have caused it, although it may have been a bruised bone. Anyway, Dad wanted her to have a bicycle to exercise her leg and didn’t want me to use it. He found out that I rode it once, and I got an awful chewing out about that.

When we moved to Sullivan, the school year had already started. I was in the fourth grade, the same as Nick. I eventually made a number of other friends and joined the Cub Scouts. I wasn’t real crazy about the meetings that were held or the projects that had to be done to earn badges, as they seemed a waste of time. I didn’t stay in the Scouts very long. Our class was taught by Mr. Charles McLain and had some overflow fifth and sixth grade students in it. Mr. McLain had a wooden paddle that he frequently used.

He would line the offenders up in front of the blackboard and make them lean over and then proceed to administer punishment. I don’t remember the offense, but I was paddled one time, probably a class action situation. My sister was in the class and enjoyed watching me take my medicine. The class was pretty well behaved. Much Later, Mr. McClain became the Higher Commissioner of Education for the State of Missouri.

At the end of my fourth grade year, our class had to participate in an after-­‐hours event for the benefit of the public, mostly parents. The show was held in the outdoor theater that had been built by the WPA during the depression. Our part of the program was for the class to dance around the May pole with each kid holding a colored ribbon attached to the top of the pole. We were assigned a partner of the opposite sex to dance with, and we had to weave in and out as we danced around the pole to some scratchy music that was being played. The idea was to create a colorful pattern on the pole. I thought this was a lot of nonsense and didn’t want to be involved in it one bit. To make matters worse, I was teamed up with the most unattractive girl in the class. I hated the May pole dance.

Mr. Kloeniger taught fifth grade. The only thing I remember about him was that he was the exact opposite of Mr. McLain. He was a big screwball, always cutting up and acting silly.

I always looked forward to the Christmas movies. Just before the school was let out for the holidays, they would have a free movie at the downtown theater for the grade school kids. In addition, they gave each 25

kid an orange to eat and some hard candy. Another event that I enjoyed was the PTA fundraiser that was usually held around Halloween. They had a lot of fun things to do. I liked to bob for apples. I can’t remember what the event was, but I won a ride on a private airplane that was owned and piloted by Max Alexander, no relation. He was an insurance agent. The two of us went up together and he flew around the area and over Sullivan. That was quite an experience for me.

I can’t remember which grade I was in, but we had a teacher who spent time with the class teaching art.

She tried to get me to paint a campfire using watercolors. I just couldn’t get the hang of it. She got so frustrated with me that she took my brush away and painted the campfire herself. It really looked nice. I don’t remember her trying to teach me painting any more.

We had a small dog we called Snooks who would climb up on the gate fence pole and wait for Dad to come home from work at Ramsey, which was about a ten-­‐minute walk away. Snooks was our family dog for quite some time. She died as a result of eating waterfowl bones, which caused internal hemorrhaging.

Doris and I were responsible for taking care of the house while Mom and Dad worked. We both did the dishes and cleaned the house. I took care of mowing the grass with a push mower. No one had a gas-­‐ powered mower in those days. You had to push the mower and occasionally sharpen the blade. One of the jobs I hated was to clear the sewer line under the house. We had a lot of maple trees and their roots would grow through cracks in the clay sewer tile and clog it up. I had to crawl under the house and fish out the roots to clear the sewer drainage. That was a crappy job.

We had a nice garden and raised a lot of tomatoes and vegetables. Occasionally, Mom and Dad would buy a live chicken from the Farmers Exchange, bring it home, and butcher it for Sunday dinner. They would wring the chicken’s neck off and then let it bleed out with its legs attached to the clothesline and then immerse it in scalding hot water. The feathers were then plucked off and the chicken was gutted, cut up and cooked.

Our next door neighbor, Dean Hollis, saw me mowing our yard one day and asked me if I would mow his yard, which wasn’t as large as ours as he also had a small house behind his home. That was my very first job where I had for an agreed-­‐upon payment. He paid me 35 cents to mow his yard. With that under my belt, I started asking other folks in Sullivan if I could mow their yards. I would go from house to house pushing the mower and knocking on doors. I kept pretty busy. One neighbor paid me a lot more than what Dad thought the job was worth. He wanted me to give some of the pay back. I decided to keep the money and do some additional trimming with a hand trimmer. It took me longer to do the trimming than it did the mowing. In addition to mowing, I would deliver advertisements for some of the merchants in town. They would give me a stack of flyers and I would put them on cars that were parked downtown and also deliver them to homes around town.

Uncle Paul and Aunt Geraldine had me baby-­‐sit my cousin Gene. He wasn’t more than 2 years old. They also had me do some housework for them. They built a new house at the end of Lakeview, and I did a lot of housework and lawn mowing for them at their new house. I also mowed Minerva Hollander’s (Aunt Geraldine’s mother) yard many times. I remember some unusual fear that Aunt Geraldine had. She

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thought the TV emitted radiation when it was on and could damage anyone close to it. She was really concerned about that and wouldn’t let her kids sit near the TV. There was an old mansion near where we lived that was built with slave labor before the Civil War by Dr. Alan Leffingwell.

He later sold it to General William S. Harney who added onto the orginal structure. It was pretty run down, but was still lived in by Lucy Riggins and her son. It was the sort of thing that created a lot of interest by adventurous kids who would try to explore the grounds around it at night. The son would scare them away with a shotgun. I don’t recall that he ever shot it, but just the presence of him with the shotgun did the trick.

Harney Mansion ~ 2000

One day Dad and Dean Hollis were talking and Dean asked him if he thought I would go to college. Dad said he didn’t know, but if I did, a good college would be the Missouri School of Mines at Rolla. He quickly added that it would be up to me to pay for my college. I had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up, but knew I wanted to be able to have a better life than what my parents had. I realized I might need to go to college and would have to save money for that. I already had a bank account with several hundred dollars in it and from that day on saved as much as I could. About the only thing I spent money on was fishing equipment, and not much at that.

Dad had a fishing boat built and went fishing a lot with Uncle John. One time I went fishing with them on the Meramec River, which is considered a fairly treacherous stream with places that have fast water and undercurrents. We were drifting towards a riffle when we hit a semi-­‐submerged log that caused the boat to swamp. Water came rushing in from the back of the boat and swept almost everything out. I saw my fishing gear go into the river and jumped in to get it. We lost a lot of our equipment that day, including an expensive camera that Uncle John had along. I not only recovered most of my equipment, but I learned how to swim.

I played a lot with Nick Nichols, who always seemed to have a lot of interesting things going on. His aunt took good care of him and gave lots of toys to him. He had electric trains, model airplanes and a woodworking shop equipped with a lot of tools and power equipment. Nick generously shared those with his friends.

My seventh grade teacher, Mr. Holbrook, also worked the midnight shift as a machinist at Ramsey where Dad worked. I asked him about careers I could pursue that would earn a good living. He gave me some manuals that he had on machinery at Ramsey. That didn’t seem to be up my alley. The best piece of advice he gave me was that I should take as much math and science in school as I could. I really admired Mr. Holbrook as he not only held down two jobs, but also he was working on his doctorate during the summer. I also mowed his yard.

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Sullivan High School 1956−1959 Work In 1956, Mom and Dad had our house paid for and had some money in the bank. They decided to build a new house on Hillcrest, a subdivision that had just opened up not far away from our home. Dad started building the house in October in his spare time away from Ramsey. The home was built on Orchard Street and completed in January when we moved in. It was big a step up for us. It had three bedrooms, a bath, utility, electric kitchen, living room, a dining area, and an enclosed one-­‐car garage. It had forced air heat and hardwood floors. I couldn’t wait to move in.

I helped Dad after school and on weekends to build our new home. After we moved in, Dad built several more in the same subdivision. I was on the school basketball team and remember wanting to do that. However, Dad wanted me to help him build those houses. I did, but he didn’t pay me anything for it.

Dad had a good friend, Russell Eaves, who bought souvenirs for Meramec Caverns and asked him if he could get me a summer job there. Meramec Caverns was the largest cave in Missouri and a popular tourist destination. Les Dill owned it and promoted it as a hideout that was used by the Missouri outlaw, Jesse James, and his gang. This was the summer after my sophomore year, and they gave me a job in the restaurant washing dishes and busing tables. When things got slow, I had to peel potatoes for french fries. There was another fellow I worked with who had dropped out of school. We were hired at the same time. I can’t remember his name, but we called him Doc. He was a hard worker and we got along well together. We worked six days a week, twelve hours a day and were paid fifty cents an hour plus lunch. Mr. Dill, owner of Meramec Caverns, was impressed with the work that Doc and I did, and at the end of the summer, I asked Mr. Dill if he could give us a bonus. He gave both of us an extra week’s pay.

Our Home on Orchard

A new supermarket, the IGA Foodliner, opened up in Sullivan at the start of my junior year. Doc and I applied there. Doc was hired full time in the meat department, and I was hired to work part time after school and Saturdays. I believe I made sixty cents an hour to start with and usually worked twenty to twenty-­‐five hours a week after school and over forty hours a week during the summer. I learned a lot about the grocery business at IGA. I did almost every job there was to do at IGA, sacking, carry out, produce, butcher shop, stocking shelves, unloading trucks, processing refundable soda bottles, etc. About the only job I didn’t do was order groceries, although I did order produce when I filled in for the produce department manager, Bob Culver, when he went on vacation. I was lucky to get a job with IGA as it paid for most of my college expenses. I worked there until my last semester in college.

I didn’t have a car in high school and had to get to work by walking or riding with one of the other kids who worked there. Mom or Dad would sometimes drive me to and from work, and I could use their car if it was available.

I remember cashing a lot of customer checks. In all of the years I worked there, I only cashed one that bounced. IGA was on old route 66, now I-­‐44, and a lot of people visited the store who were just passing 28

through. Occasionally I would carry out groceries for them. They were probably from St. Louis, and they would offer to tip me. They must have thought I was crazy because I wouldn’t accept their tip as I felt I was just doing the job I was paid to do.

One time a bunch of gypsies descended on us, and Bob Horton, the store manager, alerted the employees to keep a close eye on them, as they were notorious for shoplifting. I wasn’t very subtle and dogged them real close until they left without buying anything.

Another shoplifting episode involved one of the Post Office letter carriers. I noticed many of the items he had in his cart while shopping were not there when he checked out. I started watching him, and verified that he was shoplifting and informed Bob Horton. The next time he came in we watched him and when he went to checkout we asked him to come back to the stock room where we confronted him. He confessed, and Bob told him it was “restitution or prosecution”. He agreed to repay IGA for the items he had stolen over time. I don’t believe we ever saw him in IGA again.

The checkout girls were good friends to each other. One of them would shop and have the other ring up her purchases. One time I was sacking their groceries and noticed that the cash register rhythm didn’t match the amount of groceries I was sacking. I started paying attention to that and verified that the more expensive items were not being rung up. I told Bob what was going on, and he said he would look into it and take care of it. About the only change I could see was that they weren’t allowed to check each other out.

The nuns at the Catholic school would call in their grocery order, and I had to fill it and deliver it. Bob Horton was Catholic, and he had me use his car for delivery. Just like clockwork, the nuns would call in the next order and complain that some items I previously delivered had to be thrown away, explaining that either the meat or the produce was bad when I delivered it. I knew that wasn’t so as I had picked out everything they ordered. When I complained to Bob he wouldn’t confront them and continued to tolerate this.

There was a small drive-­‐up restaurant that was in the strip shopping center next to IGA. They sold ten hamburgers for a dollar and contracted with IGA to supply the patties. IGA acquired a machine to make the patties. This was an extra activity for the meat department, and they gave me the job of grinding the meat into hamburger and operating the patty machine. I did that job after closing and worked long hours to fill those orders. The meat IGA used wasn’t fit for a dog. It was frozen and came from South America.

One box would have hearts in it and another would have meat scraps. The meat was so fat that the patty machine was always getting gummed up and slowing me down. The patties didn’t look very good either. I constantly complained to Bob about this, but he told me it was ok and to just do the best job I could. I later found out from someone that the restaurant complained about the quality of the patties and that Bob blamed me for being careless and lazy. Of course I didn’t hear that from Bob and was really upset when I found out. No good deed goes unpunished.

Just before IGA opened, quite a few high school kids applied for part-­‐time jobs, and a number of them were hired. Most of them didn’t last a week, and one by one the rest quit. I was the only one of the original bunch who stuck it out. When a new kid was hired, I had to show him the ropes. Not too many 29

would work very hard, and I was impatient with those who did sloppy work or were lazy. One of them was a kid from Bourbon by the name of Gary. He was somewhat older than me and was always borrowing a little money from me to tie him over until payday. He finally quit IGA and still owed me. Every time I would ask him to repay me, he would tell me he would later. One of my friends from Bourbon, Leroy Hartung, was also a friend of Gary’s. One Saturday after work, I decided it was time for Gary to pay up and Leroy agreed. Gary lived alone in a small house in Bourbon, and Leroy drove me there. We parked in front of Gary’s house with the headlights aimed at the windows and honked the horn. Gary came out, and I told him that he had better pay up, or this would be a routine occurrence. I got paid the next week.

When IGA opened, Missouri was still enforcing blue laws, which meant that the grocery store had to be closed on Sunday. Those laws were overturned and IGA decided to open the store on Sunday. Gale Joslin, who was several years younger than me, and I were the only ones working in on Sunday. I took care of customers, and Gale had to clean up the butcher shop when he wasn’t needed to help sack and carry out groceries. One Sunday I was working the cash register, and Gale was in the back cleaning the butcher shop. He let out a blood-­‐curdling yell, and I ran back to the butcher shop. Gale’s face was white as a sheet, and he was clutching a finger that was bleeding like crazy. I thought that he had cut it off, but it wasn’t that bad. He had sliced it as he was cleaning the meat slicer. I locked the store door and grabbed a bottle of alcohol. I was concerned that the meat slicer might be contaminated with bacteria that would infect the wound and thought that alcohol would prevent any infection. I told Gale to bite down on his billfold, and I poured the alcohol on the wound. I thought Gale was going to pass out. I wrapped his hand in a towel and drove him to Dr. De La Torre who had an office in his home a couple of blocks away. When I explained I had poured alcohol on Gale’s wound, Doc said, “You did what?” He couldn’t believe it.

Anyway, Gale survived my first aid. I think he missed a few days of school.

IGA employees voted to unionize when I was in college. I went home on weekends to work Friday evenings and Saturday. The union didn’t get my pay increased, and I wasn’t happy to learn that I had to pay union dues.

Sometime in the 1990’s, the IGA building burned down. It wasn’t replaced, and IGA became a thing of the past in Sullivan.

Friends and Good Times I wasn’t much into sports, but did play a little basketball in the eighth grade. The team played schools from the surrounding area. I wasn’t good enough to start, but enjoyed traveling to the different schools.

During my freshman year, I went out for cross country and ran in a number of races. I also went out for the basketball B team. I still wasn’t good enough to play much. One of the games we played was at Eureka High School. The referees called everything possible against Sullivan, even if the foul was on Eureka, and our coach was extremely ticked off. The score really got lopsided against us, and the coach decided to substitute the third string. Eddie Christopher was on our team and was the shortest boy in high school. I got the ball and was dribbling down the court behind Eddie. I didn’t see him and ran over him. The whistle blew and I had a foul called on me for running over Eddie, who took a free throw. That game was a farce, and I think the only one ever I played in.

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The land around our new home was not yet built on, and it had a lot of wildlife cover. I built a rabbit trap and caught a number of rabbits, which I skinned and cleaned for the dinner table. I also hunted in the woods and fields south of our home, mostly rabbits and quail using Dad’s 12-­‐gauge Remington pump shotgun. I would take a knapsack with something to eat and spend most of the day hunting. I didn’t have a hunting dog and hunted alone. Every time I would flush a covey of quail, it would scare the dickens out of me. Despite that, I usually managed to bag a few quail or a rabbit or two.

Jim and Sarah Strauser were members of the Masonic Lodge and Eastern Star. They were good friends of Mom and Dad. I became a close friend of their son, Chip, and often stayed overnight with him on their farm in the Indian Creek area, which was quite isolated and remote. Chip and I camped out a lot and fished in Indian Creek. One time Chip told me that he helped his dad clear trees to make a new field.

They removed the tree stumps with dynamite. We had heard of people using dynamite to get fish by throwing it in the water and stunning them. Naturally we thought we should try that and see if we could get fish. Chip snuck some dynamite from the barn, and we tried our hand at it. I think we stunned a couple of minnows; so much for fishing with dynamite.

I took Biology my freshman year. Mr. Berry was the teacher, and he organized a number of after school trips to explore one of the many caves in the area. I enjoyed spelunking a lot, and Nick and I took that up when he got his driver’s license. We would usually do that Sunday afternoons. The caves were out of the way, and not too many people explored them. Nick was always trying to find a cave with a place where there weren’t any tracks so that he could claim he had been where no one else on earth had been.

Exploring those caves required crawling on all fours most of the time. There wasn’t a lot of standup room.

Nick finally achieved his goal. We always returned home with the muddiest clothes. It’s a wonder that Mom let me do that.

Nicks family owned some cabins on the Meramec River that they rented, mostly to people from St. Louis.

The cabins were down river several miles from Meramec Caverns. Nick had his own cabin, and I spent many a weekend with him there. One time Nick, Jack Reed, and I were staying overnight and we decided to go out on the town. Nick’s Aunt Maleta was staying in a house close to where Nick had his pickup parked. Since we didn’t have permission to go out, we were carful not to make any noise getting into the truck. Nick backed the truck out and headed up the road with the lights out. I asked Nick if he shouldn’t turn on the lights, and he said “Don’t worry; I know this road like the back of my hand”. He then turned on the lights and immediately crashed into a tree. Luckily no damage was done, except for the dent on the truck’s front bumper.

Nick and I took chemistry together and decided to put some of our knowledge to practice. We gathered all of the elements and compounds used to manufacture nitroglycerine. We went to Nick’s cabin and carefully mixed everything together, except for the glycerin. We used a bottle of perfume, which contained glycerin, and tied a string to it, securing the bottle so it dangled over the other chemicals. We learned in chemistry that combining these chemicals could result in a violent explosion, and we didn’t want to be close by when that happened. We backed off to a safe distance and one of us shot the bottle with a .22. The glycerin fell on the other chemicals. Boy, were we disappointed when nothing exploded.

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Nick put together a small brewery in his bedroom. I don’t know how it went undetected as it produced an obnoxious odor. I think that was the first beer I ever had, and it tasted awful. That experience, along with what we learned in chemistry, gave us the idea to build a still. We rounded up some abandoned copper tubing that had been used to deliver kerosene from a tank to a heating stove in one of the cabins. We set the still up near Nick’s cabin and cooked the mash and condensed the alcohol with the copper tubing.

When the great moment arrived to sample our creation, we took one taste and discovered that it tasted just like kerosene; enough of that.

One time Jack Reed, Nick, and I decided to stay and party at Nick’s cabin, and we found someone who would buy a bottle of vodka for us. Nick and I arrived at the cabin first, and we decided to trick Jack. We emptied the Vodka into another container and filled it with water. When Jack arrived, Nick and I were drinking straight orange juice and bragged to Jack how buzzed we were getting. Jack mixed a drink of orange juice and water from the bottle. It was amazing. Jack’s speech became slurred, and he was staggering around like he was drunk, proclaiming what a great drink he had. When he learned what we had done, I thought he was going to kill us. It may not sound like it, but we rarely consumed adult beverages in high school. Another popular pasttime was to go to the drive-­‐in movies on Saturday nights.

Another guy that Nick, Jack, and I hung out with was Roy Shuck. We were called the four musketeers and did a lot of camping together on the Meramec River. One time we did an overnight float trip from Steelville to Nick’s cabins, approximately a thirty-­‐mile trip. I also remember one cold Easter Sunday when we all went swimming in the river. Boy, was that water cold.

Bernie Wehmeyer was in my class and had a steady girlfriend. They broke up one weekend, and Bernie was missing on Monday. He disappeared with his parent’s car, and no one had any idea what happened to him. Fearing the worst, a major search was begun. Anyone in school who wanted to help find Bernie was released. I believe the highway patrol was also involved and even had a plane in the search. Nick and I went looking for him in Nick’s pickup. We went on some back roads and into areas far off the beaten track. We even found an old abandoned still. Luckily, Bernie turned up. He had driven to Kirksville, three hours’ driving time away, where he used to live and had some relatives. There was an article in the Sullivan newspaper that explained how much the search cost. I don’t remember the amount, but it was a lot. Love does strange things to a person’s mind.

Dad had a group of friends that liked to go gigging at night on the Meramec River. Gigging involved reflecting the light from an acetylene lantern into the river in front of the bow of the boat with polished sheet metal. Someone would operate the motor, and someone would stand behind the reflector with a long spear. When the boat came upon a fish, an attempt would be made to spear it. There were usually a number of boats gigging, and as soon as enough fish were gigged, a big fire was built and the fish cooked.

They really tasted great.

Les Dill, the owner of Meramec Caverns, hated gigging and whenever he found out that a group was going, he would use his motorboat to drag the river bottom and muddy the water so much you couldn’t see fish.

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School At the outset of my freshmen year, I went out of my way to get to know the kids who were from the country and hadn’t attended Sullivan high schools. I remembered that it was difficult for me to adjust when I started school in Sullivan as most of the kids who were already there had their circle of friends. If I hadn’t already known Nick, it would have been more difficult for me to adjust. I wanted to make the country boys feel welcome.

Arch Enterance to High School

Miss Olinda T. Glaser was the principal of Sullivan High School and had a long history in Sullivan. Miss Glaser and Grandma Alexander were the same age. She graduated from Sullivan High and began teaching there after High School graduation. Miss Glaser was the Principal when Mom and Dad attended Sullivan High School. She was a real disciplinarian and the last thing anyone wanted was to be sent to the principal’s office for misbehaving.

The courses I enjoyed most were math and science. I took all of those courses that were offered, except for the freshmen courses. Mr. Roach taught all of my math classes, and Mr. Berry taught all of my science courses, except for my senior year physics class. They were really good teachers. I was right at the top of the science classes, especially chemistry. For some reason, the subject matter really sunk in without me doing much studying. When I got to college, it was a different story. I overestimated my intelligence in this subject and soon found myself struggling to get a B in freshman chemistry.

I remember that Mrs. Taylor, my sophomore English teacher, was a real stickler. If she happened to overhear you use incorrect grammar, even outside of class, she would correct you on the spot.

Miss Harris taught literature. She was somewhat elderly and quite emotional, especially when reading some of Shakespeare's works. She would well up and tears would stream down her cheeks. She didn’t know how to maintain class order, and a number of the boys didn’t respect her. They would make fun of her and frequently distract the class. Nick and I sat next to each other in the back of the room and learned how to play chess during class.

Mr. Sassman taught my citizenship class. He was a good teacher, but had a funny quirk. On Mondays he would wear a green tie for go and on Fridays it was red for stop.

The school cafeteria served hot lunches and I ate there most of the time. Occasionally I went to Bob’s Chili Bowl for Lunch and usually had a hamburger and bowl of chili. The Chili Bowl was a hole in the wall about three blocks from school. It had about eight stools next to the lunch counter. Bob fried the hamburgers in a big black iron skillet with a lot of grease. His wife took the orders and served the customers. As soon as the bell rang for lunch, the regular customers raced to Bob’s. If you took your time

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getting there, you had to wait for the crowd to clear out to get your order taken, as there weren’t many seats at Bob’s.

I took two years of drafting. In my senior year, Mr. Palmer, owner of a local plumbing company, wanted to apply for a patent to protect an invention of his. He needed a set of mechanical drawings to send in with his application and asked my drafting teacher, Mr. Edgar, if one of his students could do it for him. I got the job. I don’t know if the patent was ever awarded, or what was so unique about it, unless it was an original idea of his. The invention was an enclosure for hooking up a laundry washing machine to the hot and cold-­‐water faucets. The faucets were recessed between wall studs in a little sheet metal box; a simple concept. I don’t think I made more than $10 from it.

The drafting came in handy when Dad started building custom homes for people. I would get the basic layout and dimensions from Dad and draw up the plans for him. I did that on a number of homes for him.

I didn’t participate in a lot of extracurricular events and didn’t have a regular girlfriend. Dates were few and far between. That would come later. I stuck to working and school for the most part. A lot of the guys in high school got together after class at the local drug store and played the pinball machines. I thought that was a waste of time and money. I don’t remember ever spending my money on pinball machines.

My graduating class numbered 79, and I was ranked seventh with a 3.3 GPA at graduation. Seventeen credits were required to graduate and I had 18 ½. Nick Nichols was on the staff of Echo, Sullivan High School’s newspaper. He wrote the following article about me in 1959:

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35

Uncle Sam 1959−1963 Basic Training−Little Korea Around graduation, I was accepted for admission to the Missouri School of Mines at Rolla, forty miles west of Sullivan and was going to enroll there to start in the fall semester. Even though the Korean War was over (at least an armistice had been declared) the draft was still active. I wanted to find a way out of being drafted when I graduated from college as it could mean two years’ delay in my career. I found out the Army Reserve Unit in Washington Missouri, needed several recruits and applied for enlistment.

I passed the physical and was accepted. Since I was under 18-­‐1/2, I was eligible for a special program that had less active reserve duty than the six years normally required. My commitment was for six months of active duty for training purposes and three and a half years of active reserve duty, which involved two weeks of training at a military base each year. After that, this program put you in an inactive reserve status, which meant you were subject to call up in case of war. This really fit with my plan to go to college.

I could get the active reserve duty behind me before I graduated and not have to worry about being drafted later. Besides, I would be making a little extra money for attending reserve meetings.

L. J. Hiller graduated from high school with me and we enlisted together. We began two months of basic training at Fort Leonard Wood that fall. Fort Wood was almost 80 miles from Sullivan and was nicknamed Little Korea. The terrain and climate were very similar. I remember the first night in the barracks. The drill sergeant was yelling and screaming at the recruits to make their bunks and clean the barracks and latrine. I was sweeping the floor and thought I was working fast. The drill sergeant screamed at me and told me how lazy and slow I was. At that point, I knew this was not going to be an enjoyable experience.

The recruits were mostly from Missouri and the surrounding states. Some were drafted and some, like me, were volunteers. A few of them were college graduates, but most were just out of high school. One of the draftees hadn’t attended high school. I can’t remember what his name was, but he ended up being discharged for medical, or perhaps mental, reasons. It was obvious that he didn’t want to be in the Army and seemed to deliberately mess up everything he was supposed to do up. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when he wet his bed, and the urine leaked through the mattress and dripped on the soldier in the bunk under him.

Basic training involved a lot of marching, firearm, and bayonet training. In 1959, the most likely foe of America was the USSR. When we had training with bayonets fixed to our rifles, we would thrust and parry with our weapon at an imaginary enemy and growl and yell, ”Kill Ivan”.

The most dreaded thing was KP, and I seemed to get more than my share. I was usually assigned to scrubbing pots and pans. There were a lot of pots and pans to scrub, and it seemed to take forever. The water was so hot that I developed a cist that led to an open wound in the palm of my left hand. It took decades for the resulting scar to disappear.

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One of the things that really got under my skin was the terrible inefficiency of the Army and the complete waste of money that resulted. Of course that was my first exposure to a government-­‐run institution, and, as I later came to understand, it was typical of almost any governmental organization. In fact, when the military is compared to any federal civilian agency today, it is a model of efficiency.

Thanks to my time spent hunting, I was a pretty good shot and qualified as an expert marksman with the M-­‐1 rifle. The M-­‐1 was used in WW II and the Korean War and was in the process of being phased out by the M14. One of my more scary experiences was the nighttime live fire exercise. You had to worm yourself under barbwire strands for what seemed like a mile; all the while machine guns were firing live tracer rounds just inches over the barbwire. Boy, did that ever make you flat.

No basic training at that time would be complete without a gas mask drill. As I recall they put you in a small chamber and released tear gas. You had to quickly break out the gas mask and put it on, or suffer the consequences. Then you had to stab your thigh with a hypodermic filled with saline, to simulate the nerve gas antidote atropine, and inject it.

The grand finale of Basic was a four-­‐ or five-­‐day bivouac with the entire battalion of about 1000 troops.

We stayed in two-­‐man pup tents and slept on the bare ground in sleeping bags. During the day, we conducted all sorts of military exercises. This was one or two weeks before Thanksgiving and the temperature plunged. I know it was subzero for most of our time in the field, and it hit seven below one night. Over half of the battalion went on sick call, many with frostbite. The commander refused to call it off, and we just had to endure it.

I went in at 131 pounds and weighed 183 pounds six months later. The training and physical conditioning coupled with the food really got me in shape. The Company I was in had a mule named Zeke as a mascot.

Zeke was in attendance at the Battalion Basic Training Graduation Parade. I was marching with the rest of the troops and for some reason couldn’t keep in step as we were passing the review stand where all of CFA in Uniform the Brass were seated. When everyone was stepping up, I was stepping down and stood out like a sore thumb. This was a huge embarrassment to my drill sergeant. I knew I was in trouble and would lose my weekend pass if Sarge got hold of me. I must have set a record running back to the barracks, grabbing my duffle bag, and getting off post before he realized I was gone. I later heard that he thought it was another guy in the platoon, Ken Bader who looked very much like me. Sarge chewed him out and revoked his pass. Ken had to do a lot of talking to convince him that he was not the culprit.

Advanced Infantry Training-­‐Fort Ord, CA My home reserve unit in Washington, Missouri, was a heavy weapons infantry company, and I was sent to Fort Ord, California, for AIT. A number of the fellows who were in basic training with me were also sent to Fort Ord. We also received some training near San Diego at Camp Pendleton. Training included learning to fire 81 mm mortars, 106 mm anti-­‐tank recoilless rifles that were mounted on a jeep, bazookas, etc.

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81 mm Mortar

Everyone was allowed to take Christmas leave, and a few of us, including Hiller, flew to Chicago where Mom and Dad met us and drove us home. One of the fellows in our unit, Boozer, was from either Alabama or Mississippi. Boozer had a new 1959 Chevy convertible and wanted to have it back at Fort Ord. He drove to Missouri and picked us up. With six guys in that convertible, it was really cramped. When we got to Oklahoma, the temperature really dropped and our breath condensed on the convertible top.

Every time we hit a big bump, the condensation would fall down on us, just like a rain shower.

By the time we got to Gallup, New Mexico, it was getting dark, and a major snowstorm was in the works.

It was New Year’s Eve, and we found a cheap motel to spend the night in. One of the guys was old enough to buy alcohol, and we celebrated New Year’s there.

Fort Ord was just north of Monterey, and I was surprised to find ice on the company street in front of the barracks one January morning. One of the things that were different about California was the vegetation.

There were a lot of sand dunes that we had to march on and the only thing that seemed to grow on them was ice plants, which are very fragile. I can still hear the drill sergeants yelling at us “Don’t step on the ice plant”.

A few weeks after we returned to Fort Ord, I was quite surprised to receive a letter from Mom explaining that Doris and Bob Sherrick had gotten married. I had no idea about this and was hugely disappointed that I hadn’t been told before hand, especially since it was only a short time before that I was in Sullivan.

Weekend passes were liberally dispensed. A number of times, some of us would go together into Carmel and spend Saturday night there, splitting the cost of a motel room between three to five guys. Nick Nichols was going to college in Sacramento, and I took the bus from Fort Ord to Sacramento to visit him on a few weekends. That bus trip seemed to last four or five hours one way, but it was great to be able to get together with him.

As time in California dragged on, I became less and less patient to get out. The happiest day of my life in the Army was when I was finished with training and able to return home.

Active Reserve Duty I returned home around March of 1960 and resumed working at IGA. I had infrequent reserve meetings at Washington, Missouri , and attended two weeks of summer camp that year at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin. One of the exercises I remember was target practice with the 106 mm recoilless rifle, an anti-­‐ tank weapon. Old World War II tanks were used as targets. I hit one dead on and knocked its turret off.

106 mm Recoiless Rifle

Dad had quit working for Ramsey and went into the business of building homes. He built a number of spec homes and did a lot of remodeling. He also built homes under contract for people who liked his work. Dad knew I had a nice sum in my bank account and asked me to loan him $2,000, which I gladly did. He later paid me back plus the going rate of interest. Years later, I had several occasions to borrow money from him.

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That fall, I started college at Rolla and was reassigned to the reserve unit there. This unit’s mission was combat engineering. Since I didn’t have any military training in this area, I was assigned the job of clerk typist as I had taken a semester of typing in high school. During the spring and fall semesters I attended meetings every other week or so and didn’t have to go to summer camp. Reserve pay wasn’t much, but it did help meet some college expenses. I finished my active reserve duty by the end of my first senior semester. I was then put into inactive status, only subject to call up in the event of a major conflict.

When I graduated from college, I went to work for Control Data, and my work required that I have a secret government clearance, which exempted me from being activated. End of my military career.

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Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy (MSM) 1960−1964 During my freshman year, I stayed at a private home, and I had two roommates from Sullivan who graduated from high school with me. They both had started college a year earlier. Sonny Rommelman majored in Chemical Engineering, and Don Bartel majored in Mechanical Engineering. Eugene Koebbe had also graduated with me from high school and had started a year earlier, majoring in Metallurgical Engineering. Although I would have preferred studying Architecture, I enrolled with Geology as my major since Architecture was not offered. The home we lived in was located in a nice residential neighborhood and was about a half mile from campus. We occupied the entire basement level and had our own private entrance. There was a lot of space for sleeping and study. As I recall, the rent was $25 per month.

I joined the Tech Club, which was one of about six student eating clubs. It was located in a converted home just across the street from campus. The club was operated by the members through an elected committee. They planned the menu, ordered the food, and hired the cooks. It was open during fall and spring semesters and served three meals a day during the week. Breakfast and lunch were served on Saturday, and lunch only on Sunday. The committee did a great job in creating a varied menu and keeping costs down. The members had to pay in advance on a monthly basis. The cost was in the range of $25 to $30 per month. We had two excellent cooks, a man and wife who had once lived in Sullivan. They did a great job of fixing tasty meals. All of the clubs competed in intramural sports, and the Tech Club was a consistent winner. They tried to recruit members who would strengthen their sports teams. However, I didn’t get involved with playing any intramural sports. I was a member for my entire four years at Rolla.

MSM had a population of about 4,000 students. Over 98% were boys and the only curriculums offered were engineering and science. No liberal arts degrees were available, although there were a lot of required liberal art courses as well as electives. MSM had a reputation of being one of the top engineering schools in the country. The average time for graduation was close to five years, and the flunkout rate was 50%. MSM was popular with foreign students, especially from the Middle East, and we had more foreign students per capita than any other campus in the country. Due to the lack of female students and liberal arts curriculums, it also produced engineers who were a little rough around the edges. Its intercollegiate sports program rarely produced any teams who were anything but mediocre.

Intramural sports seemed more important.

The student body was split between fraternity members and the GDI (God Damn Independents). GDI’s outnumbered the frat rats. I was a GDI as were all of the students who belonged to the eating clubs, and those who lived in school dorms. The big social event of the year was the St. Patricks’ Ball in honor of Saint Patrick, patron saint of engineering. This was a major event with a parade, dances, and wild parties.

Since there were few women on campus, dates had to be secured outside the area. The revelry lasted three or four days. Since I worked on weekends at IGA in Sullivan, I did not attend any St. Pat celebrations. My social activities revolved around playing a couple hands of hearts after dinner, seeing an occasional movie, and when I turned twenty one, going to Ramey’s, a local beer joint on Thursday evenings with a friend or two. None of the places I stayed at had TV. 40

I remember taking speech during the spring of 1962. The United States Military involvement in the Vietnam War was still three years away, but the US was rapidly ramping up support in Vietnam by providing military advisors. I did a lot of research on what the consequences of South Vietnam falling to the communists would be and made that a topic of a speech that was required in the course. It was about the domino theory that anticipated that the fall of South Vietnam would lead to other nations in that region falling to the communists, which in fact did happen, but not on the scale that was expected.

My cost to attend MSM ranged from $900 to $1050 per year and included room, food, books, tuition, entertainment, everything. I entered college with more savings in the bank than was required for the first year. My income came from continuing to work at IGA in Sullivan on weekends and during the summer, and a small amount from the Army Reserve for attending meetings at the Combat Engineering Unit in Rolla. I also tutored students in computer programming during my senior year and worked a factory job that I had during my junior year’s spring semester. I took that job as I was determined not to work another year at IGA. I really wanted a summer intern job doing work that would enhance my résumé and help me get a job upon graduation.

I had contacted a number of companies in St. Louis, and I spent a lot of the 1962 Christmas break interviewing for a summer intern job, all to no avail. Dad happened to know the head of personnel at Ramsey where he used to work, and they had an opening on the second shift, I believe 4 pm to midnight, for a piston ring inspector. Since I didn’t have any intern prospects, I decided to take this job so I wouldn’t have to work the summer at IGA. I bought my very first car, a used 1953 Chevy, for driving the 40 miles to Sullivan and the 40 miles back to Rolla. I worked 40 hours a week in a mind-­‐numbing job. I had to slide a piston ring in a light tight cylinder with a light source. If there was any light emitting on the sides of the rings, it was a bad ring. I didn’t like the work, but was glad to have something other than IGA to do in the summer. The very week spring semester ended, I was laid off due to a work force reduction. I ended up working that summer at IGA after all. I sold my Chevy when school started that fall.

Since I didn’t have a car, except when I worked that semester at Ramsey, I had to rely on bumming a ride to Sullivan with other students. They would drop me off at IGA where I would work Friday afternoons and Saturday. If I couldn’t get a ride to Sullivan I would hitchhike. On one occasion, a stranger picked me up.

As we talked, we discovered we had a mutual acquaintance. It turned out that he was a brother-­‐in-­‐law to my Dad’s sister, Helen. His brother was Curt Anderson, who was married to Helen. It’s a small world. As I later learned, “No matter where you go, someone knows your mother”.

Sometime in 1960, Dad built a home on Hughes Ford Road, almost directly in back of where we lived, and we moved into it. It was a much larger and a lot nicer home than the one on Orchard Street. Around the end of 1961, Dad transitioned from building homes to being the maintenance engineer for the newly built hospital in Sullivan. I remember that he was on hand when my grandparents Blesi were involved in a wreck. Granddad and Grandma had just visited their doctor and were returning to the farm. They had to cross Route 66 and. Granddad asked Grandma if the coast was clear. She said “Whoa Grandpa”. He thought she said “Go Grandpa”. They crashed into a car speeding down the westbound lane. Both cars were totaled. Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt.

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At the beginning of my sophomore year, I moved into a house owned by Judge Harvey and his wife. It was just down the street from the Tech Club and across the street from the campus where the nuclear reactor was located. It was called the Harvey House and there was a small cottage adjacent to it that the Harveys also owned and rented. I stayed at the main Harvey House my sophomore year and at the little Harvey House the last two years.

My first roommate was Tim Judkins from Columbia, Missouri, who was majoring in Chemistry. Tim was really smart. He had to take German as part of the Chemistry curriculum. When Mom found out about that, she asked me to see if Tim would help her translate some of the genealogical records on the Blesi Family side. Tim spent a lot of time doing translation for her.

Harvey House had about ten students living in it and the little Harvey House had four. One of the guys was a Physics major by the name of Bill Munson. Bill liked to brag that he wore the same pair of jeans for the entire year without washing them. At the end of the school year, he gave those jeans to me. I remember they had a leather logo on the rear pocket that identified the jeans as “The Big Yank”. I don’t think Mom appreciated me bringing those jeans home for her to wash. I didn’t try to replicate Bill’s practice, but I got a lot of wear out of those jeans.

Ben Muns and I moved into the little Harvey House at the outset of my junior year. Ben had also lived in the big Harvey House and was majoring in Civil Engineering. We both wanted to get away from the continuous antics of the students in the big Harvey House, mostly the hearts card games. The Harveys also rented part of the little Harvey house to two other guys from St. Louis. They both had Harley Motorcycles and loved to go target shooting with their .387 Magnums. They didn’t take college very seriously and were constantly partying, coming in at all hours of the night and making a lot of noise. One of them was nicknamed Crow, as that is what he resembled with his black leather jacket, sunglasses, and crew haircut. He was really annoying. His favorite expression was to say “nurk, nurk”.

The Crow had a friend by the name of Richie. One afternoon Richie borrowed Crow’s Harley and a cop tried to Little Harvey House stop him for speeding. Richie tried to outrun the cop and was about to make a left turn to get on the entrance ramp to Highway 66, just as the cop was pulling into the left lane to pull him over. Richie crashed into the cop car and was instantly killed. All the Crow would say to me was, “Richie f-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐d up my bike”. They moved out right away and, that made Ben and I really happy.

One of my closest friends in college was Jan Allen. He was a married student, and his wife, Wanda, lived in Illinois. Jan was a Coop Mechanical Engineering student with Caterpillar. We spent a lot of Thursday evenings at Ramey’s, drinking beer and solving the world’s problems. When Jan graduated, he went full time with Caterpillar in Peoria, IL. It must have been in 1976 or so when I learned from the Alumni Association that Jan and Wanda were killed in an automobile accident. Fortunately their three daughters 42

were not with them. I wrote them a letter hoping that their guardian would get in touch with me, but no one did.

My dating activity in college was pretty light. Roy Shuck was going steady with a girl in Union, and he fixed me up with her girlfriend, Donna. I had a number of dates with Donna and had to drive to Union to take her out. I also met the sister of one of the fellows I worked with at Ramsey, and I dated her somewhat over the summer before my senior year. That came to an end when she moved to New Hampshire to attend college. I did attend one social event at Rolla with a date, Linda Schuler, from Sullivan.

During my second freshmen semester, I realized that I did not care for chemistry. My Geology major required a lot of that, so I switched majors to Applied Mathematics, which was just being offered as a degreed program. Applied math required a lot of advanced math courses, but it also allowed me to pick and choose from a large number of engineering courses that were part of other degreed programs.

One of the toughest courses taught was sophomore Physics. Every student had to take two semesters of Physics, and it was the course MSM used to weed out marginal students. About half of the students flunked Physics the first time they took it, and they either took it again and passed it or dropped out of school. The tests were really tough, and the average score was below 50%. Fortunately, grades were based on a curve. I managed to pass it the first time through.

One of the most practical and useful courses I took was Engineering Economics. It was taught by Captain Christie who was a retired Naval Officer and served as a commander at the naval station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was a fountain of knowledge, teaching not only the textbook but other useful gems as well.

One of them was the rule of 72, which I have applied throughout my life when doing financial planning. I also remember his lecture on Social Security and his description of it. I can’t remember if he called it a Ponzi scheme, but when he told the class that the Social Security tax collections went into the general fund and were spent instead of going into a lock box, and that the demographics of beneficiaries versus contributors meant that the system would go broke, it was obvious that it was a house of cards.

Consequently, I have never counted on receiving any Social Security benefits and based my financial planning on savings and investments. I am amazed that I have received any Social Security benefits at all, as I thought I would be means tested and denied them.

Rule of 72 The rule is a method for estimating an investment's doubling time. Seventy Two is divided by the interest percentage per period to obtain the approximate number of periods (usually years) required for doubling.

Conversely it can be used to determine the interest rate required to double an investment over a specified number of periods, or years. Seventy two is divided by the number of periods to obtain the interest rate required to double the investment over those number of periods.

The results obtained are not exact, but are quite close.

I read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand during college and found myself in alignment with the underlying premise portrayed by the author. It seemed to me that the politics of the day were in the early stages of steering the country down the dangerous path Rand wrote about.

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The math department had a couple of computer systems. I took a lot of courses that involved programming, and I did a little tutoring to help students program the LGP-­‐30 computer. Most of my programming was on an IBM 1620 computer that used punched cards to input programs. You had to write your program on paper forms and turn it into the keypunch girls so they could generate the cards with the programming instructions. I remember seeing a movie that IBM put out when they announced its successor in the spring of 1964. It was the IBM 360 and was one of their most significant achievements, then and now.

I remember attending guest speaker events held by MSM. Wernher von Braun spoke at one of them. He was a famous rocket scientist who had led the Nazi V-­‐2 Ballistic Missile program during World War II. He organized the surrender of about 500 scientists to the Allies near the conclusion of the war. Most of them came to the USA where they continued work on developing rockets for the space program. Dr. Braun is regarded as the father of space travel.

About half of the courses I took from the second semester of my junior year through graduation were the 300 series, which were offered to grad students. It seemed to me that these professors were more lenient in grading than the professors who taught undergrad courses. I didn’t have to work as hard for those grades.

On November 22, 1963, I woke up from a short nap at the little Harvey House and turned on the radio to learn that JFK had been shot. I wasn’t a fan of his, but I was shocked such a thing could happen. I rushed to the student union to see what was being covered on TV. What a sad day that was.

MSM was widely regarded as a great engineering school, and a lot of companies recruited on campus. If they were interested in employing a given student, they usually had the student visit the company for a closer look. The fall semester had the most recruitment activity and if you didn’t have an acceptable job offer by the end of that semester, you would be lucky to get one before graduation. I was getting pretty worried about the lack of invitations to visit any of the companies I interviewed, and I was especially discouraged that IBM didn’t invite me. I started planning what I would do if I didn’t get a job, and I decided to go to grad school and pursue mechanics. I checked into a number of out-­‐of-­‐state grad schools and was about to apply to Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg when I was notified that Control Data Corporation (CDC) in Minneapolis was interested and wanted me to visit them over Christmas break.

I didn’t have much in the way of a wardrobe, especially business attire. One of Mom and Dad’s acquaintances had just passed away. He had just bought a nice dark pin striped suit and his wife wanted to sell it. Luckily for me, the fellow was my size and the suit fit me like a glove. Mom and Dad paid for it.

I flew Ozark Air to Minneapolis from St. Louis. The plane was a prop job and it made a number of stops along the way, a real milk run. Control Data put me up in the Holiday Inn near its headquarters. They had two days of interviews scheduled and I must have talked to four or five different departments. I finished up at their headquarters on the first day and had to walk about a quarter of a mile to the Holiday Inn. The temperature was subzero, and it was very windy. I didn’t have a coat with me, and I about froze to death walking there. It’s a wonder my ears didn’t fall off. That night, I went to dinner with some of the other guys who were being interviewed. We went to a nearby restaurant in the Thunderbird Hotel and had a great meal at Control Data’s expense. I wasn’t used to this style of dining and was greatly impressed.

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I finally received a letter from CDC. I was ecstatic when I opened it and read it. I was offered two different positions as a diagnostic programmer, one with the Special Engineering Department of the Computer Systems Division, and an equivalent position with the Government Systems Division. With job offer in hand, I gave up my pursuit of grad school. I learned one of my married friends was trying to sell his trailer as he was graduating and didn’t want to move it with him. I ended up buying it at the end of the semester, a big mistake. I took out a loan to finance it from the Bank of Sullivan for around $2000. I also took and passed the first examination to become a licensed Professional Engineer. I later decided that a PE license would not be of benefit to me and didn’t take any other examinations for it.

By the time I graduated, I had 153 credit hours. The minimum required for graduation was 148 plus ROTC and physical education. Since I was a veteran, I was exempt from those. My GPA was 2.94 and I was ranked in the top 25% of my graduating class of 540. Honors bestowed on me included Silver Key Award, Honor Roll, and the mathematics honor society, Kappa Mu Epsilon. For the life of me, I have no idea what the Silver Key Award pertains to. The yearbook also has me listed as a member and officer of Association of Computing Machinery, something I have no recollection of.

Just before I graduated I bought my first stock. A man whose name I don’t remember persuaded a number of the local citizens that he was going to build a footwear factory in Sullivan. The name of this company was to be TAM Footwear. I believe Mom and Dad invested some money in it, and I wanted to get in on the action. I bought $100 of stock in TAM. It wasn’t long afterward that we learned the fellow skipped town. I don’t believe he was ever heard of again. So much for my stock-­‐picking skills.

Mom and Dad came up for graduation, as did Nick Nichols, who gave me a nice black Samsonite brief case as a graduation gift. I used that for many years and I took it on many of my business trips throughout the world.

Graduate CFA

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Early Professional Life Control Data Corporation 1964−1965 Shortly before I graduated I bought a really nice used car, a ’59 Chevy. Before the graduation ceremony, I had packed the Chevy with all of the personal items I could, and immediately left for Minnesota. Control Data arranged for relocating my trailer and paid all expenses of the move. I drove straight through and arrived in the Twin Cities after dark. I wasn’t used to driving in a big city, and I didn’t have any city maps. I got lost, and I spent several hours trying to find the Control Data plant in Arden Hills that I would be working at. I eventually found a motel to stay in that was nearby.

CDC: a Brief History In July 1957 Bill Norris and a group of engineers left UNIVAC to form Control Data Corporation. To finance their venture, Norris and his colleagues sold stock on the open market, making Control Data the first computer company to be publicly financed. The stock was sold at $1 per share, and $600,000 was raised. Control Data then set out to build the most powerful computer in the world. Seymour Cray as chief designer soon joined the company. Seymour later became famous for designing supercomputers, and is widely recognized as the father of supercomputing. Bill Norris became president. Both men were pioneers in developing computer technology and had left UNIVAC, formerly ERA, due to a dispute over funding a computer system under development there. Seymour had been instrumental in designing the UNIVAC 1103, a leading computer system at that time, and wanted to develop the next generation. They set up shop in Minneapolis at 501 Park Avenue in an old warehouse and decided to name the computer, the CDC 1604, derived by adding 1103 to the 501 address. The 1604 is known as the first commercially successful transistorized computer and was announced in 1958.

By the time I joined Control Data in 1964, over 50 CDC 1604 systems had been delivered. I was employee number 2327.

Control Data put me through about three months of training with other new hires. Most of our time was spent in learning the architecture and theory of computers, and, about a new computer, the 3600, which was a successor to the 1604 that was just being put into production.

Almost all of the guys were newly graduated Electrical Engineers. I was the only Applied Mathematics major. The department that hired me was Special Engineering, which designed and built specialized equipment for a given customer. My starting salary was $535 per month, which was lower than the $600 to $625 they paid the starting EE’s.

CDC 3600 Computer System 46

I found a trailer park in Columbia Heights, Hilltop Trailer Park, and had the trailer moved in. It was about fifteen minutes from the Arden Hills plant and fairly close to an apartment where four EE’s from MSM lived. We had all graduated at the same time and became good friends. The neighbor wh0 lived in the trailer next to me introduced me to Arrowhead Beer. He told me that it was really great and very cheap. I bought a case of it at a price lower than Coca Cola. When I tasted it, I found out why it was so cheap. You had to hold your nose to drink it. I finally had to throw it away as I couldn’t get anyone else to drink it. It was awful.

I attempted to get a credit card and was declined because I didn’t have any credit history. I finally got one from Montgomery Ward with a very low charge limit on it. Over time, my credit worthiness increased, and I didn’t have any problems getting additional cards. I used the Montgomery Ward Card to buy a sport coat and slacks for work.

The people in the trailer park were nice folks. A wife of one of the students who lived there offered to take care of my laundry. She didn’t charge me much, and I was glad to have her do it as Mom had always taken care of that. I learned to cook quite a few things, and didn’t eat out much. At the outset of winter, I realized that I had made a terrible mi.ake buying that trailer as it hadn’t been insulated well enough to withstand subzero Minnesota temperatures. I wrapped the water pipes as best I could with heat tape, which always seemed to burn out on the coldest nights. I spent many a night crawling under the trailer thawing out my frozen pipes with an acetylene torch and rewrapping the heat tape. I really hated that trailer. It got so cold, the big picture window in the front of the trailer had over an inch of ice form on the inside. The next summer, I sold the trailer and moved into an apartment in St Anthony at 3728 Foss Road with George Mueller, an MSM grad who had lived near me with the three other MSM grads. We each bought some furniture and set up housekeeping. The apartment was really nice.

I applied for the University of Minnesota Executive MBA program soon after I started working for CDC. They paid all of the tuition and book expenses as long as you passed the courses with acceptable grades. I started the MBA program that fall, taking two, three-­‐hour evening courses that quarter.

After completing the new hire training, I joined the Special Engineering Department. My job title was Associate Diagnostic Programmer, and I expected to be given an assignment to develop programs to debug new computer equipment. Instead, I was assigned to work along with another new hire, Mike Tremain. We were given an assignment to set up a new CDC 160G computer system at the 501 Park Avenue facility. Mike and I managed to get that job done. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be given any meaningful assignments as this one wasn’t very challenging. I think Mike was disappointed as well.

One of the Special Engineering Managers was Elmer Lalli. He called me into his office and explained that he had some surgery scheduled and couldn’t complete a project he was working on. He wanted me to complete it. He had finished the design on a black box that took analog signals and converted them to digital data. The unit was in the process of being built and he had to leave before he could check it out. I was to check out the design and install it at the customer’s facility. I was eager to get the assignment, but I was really concerned as to whether or not I could do the job since I had no experience with operating an oscilloscope, which was needed to check out the box. The only time I could get computer time was during the midnight shift in systems checkout where newly manufactured computer systems were tested before 47

being shipped to a customer. Fortunately, one of the other engineers I knew was working on that shift and taught me how to operate the scope. I checked the box out and installed it at one of Boeing’s many buildings in Wichita, KS. When I got back to Control Data, I marched into Elmer’s office and told him I was ready for my own design project.

I was lucky. The Air Force had just awarded CDC a contract for seven CDC 3600 Computer Systems, each with an IBM 1301 Disk Drive and 7631 File Controller, which required special equipment that had to be designed and built to allow the IBM equipment to work with the CDC computer. Elmer gave me that project. The equipment I had to design was called QSE 377, which stood for Quotation Special Equipment.

QSE 377 was sold to the Air Force for $37,000, and the IBM 1301 and 7631 sold for $185,000 and $56,000 respectively. Delivery by a certain date was specified in the contract, and failure to do so was subject to liquidated damages. My piece of the contract, including the IBM equipment, was almost $2 Million.

IBM 1301/7631 & QSE 377 Overview In 1956, IBM shipped the industry’s first disk drive, the Model 350. It stored 5 million bytes of information. The 1301 was a second generation disk drive and was introduced in June, 1961. It had two modules of 20 disks 24” in diameter, spinning at 1800 RPM that had a combined storage capacity of 50 Million Bytes of information, or 50 Megabytes (MB). It had one read write head per data surface and was the first disk drive to use aerodynamically designed heads that flew on a thin cushion of air as close as 250 micro inches over the disk surface. Its size approximated two large refrigerators. The 7631 controller attached to the 1301 and QSE 377. It was taller than a refrigerator and just as wide and deep. QSE 377 stood about four and a half feet tall, and it had a footprint of about two by two feet.

IBM 1301 Disk Drive

Fifty years after introduction of the 1301, the industry offered 2 Terabytes (TB), or 2,000,000 MB of disk storage, using four 3 ½” disks in a form factor approximately 4”w X 5 3/4”d X 1”h, spinning at 7200RPM for under $150 at retail. The price of the 1301/7631/QSE 377 storage was $5,555 per MB, which compares to the 2 TB disk drive cost of $0.075 for 1 Gigabyte, a thousand times more storage.

This calculates to a price reduction factor of 148,000.

The electronics that I used in QSE 377 were discrete components, transistors, resistors, diodes, and other supporting components mounted on a circuit board approximately 2”X 2”with a connector mounted on one end that was plugged into the backplane. QSE 377 used about 100 circuit boards.

These circuits were interconnected through the backplane with individual wires in accordance with the logic design.

I did the design, had the prototype built, and did quite a bit of design verification without the IBM drive and controller. I used a 160A computer to do checkout, which was a scaled down design of the CDC 1604, the size of a desk. It had 4096 12-­‐bit words of core memory and a paper tape punch. It was the forerunner to the minicomputer. I created checkout programs by inputting the code one bit at a time on the console in raw machine language. The program was then dumped to paper tape for later use. It was 48

a tedious process, and I had to make a lot of revisions to my design as a result of the flaws I discovered during testing. When the IBM equipment arrived, I hooked up QSE 377. It would not work. I couldn’t get QSE 377 to communicate with the 7631. Management became aware of this, and I was really under the gun. The liquidated damage deadline was getting uncomfortably close, and they got the best checkout engineer in the department, Bill Swanholm, to review my logic diagrams and to troubleshoot QSE 377. Bill couldn’t find any flaws in my design. They then contacted IBM and had a field engineer come out to see if the problem could be identified. The IBM guy determined that the 7631 had the reset signal grounded.

IBM didn’t use that signal and had grounded it as part of their standard manufacturing process. When that was fixed, QSE 377 and the 7631/1301worked just fine. WHEW!!

I installed one of the QSE 377/7631/1301 storage systems at Systems Development Corporation in Santa Monica, California, in May 1965. They did a lot of DOD and NSA work and were going to develop the software for the system. Another five of the systems went to Lockheed in Sunnyvale, Calivornia, in August. Those were to serve as Bird Buffers for storage of data transmitted from a network of orbiting satellites. In addition to installing the storage systems, I had to conduct a class to instruct maintenance engineers on how to troubleshoot QSE 377. IBM would maintain the 1301 and 7631.

The final system was to go to a secure site at Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California. It was still under construction, and they wanted me to install the storage system before the final touches were made as my secret security clearance wasn’t high enough to allow me in the final facility. It was the first site I visited that was completely shielded with a maze of copper baffles to prevent any electromagnetic signal leakage whatsoever. I have no idea what sort of work they planned to do there. They told me it was related to code breaking, maybe.

In August 1965, I flew into Los Angeles for the installation at Aerospace Corporation. When I landed, it was almost dark and the air was heavy with pollution. My eyes stung and the sky had a dirty, rusty tinge to it. You couldn’t see more than a mile with all that pollution. I rented a car and headed for a hotel in El Segundo. Somehow I took a wrong turn, and found myself in a rundown neighborhood. I noticed police vehicles with flashing lights blocking the street I was on. When I stopped, a police officer asked me what I was doing there. I explained that I thought I was lost and wanted to find out how to get to El Segundo. He told me, “Turn around and get out of here. This is Watts, and if you value your life you will stay in your car. Blacks are pulling whites out of their cars and beating them.” He then told me how to get to El Segundo. I had just stumbled into the area where the Watts race riots were taking place. More than 30 people were killed, and about $40 million in property damage was done over the six days that the riots occurred. I was lucky that the riot area had been sealed off.

With QSE 377 project completed, I was assigned other QSE’s to design, including an analog to digital input interface for a CDC 3000 Series Computer I/O channel, and a channel adapter that would allow 3000 Series Computers’ Peripherals to attach to a CDC 1604 Computer I/O channel, which became a standard product. I could knock out those designs and debug them really fast. I also proposed many special devices for special systems, and supplied cost estimates and technical descriptions of them.

Business started to slow down then and I didn’t have enough design work to do. I attended a class on a new mini computer, the CDC 1700. Elmer Lalli also talked to me about doing a study on a new technology 49

just introduced by Fairchild Semiconductor, an early implementation of integrated circuits. I was to evaluate the feasibility of applying them to the design of QSE’s.

About that time, I was approached by a headhunter for a position with the Defense Division of UNIVAC. My experience at CDC was what they were looking for, and they offered me a significant increase in pay, a little over 25%. When I told Elmer about it, he attempted to get a competitive counter offer. Engineering Management at CDC didn’t have much to say about that. Previously, they had tried to adjust my pay to be in line with EE’s as I was essentially doing the same work and was more productive than most. CDC’s personnel department refused to counter. I turned in my resignation. That was at the end of 1965, and I started with UNIVAC in early January.

Univac 1966 UNIVAC hired me as a Systems Design Engineer. The Division I was to work at was the Defense Systems Division in a department that had an Air Force contract to do a feasibility study of an advanced radiation hardened computer guidance system for the next generation of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. My initial job was to develop a specification for the Input/Output subsystem. This was an area I had a lot of experience in, as I was deeply involved with I/O projects at CDC. I remember doing research on various aspects of the system. It was to have a lot of analog to digital conversion capability that required extremely high precision resistor ladder circuits. It also had a PIGA, which was a Pendulous Integrated Gyroscopic Accelerometer integral for controlling the ICBM guidance.

These items, as well as other standard functions, had to be covered in the specification I was to develop.

Eager to impress my new boss, I finished the first part of the assignment in about a month. When I turned the specification into my supervisor, he didn’t even open it up. He just told me that he thought I could do better. I instantly got his message. He wanted me to generate more billing time irrespective of whether or not it was necessary. I decided to spend the next month brushing up on my college nuclear physics course. Four weeks later I wrote Revision A with a new date under the original submission date and handed it into my supervisor without changing a single word in the specification. He told me “That’s much better, Chuck”. At that time, I decided to find another job.

A couple of friends with whom I had graduated with from MSM had also left CDC. They were working with RCA International Service Company. They were Bill Cruise and Ted Raffle. One of them got in touch with me and told me what a great deal they had with RCA, and they wanted me to interview for a position that was open in their area, which I did. Within six months of joining UNIVAC, I turned in my resignation and went to work for RCA.

50

Courting Mary I met Mary Allard on a blind date that was arranged by my roommate, George Mueller, and Suzie Wilson.

Mary was born November 29, 1942 in Duluth, Minnesota. She grew up in Minneapolis and attended Incarnation Grade School and Holy Angels High School. Her family moved to Edina, Minnesota, shortly before I met her. Mary was attending the University of Minnesota, majoring in English Literature, and she was in her senior year. She had paid for most of her education by working part-­‐time in a drive-­‐in restaurant since she was twelve or thirteen years old. Her parents kept a detailed account of any money that Mary borrowed for her college education and Mary expected to pay it back when she graduated from college. Her parents graciously forgave that debt.

George was dating Suzie, and she and Mary were good friends. I remember seeing Mary for the first time when we arrived at the Allards’ home in Edina, Minnesota. George, Suzie, and I were waiting in the Allards’ living room talking to Mary’s parents. Mary must have realized she was running behind schedule and hurried out of her bedroom into the living room looking like a deer in headlights. It was January 30, 1965, and very cold. There was a lot of snow covering the ground, and we went to a restaurant for dinner.

Afterwards, we went to a cocktail lounge for drinks. It had a band and Mary and I danced. I started humming in her ear, and she backed away from me and said, “What’s the matter, are you sick?”. I also managed to step on her feet. There is no rhythm in my bones. Despite that, we had a good time and continued to date.

My Car Wrecks Mary lived about 20 miles from the trailer park where I lived. One night, around midnight, I was going through downtown Minneapolis after I had dropped Mary at her home, and was returning to my trailer.

There was very little traffic. I went through an intersection and, out of nowhere, another car T-­‐Boned me on my passenger side. The force of the impact spun my ’59 Chevy around, and I was thrown out on the street. The Chevy was totaled. My first impulse was that I might have run the light at the intersection, and looked up to see it change to amber. I then looked at the vehicle that plowed into me. The driver, a man dressed in green work clothes and a baseball hat, got out of the car, took one look at me on the ground, grabbed the hat off his nearly bald head, and ran like hell. I saw there was another passenger in the car, and thought he would be a witness for me. The police arrived and took him into custody and called an ambulance for me. I wasn’t badly hurt. I just had a small wound on my knee that required a few stiches.

The next day, a police detective came to my trailer. He explained that the fellow who was a passenger in the other car had a reliable history of amnesia while under the influence, and that the owner of the car had reported it stolen very shortly after the wreck. The passenger was a good friend of the car’s owner, and the detective wanted me to go to the owner’s house to see if I could identify him. When I met the owner, he had on the same type of clothing that the driver had, and looked to be the same height and weight. His head was also nearly bald, and he was extremely nervous. I was almost certain he was the driver, but I couldn’t be absolutely sure as I didn’t get a good look at his face. I let him off the hook.

51

My insurance covered the loss of the ’59 Chevy, but I had to find another vehicle to buy and pay the difference in cost. I shopped around and ended up buying a brand new maroon ’65 Chevrolet Impala, quite a step up. I thought I negotiated a pretty good price that included financing some portion of it at a favorable interest rate. When it came time to close the deal with the Jay Klein dealership, they explained that they couldn’t honor the interest rate as my credit wasn’t good enough. The rate they were trying to charge me was quite high and would make up for the My '65 Chevy low price they offered me. I told them I would pay cash for it, and would be back in a few days with a check. I don’t think they believed I could come up with the cash. Dad sent me a check for the difference in what I had and the car’s price. The Jay Klein people sure did hate to sell that car at the price I got. I decided then that from now on, I would only buy a car with cash and do my best to avoid car salesmen.

That was one of the few wrecks I’ve had in my many years of driving. The first one was when I was around nineteen or twenty. I was driving down Hughes Ford Road in Sullivan. It was winter, and there was a lot of ice on the street. Hughes Ford Road bends to the left just before it intersects with Main Street and there is a store next to the sidewalk. When I tried to steer the car, my Dad’s ’60 Ford, around the bend, it wouldn’t do anything except slide into the store. Luckily, I wasn’t going very fast, and the damage amounted to around $125, which I had to pay for.

The other wreck I had in Minneapolis was around 1978. I was the beneficiary of Granddad Blesi’s 1963 Chevy when he passed away, and was driving it on northbound I-­‐35W one winter day. The Minnesota Highway Patrol had halted the northbound traffic while a wrecker was pulling another vehicle from the shoulder where it was lodged in a snow bank. The pavement was dry, and I had made a full stop. I glanced in my rear view mirror and saw a truck tractor without a trailer barreling down on me. The driver hit the brakes, and smoke poured from the tires. When the truck hit my car, it collapsed the back end of my car and spun it around, absorbing most of the impact energy and preventing me from incurring any injury. This time the offending driver’s insurance company paid for the total destruction. I bought a new Camaro through a car broker, Jack Rubenstein, at dealer’s cost plus $100, all cash.

In 2002 I was returning home from visiting Mom and Dad, who were in a nursing home in Gerald, Missouri. I was on I-­‐44 heading west about five miles from Lebanon, Missouri. It had just started to snow and driving was getting difficult. I was passing a slow moving vehicle driven by an elderly couple. The driver lost control and swerved into my 2000 Buick LeSabre, and both cars ended up at the bottom of the ditch about fifty feet from the highway. Luckily, no one was hurt, but some damage was done to both vehicles. There were a number of other cars and drivers who suffered the same fate. The highway patrol arrived and called for tow trucks to get us out of the ditch. My car was drivable, and I decided to just spend the night in Lebanon and wait for the roads to be plowed. I made it home the next day. My insurance agent filed a claim against the driver of the car that ran me in the ditch. They claimed I was at fault. Since I had taken pictures of the accident scene, it was easy to show they were the ones at fault, and they then agreed with me.

Another wreck I was involved in which resulted in a claim against my insurance was in 2011 when I rear-­‐ 52

ended a Jeep SUV. That was my fault. I thought the Jeep was exiting an intersection by making a right turn. Instead, the Jeep’s driver was moving up to see if any traffic was coming towards the intersection. I too was going to move up and check the traffic out and wasn’t watching the Jeep. All of a sudden, I bumped the Jeep as it had come to stop instead of continuing on. At the time, I didn’t think it did any damage, but it did, mostly to my ’05 Buick LeSabre. The driver of the Jeep later filed a lawsuit against me in December 2012, claiming that she had suffered a whiplash. My insurance company contacted me and informed me that they would represent me and cover the expenses of the lawsuit. They had offered $3000 to settle the suit, but that was rejected. The lawyer representing the opposition asked for a continuance of the case some months later, claiming that he was unable to find me and file papers to obtain my deposition. My insurance company’s lawyer told me that this lawyer had a reputation for being the sleaziest lawyer in Tulsa. The claim was settled three years after the accident at the same amount originally offered by the insurance company.

Engagement Mary and I had frequent dates, but there were times when she was not available. I didn’t know where I stood with her, and began to date other women. This was late in the Spring of 1965. I had sold my trailer and moved with George Mueller into an apartment on Foss Road in St. Anthony Village, not far away from Hilltop Trailer Court. We held a party at the apartment after we moved in and invited a lot of friends from work. George’s date was Mary’s best friend, Barb Neary. I had a date as well. It didn’t take long for word to get to Mary about that.

Compounding that was another episode where I had asked a programmer working at CDC on a date to see a musical, “The Fantastics”, at a theater in St. Paul. As luck would have it, we ended up sitting right in front of Mary’s brother Bill and his wife Lu. The next day, I really got an ear full from Mary, especially since she had previously told me that she wanted to see that play. I think the fact that my date was a redhead may also have been a factor.

That set the stage for us to have a serious talk about dating, and we agreed to go steady. There were a lot of interesting things to do together in Minnesota. We went to a lot of dinner plays at the Old Log Theater in Excelsior, Minnesota, went ice skating, attended the symphony, canoed down the St. Croix River, and floated down Wisconsin’s Apple River in inner tubes. I got to know Mary’s parents, Bob and Dorothy, quite well as I ate many Sunday evening and holiday meals at their house.

In the fall of 1965, Mary and I had a long discussion about getting married. I wanted to make sure that we had agreement on the issues a lot of married couples had trouble with. Since Mary was a devout Catholic and I was not affiliated with any organized religion, some of the key things to work out were whether I would join the Catholic Church, how many children we would have, and how they would be raised regarding religious matters. We agreed that I wouldn’t join the Catholic Church, that we would only have two kids, and that they would be raised as Catholics and be required to attend Church regularly. I agreed to comply with the Catholic Church’s requirement for a non-­‐Catholic marrying a Catholic, namely that I would study the required material and take the required tests. We reached agreement on financial matters such as how much we would save and what we would spend. We discussed what the guiding factor would be regarding living elsewhere if a job opportunity required relocation, the types of vacations 53

we would take, and wouldn’t take, and nearly every other aspect of married life. Oddly, I don’t remember ever discussing politics.

That fall I was in my second year of the MBA Program and had scaled back my course load to one course per quarter, a good thing as the courses were becoming more time consuming. I remember that many Sunday afternoons Mary sat alone in the living room of the apartment for several hours while I completed homework that was due that week. She respected what I was doing.

I introduced Mary to my parents over Easter weekend in 1966. We drove to Missouri and stopped at my Grandparent Alexander’s and then went to Sullivan to meet Mom and Dad. She passed the inspection despite her Catholic Religion.

About the same time I got the job with UNIVAC, my roommate George Mueller changed jobs and went to work at Schlumberger. Our new jobs were close by and quite a bit south of where we lived. We found a nice apartment in Bloomington and moved there in early 1966. The winter that year was quite severe. It was rare for businesses and schools to shut down due to snow, but that year we had an extended period of snow. The snow removal crews couldn’t keep up. In the sixteen winters I spent in Minnesota, that was the worst blizzard I experienced, and the only one I can remember where most of the businesses and schools closed for more than one day. I couldn’t even get to see Mary.

By the time I talked to RCA about working for them on the Missile Test Project, Mary and I had agreed to get married. Her Dad, Bob, helped me get a good deal on her engagement ring. He worked for an insurance company, and he introduced me to a wholesale jeweler who the insurance company used for obtaining precious stones to replace items that were stolen or lost in fires. I got a very good deal on the ring.

We became engaged about a week before I left Minneapolis to work for RCA. We both realized that we would be separated for up to six months at a time and that it would be a strain on our relationship. I felt that if we could endure this, we would have a solid, lasting life together. I was right.

We packed up my household items and stored them and my furniture in Mary’s parents’ basement. I loaded up the ’65 Chevy with personal items that I would need and drove to Sullivan. I gave Dad power of attorney to handle my affairs, and asked him to sell the Chevy and use part of the proceeds to pay off the loan he made when I bought it.

54

RCA International Service Company 1966 to 1968 At that time, the Airline Pilots Union was on a nationwide strike, and I had to take a train to Florida. On Saturday, July 23rd, I caught the City of Miami train at 10:20 am from St. Louis and arrived in Melbourne, Florida, on Sunday at 3:55 pm. I then took a bus to Cocoa Beach where I rented a small furnished apartment with a kitchenette that was two blocks from the RCA facility.

Missile Test Project (MTP) The Missile Test Project (MTP) was a U.S. Air Force program operated by RCA Service Company (RCAS) from Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, under the direction of prime contractor Pan American Guided Missiles Research Division (PAA GMRD) during the 1950’s and continuing on for several more decades.

Under this program, RCAS instrumented and operated various ships and land-­‐based stations on the Air Force Eastern Test Range (ETR) with electronic tracking and telemetry equipment. The instrumented ships and stations tracked incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (‘the Cape”) and, using radar or telemetry, also tracked manned or unmanned space vehicles orbiting the earth. MTP instrumented and operated eleven land-­‐based ETR tracking stations. Among them were, Grand Bahamas Island, San Salvador Island, Grand Turk Island, Antigua Island, Trinidad, Ascension Island, and Mahé in the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean.

In 1957, the MTP began using six small Instrumentation Ships staffed with a five man technical crew on its ETR to acquire flight data from locations where land-­‐based instrumentation was not available. Those ships were instrumented with Telemetry Receiving and Recording Systems, and they supported R & D testing of the Air Force Snark, a 5000-­‐mile aerodynamic missile. In 1958, five second generation ships were added with more advanced technology. These ships made a material contribution to Intermediate Range and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles developed on the ETR, particularly Thor, Jupiter, Polaris, Atlas, Titan and Minuteman. They gathered telemetry data during the terminal phases of the test flights down to impact, and they recovered nose-­‐cones and data capsules.

In 1960, the Twin Falls, a converted WW II Victory Ship, was activated with precision tracking radar and other instrumentation designed to support R& D testing of the Army Pershing short-­‐range ballistic missile.

The Twin Falls subsequently supported other missions such as Ranger and Mariner. Two other ships, the Rose Knot and the Coastal Sentry were modified in 1960 and served as mobile tracking stations for all of NASA’s Project Mercury manned orbital missions, and later, with additional extensive modifications, supported the suborbital Gemini mission in January, 1965.

The success of the Twin Falls led to the construction of two Advanced Range instrumentation Ships (ARIS), which joined the fleet in 1963. They were modified C4 Type ships, the largest cargo ships built by the US Maritime Commission in WW II, which were used to transport troops. They had highly sophisticated radar systems, complete telemetry and timing systems, digital data handling systems, and a complex navigation center. They were equipped to acquire both missile position, or “metric” data, and signature radar data.

One was named the USNS General Arnold, and the other was named the USNS General Hoyt S. 55

Vandenberg, which was the ship I was to be assigned to. Both ships were nearly identical in instrumentation.

General H S Vandenberg, ARIS The Vandenberg was manned by a crew of 200, 75 of whom were RCAS managers, engineers, and technicians, 10 Pan Am administrative and management personnel, and the rest were civilian merchant seamen officers and crew who were provided under contract by the Military Sea Transport Service. The

General H S Vandenberg-­‐TAGM 10 RCAS and Pan Am personnel fell into two categories: long-­‐term employees who were career “Range Rats” and individuals who had a short-­‐term goal of gaining certain experience and making a lot of money for building a nest egg. I fell into the latter category, as did most of the younger engineers and techs. We put in our 18-­‐month to two-­‐year time and then departed RCA to pursue other venues. The Range Rats were highly technical and very competent in their assigned jobs. Quite a few of them had personal matters that they were avoiding, and life aboard the ship or on a down range island afforded them with shelter where they didn’t have to deal with their issues.

The Vandenberg had a C-­‐band radar system capable of precision angle tracking and multiple-­‐target range-­‐ tracking and could acquire a target the size of a basketball over 1000 nautical miles away. It also had L-­‐ 56

band and UHF radar and a telemetry system. The ship’s position and attitude were determined by a sophisticated navigation center that included a star tracker, SINS inertial navigation, precision depth recorders, etc. The data handling system was built around a UNIVAC 1206 Computer and a variety of peripherals. This system provided positioning information to the radar and telemetry mounts every 100 milliseconds in real time. It also recorded digital data that was acquired during the mission on half-­‐inch magnetic tapes. It was the primary control vehicle for mission support.

The Vandenberg had an interesting history. She was originally named the USAT General Harry Taylor and was built in Richmond, CA, during WW II for transport of troops. Some of its general characteristics: Length: 522’

Beam: 71.5’

Draft: 24’

Light Displacement: 9,950 Tons

Full Displacement: 17,250 Tons

Shaft Horse Power: 9,900

Following the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the invasion of Hungary by the Soviets, she participated in the evacuation of several thousand refugees to Australia. In 1958, she was placed in reserve, and in 1963, she was renamed the General Hoyt S. Vandenberg and outfitted as an ARIS. The Vandenberg was retired in 1983 and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in 1995. In 1998, some scenes of the horror/sci-­‐fi film “Virus” were filmed aboard the Vandenberg. She was substituted for a Russian vessel known as the Akademik Vladislav Volkov.

In 1999, she was transferred to the Maritime Administration. On May 27, 2009, the Vandenberg was sunk six miles off the Florida Keys in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary to become an artificial reef.

Her keel rests 140 feet deep on the bottom of the Atlantic, and the top of the ship is 40 feet under water.

Management, operation, and control of the Vandenberg was a complex arrangement. The Navy owned her, the Air Force funded her, the Merchant Marine provided her crew, Pan Am was responsible for her administration, RCAS operated and maintained her instrumentation, and The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCOS) called the shots on which missions she would partake in.

Orientation During orientation, I spent most of the time doing self-­‐study on maintenance manuals and logic diagrams of the computer equipment that was on board the Vandenberg. I was pleased to find out that the UNIVAC 1206 Computer had been designed by Seymour Cray, as his designs were relatively easy to understand.

RCA had to have my secret security clearance transferred, and I had to get a passport and take the immunization shots required for the assignment. They gave me tetanus, cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, and typhus shots.

I remember going out on a fishing launch my first weekend in Cocoa Beach. I caught a ten-­‐pound grouper and ended up getting four meals from it. Florida was extremely hot and humid. It would rain cats and dogs every afternoon as I was walking back to my apartment. I really got wet.

My secret security clearance had to be transferred from Univac to RCA. It finally did, and I was told I would be leaving the next day from Patrick Air Force Base on a Military Airlift Command (MAC) flight to 57

Edwards Air Force Base in California. I was to travel with four other RCA new hires, Bob Yost, Ben Dillon, Pipi LaBeau and one other whose name I don’t remember. Ben was a seasoned technical manager and was to become the new Radar Section manager on the Vandenberg. Bob Yost was also very experienced in management and had spent much of his career in foreign field service assignments. He had been involved in the modification of the Vandenberg for its role as an ARIS. He knew a great deal about the instrumentation on the Vandenberg, except for the data handling system. He was to be the NAV/DAT Section Manager, and I would work under him.

When we arrived at Edwards AFB, we rented a car and drove to Los Angeles and caught a flight to San Francisco where we were to take a MAC flight the next day to Hickam AFB in Hawaii near Pearl Harbor.

We checked into a hotel across from Union Square in downtown San Francisco, and then we got word that our departure was delayed due to unavailability of seats for us on the MAC flight. Priority was given to troops headed for the war in Vietnam. The first combat troops had been deployed in 1965, and the military buildup was going full scale. Instead, we were to fly commercial and enjoyed spending an extra day in San Francisco. We left from Oakland International on Friday, August 12th, and arrived the next day in Honolulu, HI. My job offer from RCA included an increase of about 5% over what UNIVAC paid me, plus a shipboard bonus of 15% as soon as I joined the ship. While I didn’t sign a contract, there was a gentleman’s agreement that I would fulfill an 18-­‐month assignment once I joined the ship. Since the Vandenberg was in Hawaii and outside the Continental USA, I was entitled to an additional bonus of 30% on top of the base plus 15% and, after more than 30 days at sea, that bonus was adjusted to 40%. In addition, as long as I was assigned to the ship, all of my meals, lodging, and laundry expenses were paid for, and I didn’t have any automobile payment, insurance, or operating costs. RCA also provided full medical coverage at no cost to the employee. I got two weeks of vacation per year plus four weeks of Down Range Leave (DRL) while assigned to ship duty outside the Continental USA. As soon as I stepped foot on the Vandenberg, those benefits went into effect and stayed in place until I left RCA. Needless to say, I earned and saved a lot of money from that job.

Tracking Missiles Upon arrival at the Vandenberg, I learned that there were three engineers who had previously worked at CDC and graduated from MSM with me, Bill Kruse, Ted Raffle, and Bill Wilson. Bill Kruse and Ted had encouraged me to join RCA. Bill Kruse was the Computer Lead Engineer, and I would report directly to him. Ted also reported to Bill. Bill Wilson was an Electrical Engineer who worked in the Radar area. They told me that there had been a tragic accident involving one of the main techs in the computer department before I arrived. Dick Campbell and two other technical personnel from the ship had rented a car and ended up in a wreck. They crashed into something and a timber had punctured Dick’s chest, barely missing his heart. His heart and intestines were outside his body, resting on the timber, when the ambulance arrived. He was barely alive and would not be able to sail with us on the upcoming mission.

Less than a week later, Dick was up and walking around the hospital room. We knew he would make it.

58

At the outset, I made it a practice to write Mary a letter every day, if possible, even though I would mail them in bunches. On August 17th, I sent Mary a letter proposing that we get married in June of 1967 as no one could tell me that my duties would interfere with that date.

On August 19th, one week after I arrived on ship, we were informed that we would be departing for a classified mission within 40 to 50 days. We would be incommunicado; no mail or ham radio phone patches until we completed the mission and arrived in Japan. The next day, Bill and Ted talked to me about redesigning one of the two magnetic tape handler controllers to be software and hardware compatible with each other, and also the equipment on the Arnold. I had to do it without interfering with any of the missions that the ship had to support.

I got to see quite a bit of the area around Honolulu before we sailed. I remember seeing “South Pacific” starring Howard Keel. I also learned the trick of getting booze on board without getting into trouble, an offense punishable by firing if caught. You bought the booze and then waited until the midnight watch to bring it on board. What you had to do to get past the watch stationed at the gangplank was deposit a case of beer on the first trip up the gangplank, and then you had to hide the balance of the beer under your bunk so the bedroom (BR) attendant wouldn’t discover it and turn you in. We knew we were going to be at sea for quite a long time on the first mission, and this called for a large stock to be on hand. I was really nervous about getting caught bringing my supply on board. After I got through with the first stocking, I realized that this was accepted practice, and I didn’t have anything to worry about while I was with RCA. Our sail date moved up, and we departed for the mission location, on station position (OSP), on August 29th, at 1400 hours. Apparently, the time window we were given was for one mission, but the JCOS probably obtained intelligence that required us to undertake an additional mission. The cold war with the Soviets was well underway at this time, and there was an arms race on that we couldn’t lose.

Life on the Vandenberg was full of work and very little time off while at sea. The RCAS and Pan Am personnel used the ships officer’s dining hall, which was staffed with crew members who took our orders from a menu consisting of several entrees and a variety of sides. The food was really good for the first couple of weeks after leaving port. After that, the salads disappeared and we didn’t have fresh milk or eggs. The sleeping quarters for the bulk of the RCAS and Pan Am personnel consisted of a two-­‐man double bunk room with a desk and access to a bath with shower and toilet that was shared with another two-­‐man bunk room. It had a small amount of storage for clothes and other personal items. My room had a porthole overlooking an outside walkway. It came in handy when I had to dispose of empty beer cans. My roommate was on DRL, and I had the room to myself for the first mission.

There was a large day or rec room that had ping-­‐pong tables and a film projector for showing the various entertainment films that were brought along for each mission. By the end of a voyage, some of those really got old. There was a workout room well equipped with weights, and a darkroom where qualified personnel could develop their photos.

Upon leaving port for our first OSP, we were told the Soviets were going to test an ICBM they had under development. We would be there to acquire data during reentry and impact of their ICBM. After that, we would depart for another location to acquire additional data on another launch that would impact the 59

Kamchatka Peninsula. In the event there was a surprise launch by the Soviets, we would be scrambled when we heard a coded announcement over the ship’s PA system. I believe the announcement was something like “Harvey Brown report to the SOM’s office”, and it could be made at any time of the day or night. SOM stood for Ship’s Operation Manager, and was the senior Pan Am manager on board. SIM stood for the Ship’s Instrumentation Manager and was the senior RCAS manager on board. The SIM had the NAV/DAT and Radar Managers reporting to him, and the Designated Controller (“DC”) who was responsible for coordinating communications within the ship and between external Missile Test organizations during tracking missions. Outside of the Captain, the Merchant Marine personnel really didn’t know much about what we were doing.

En route to OSP, I learned the maintenance and operation procedures of the computer equipment, which were quite straightforward. This impressed Bob Yost as he didn’t have a good understanding of digital technology, and he marveled at how quickly I learned the equipment and mission operation procedures.

The Computer Section usually had enough personnel staffing it to operate on a stretch three-­‐shift basis when the Vandenberg was OSP. Usually, there was a minimum of three Computer Engineers, two programmers, and three techs on each mission.

Vandenberg Computer Equipment

The Vandenberg was capable of going 17 nm per hour, and in a little over three days from our departure, we crossed the International Date Line, or the 180th Meridian. I was given a card signed by Captain Gallagher that I was now a member of the Domain of Golden Dragon. Several days later, we arrived on test support position (TSP) and started calibrating instrumentation to support the mission. This involved, among other tasks, verifying our exact position. The instrumentation and Navigation Equipment was capable of locating the ship’s position within a ship’s length. We used items orbiting the earth, satellites and rocket debris, etc., as well as stars to establish an accurate position. At that time there were nearly 1,000 items with known orbits that could be tracked. By 2009, that number had grown to 22,000 that were larger than ten centimeters, and more than 500,000 that were greater than one to ten centimeters large. A great many of these items could be tracked by the Vandenberg as the Computer Section had 60

parameters associated with those orbits on paper tape and could load them in the computer and point the radars towards the orbiting object.

The mission was successful, and we left for our next OSP near the Kamchatka Peninsula, which was part of the Soviets’ missile test range, and it was where their missiles would impact. We weren’t told from where the Soviets would launch their ICBM development models, but an educated guess was that they were launched at the Vostochny Yar site on the Volga River near the city of Volograd.

Several days before we arrived at OSP, an airplane flew over and dropped two chutes with some radar parts. When we arrived at OSP, the Vostochny Mountain Range was clearly visible and quite beautiful with heavy snow caps. Great care was taken by the captain to make sure we were always in International Waters and well outside the twelve-­‐mile territorial limit, as the Soviets would have loved to confiscate our ship. Our sister ship, the Arnold, had previously supported a mission there and had been shadowed by Soviet vessels. One night a Soviet tug pulled in the Arnold’s path without any lights on, apparently in an attempt to damage the Arnold, and/or create an international incident. Luckily, the captain was able to avert impact. We supported a mission that day, and I worked twelve hours.

Several days later, we supported another mission. The Vandenberg then set sail for Japan. We arrived in the port city of Yokohama around 5 pm. By that time the food on the Vandenberg was really terrible, and we looking forward to fresh provisions.

Before we arrived at dockside in Yokohama, someone took charge of shopping for the ship’s personnel.

We each created a list of what we wanted to buy and gave it to the guy coordinating our shopping. Upon docking and clearing customs, he went to several of the nearby shops and negotiated significant discounts for the Vandenberg personnel. We ended up buying about $100,000 worth of merchandise. I bought a 35 mm Nikon SLR plus a 21mm fish eye lens and other accessories, two Nikon binoculars, a Sony reel to reel 8 mm tape deck, and for Mary, a nice string of Mikimoto pearls and a beautiful yellow silk kimono. All of

Vandenberg Dockside in Yokohama

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that cost me around $1000. At that time the Yen was 360 to the US $. By 2011, it had deppreciated to under 80 Yen to the $.

This was my first trip to Japan, and we spent five days there. After I bought the Nikon camera, I decided to take the Shinkansen or bullet train to Tokyo. The Yokohama to Tokyo Shinkansen line was part of the first bullet train route between Osaka and Tokyo. It was launched in 1964, in time for the Olympics, and it had reached the 100th million passenger mark a few months before I traveled it. It went at 130 mph. Ted Raffle and Bill Kruse were with me, and they showed me the sights as they had been there previously. We visited the Emperors Palace, Tokyo Tower, and the shopping district. I returned to the ship the next day. I was impressed with the contrast of certain parts of Tokyo being very modern and others quite backward and primitive. The countryside was quite primitive.

We were told that we would be heading for the west coast after we supported another mission. On October 8th, we set sail. Jim Mauck, a radar tech, had returned from DRL, and I now had a roommate. We arrived on TSP several days later and were called up to support a mission the next day. The mission didn’t happen, and we departed a few days later, at night, for another OSP. En route, we entered an area that was in the tail end of a typhoon. Winds reached 80 mph, and the Vandenberg rolled and pitched violently.

The waves were quite large, and the Vandenberg’s top deck could barely stay above the water line when it crashed into a wave. In calm water, the top deck was about thirty five feet above water.

We were very concerned about our survival as the radar and telemetry antenna dishes limited the roll we could sustain, 35 degrees, without capsizing and sinking. Before the ship was modified for ARIS instrumentation, she could roll over and regain her normal upright position. We made a pendulum with pencil and string and marked off the 35 degree no-­‐return limits. It reached 28 degrees. The ship shuddered, for what seemed like five minutes, before it started rolling back. That was really scary.

It was tough to get anything done for several days. A lot of the ships glassware was broken. You couldn’t take a shower or shave, and my beard really felt grubby. I had trouble writing letters to Mary and gave up on that.

The seas calmed down a bit as we arrived at OSP. We discovered then that we were being escorted by a US Navy destroyer. There must have been some intelligence indicating that we might have some company, probably a Soviet submarine. The destroyer must have been there just in case. We supported a night mission. The next day, a sick crew member and another individual with a broken foot that needed an X-­‐Ray, had to be transferred to the destroyer. The seas were quite rough with Vandenberg Destroyer Escort very large waves. The destroyer bobbed up and down like a tin can. I guess that is why they call destroyers tin cans. A cable was installed on each ship’s mast, and a trolley transported them, one at time, to the destroyer. The destroyer departed a few days later.

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We received word that we would not be going to the west coast. We headed for Pearl Harbor instead.

Ted Raffle requested that he be allowed to set up a ham radio antenna. The SIM denied permission as the ship’s location was classified until we arrived in Honolulu.

When we crossed the International Dateline, the ship didn’t acknowledge crossing it so that everyone on board would have an extra day for the weekend. During this voyage, I had completed the paper design of the assignment I was given when I arrived on the Vandenberg. I rewired the tape transport’s controller and installed the electronics for the modification. I kept my fingers crossed when it was all put together and power was applied. I ran the diagnostics, and everything checked out perfectly. Not a single error was made throughout the process. What a sigh of relief.

We arrived in Pearl Harbor on November 1st and took some beach time. Bill Kruse had completed his 18-­‐ months obligation, resigned from RCAS, and left the ship. He later took a position with a Honeywell’s Division that specialized in Avionics Engineering in Minneapolis. Ted Raffle was promoted to Computer Lead Engineer, and I now worked for him. I learned a lot more from Ted than I did from Bill. He was really helpful.

Dick Campbell had recovered and was able to sail with us when we departed for another classified mission a week later. We crossed the equator en route to OSP and had a special meal to initiate the “pollywogs” into the order of the “Shellbacks”. Captain Gallagher presented each of us Pollywogs with a signed Neptunus Rex Certificate.

The Soviets had one of their Range Instrumentation Ships at OSP during a lot of the time that we were there. We heard there was a US Destroyer in the area and hoped that we would be able to send mail. The USN Berry picked mail up, and we were told that a relief destroyer would be bringing mail out. When it arrived, there wasn’t any mail for me. This mission had its problems. Some of the equipment, not the equipment in the computer area, went down for about four days before the problem was fixed. I spent a lot of time working out and walking the deck. It took six turns around the deck to walk a mile.

On Thanksgiving, the entire ship lost power around two a.m. We had no way to control her and were really relieved when power was restored four hours later. With the Soviet tracking ship nearby, we were vulnerable to being seized since we were basically adrift. Under International Maritime Law, they could have taken control of the Vandenberg. We discussed what we would have to do to protect the classified information that was in custody of the Computer Section in the event that the Soviets boarded us. Near the end of our stay on TSP, we supported a really big mission and got some great data on the Soviet’s ICBM. I worked all day and night until 6 a.m. in support of that mission.

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On December 7th, we departed for the west coast, and several days later the ham radio antenna was put up. I attempted to get a patch a number of times so I could let Mary know what was going on. I finally did on the 13th. We arrived in San Diego on the 19th, and I flew to Minneapolis on the 23rd. It was a happy reunion when Mary and I met each other at the MSP Airport. We had a great Christmas, and I gave her the Kimono and Mikimoto pearls I bought in Japan. I remember her giving me a sweater that she had knitted for me. Barb and Steve Nemesi got married just before I got to Minneapolis for Christmas, and they let Mary and I have the use of their new Pontiac GTO convertible.

They had done a lot to keep Mary company in my 1967 Christmas absence. One time they invited Mary to go out for a drink. They sat down at a table and the waitress put down four napkins, assuming that Mary had a date who would be joining her. Mary started bawling when she saw that. Our separation was quite a strain on both of us.

The Vandenberg relocated from San Diego to Richmond, California. On January 2nd, I took a flight to Los Angeles and then to San Francisco. The ship was undergoing some repairs and everyone stayed in a motel. We were paid $6 a day for lodging and $8 for other expenses. Cheap beer cost $2 a case, and Budweiser cost $4 a case.

Bob Abbot joined the Vandenberg. He was transferred from the Computer Section on board the Arnold.

Bob was a great Software Engineer, and we were lucky to have him join the Vandenberg.

I took a bus to Sacramento to visit Nick Nichols and Jack Reed. We went to Reno, Nevada with their wives and had a great time. They drove me back to San Francisco, and I gave them a tour of the Vandenberg. One of them noticed a small dish that had recently been installed on the Vandenberg and asked what it was for. It was a classified piece of equipment that not even the RCAS radar techs were allowed to operate. A fellow from one of the intelligence agencies did that. I believe it was an early version of advanced long-­‐range high resolution radar.

L to R: CFA, Jack Reed & Nick Nichols

Before we departed San Francisco, I learned that Mary and I would not be able to get married in June due to missile tests that were scheduled then. That really upset Mary. Bob Yost recommended that we 64

schedule it for the latter part of April, but we couldn’t get authorization for those dates from RCAS as the Vandenberg’s schedule was up in the air for that time frame.

During January, I attended a couple of weeklong courses on Radar Signature Analysis and Management. On February 1st, Bob Yost promoted me to Computer Lead Engineer as Ted Raffle had just resigned.

He had fulfilled his obligation with RCAS and wanted to pursue employment elsewhere.

Ted soon found an opportunity with Scientific Computer Systems in California.

One of the programmers in the Computer Section, Myron Zeissler, also quit. I was going to be shorthanded. It was a good thing that Bob Abbot would be part of the Computer Section

Vandenberg Radar Console

Our departure was delayed for about a week when the Chief Engineer of the Crew took on 6000 gallons of fuel that was somehow mixed with 4000 gallons of water. He was promptly fired. I remember going bar hopping with Ben Dillon and Bob Yost. One of our favorite haunts was a bar named Breen. They served a wicked martini, pure gin on the rocks with an olive. They called it the Breen Ball. Ben liked to hassle the panhandlers. He was always well dressed, and he would walk up to one and tell him that he had to get off this side of the street as he owned it. For some reason, they always believed him and moved on. We sailed on February 23rd for a TSP north of Honolulu and arrived there eight days later.

Data Snatch Rescue

The mission was successful, and I worked 22 hours straight. It must have been critical, as the RCAS personnel at The Cape wanted the data back ASAP. A data snatch had been arranged. The radar and computer data tapes were loaded into an enclosed capsule, and a large helium-­‐filled balloon was 65

Data Snatch Success

attached to it via a lift line. The balloon was released and floated 400 to 500 feet above the ship. A large propeller-­‐ driven military transport aircraft, probably a C-­‐130 Hercules outfitted with a skyhook, or a Fulton surface-­‐to-­‐air recovery system, flew by. Its grappling hook snagged the lift line, and the capsule flew off the deck and headed for the belly of the aircraft. Something happened, and the capsule fell back into the ocean. Panic immediately ensued. The crew launched two life boats and headed for the capsule that was nearby, bobbing in the waves. Luckily, they retrieved it with all the data tapes intact. A second attempt was made, and this time the capsule was snagged and successfully recovered by the aircraft.

Cold War Intrigue−Was it K-­‐129?

The panic that was created when the data capsule ended up in the ocean was due to the presence of a Soviet submarine that was operating in the immediate area. I didn’t learn about this until the capsule was in the ocean, but the SIM, SOM, and captain did. The Navy was aware of this submarine and had forewarned them to be alert. It would have been fairly easy for the sub to surface and take possession of the capsule. There wasn’t much that could have been done to prevent it, and the Soviets would have had a valuable treasure trove of signature and metric data on one of the United States’ most advanced ICBM that was under development. I wondered at the time how the Navy knew about the Soviet Sub being close by the Vandenberg and why it was there. It didn’t surface and couldn’t have tracked the missile even if it had. Why was it there? Was it going to attempt to recover the reentry Vehicle?

I never found out, but did learn a lot about The United States ability to monitor Soviet submarine movements at that time. I happened to be browsing Barnes and Noble bookshelves shortly after the book Red Star Rogue by Kenneth Sewell and Clint Richmond was published in 2005. The book was well researched, and it was backed up by numerous interviews of key individuals from the US and USSR to support their account of what happened to a Soviet Submarine that went missing in March, 1968. It was K-­‐129, a Golf II class submarine longer than a football field, which was armed with three nuclear ballistic missles having a range of 700 to 800 miles, and sixteen torpedoes, two of which were nuclear tipped. Ever since I read Red Star Rogue, I have been curious to learn if K-­‐129 was the sub that was near us on that mission.

The Rybachiy Naval Base on the southern part of Kamchatka Peninsula was K-­‐129’s home port. Its normal mission was to patrol the Northern Pacific in an area that would enable it to hit strategic US assets with its 66

arsenal. The US monitored Soviet submarine traffic throughout the world with a sound surveillance system called SOSUS, a super-­‐secret deep water sound detection system. The US Navy generally knew the approximate location of every enemy sub. It located the position where K-­‐129 sank, although that location is still classified.

The authors of Red Star Rogue provide a compelling set of facts to support their contention that K-­‐129 was more or less commandeered by rogue KGB Officers to launch a nuclear missile attack on Pearl Harbor.

This attack was designed to persuade the US that the attack originated from a Communist Chinese submarine that was very similar to the K-­‐129 Golf II type. The location of the attack was to have been near underwater lanes used by the Chinese submarines. The KGB’s strategy was to provoke hostilities between the US and China, thereby relieving a lot of pressure from the US on the USSR. The position where K-­‐129 sank was located, and the CIA undertook a massive top-­‐secret program to recover her from the 16,500 feet of water where she rested. A significant amount of K-­‐129 was retrieved along with the nuclear missiles and parts of the torpedoes. The remains of K-­‐129’s crew were also recovered and later buried at sea. Normally, K-­‐129 had a crew of 83. She sank with 98 on board.

I don’t know if all of this is true, except there is an admission by the CIA that K-­‐129 did sink and that they successfully recovered a significant amount of her. They deny she was hijacked by rogue KGB officers and that a nuclear strike against the US was attempted. A lot of information that could support or refute their contention has been suppressed, and a lot of competing theories seem to have emerged from various sources to further create a fog of confusion. How long will it take to learn the truth? Was K-­‐129 lurking around the Vandenberg that day? She was known to have undertaken two long missions in 1967 and was at sea approximately six months that year. History will someday dislodge the truth.

The Vandenberg then headed for the Kwajalein Atoll, which is a key asset of the DOD Major Range and Test Facility to support ballistic missile testing. The Vandenberg frequently supported tests near Kwajalein when missiles were launched from Vandenberg AFB, California.

At the time we left for Kwajalein, I didn’t know what the wedding schedule was. About a week later on March 11th, I was able to talk to Mary about it via a ham radio patch with someone in Excelsior, Minnesota. She had arranged everything, and the wedding would be on April 15, 1967. We had to coordinate the entire wedding and honeymoon over the ham radio connection with, whoever knows who was listening.

There were two more missions to support before I could depart for the wedding. I remember encountering a lot of bugs in some new software that had been sent to the ship from The Cape. I had to work 26 hours straight, except for meals, to fix it. When the ship was anchored in Kwajalein Lagoon, we could take the launch to shore and do some limited shopping. The base store was well stocked with a variety of items, and I bought a 16-­‐place setting of Japanese bone china for $187.40.

We supported another mission about sixty miles from Kwajalein on April 4th. The next day, several other engineers and I flew to Roi-­‐Namur, the northernmost island of the Kwajalein Atoll. There was a radar station there that was staffed with some PhD’s from MIT’s Lincoln Labs. We coordinated how we would handle mission communication with them.

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On April 6th, I left for Honolulu on the Red Tail, which was a Northwest Air prop plane that provided regular service from Kwajalein to Honolulu. When I arrived there, I found out that RCAS had not arranged for my flight back to the mainland. I was supposed to fly MATS, but I couldn’t unless I wanted to wait three or more days to get a MATS flight that had an available seat. I was on a tight schedule and couldn’t waste that amount of time. I decided to buy a $100.02 ticket on a commercial flight. I believe the cost covered the flight to San Francisco, a connecting flight to St. Louis, and another flight a few days later to Minneapolis.

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The Wedding −April 15, 1967 I arrived in San Francisco around midnight and called Mom and Dad to arrange for them to pick me up in St. Louis. I spent several days with them and then flew to Minneapolis. We only had a few days to finalize arrangements for the wedding. Over one hundred guests attended. Mom and Dad, Doris & Bob, both Grandparents Blesi and Alexander, Uncle John Blesi and Cousin Linda Blesi drove up from Missouri, and Nick Nichols and his wife flew in from California.

A rehearsal dinner was held the evening before the wedding. The Alexander side of the wedding stayed at the Howard Johnson Hotel in Edina, Minnesota.

When I got up, there was a lot of snow coming down. Luckily that didn’t last long and the sun came out. It was a beautiful day. I remember taking the car I rented, a yellow Mustang, to a car wash to get it nice and clean for the occasion. I then went back and had breakfast with everyone at the hotel.

The wedding was at noon at Christ the King Church in Edina, Minnesota, and it was followed by a reception at a ladies club in Minneapolis.

Bride & Groom

Parents Allard’s L, Alexander’s R

CFA GP: Alexander’s L, Blesi's R

Mary and I were so busy greeting and talking to everyone that we didn’t take time to eat anything. When we left the wedding we were starving to death. We drove to Mary’s parents’ home in Edina and changed clothes. We had reservations at the Lowell Inn in Stillwater, Minnesota, and drove there as fast as we could.

Bridesmaids and Groomsmen

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We checked in around 5 p.m., took our bags to the room, and then raced to the dining room, which wasn’t yet open. The staff took pity on us and opened it up. We were really hungry.

The next day we drove across the St. Croix River and had brunch in a restaurant in Wisconsin. From there, we returned to Mary Feeding Tourist Donkey

Beach in Front of Casino Hornosas Hotel

Minneapolis for two nights at the hotel in the downtown Foshay Tower. I remember one night we had dinner at the Radisson Hotel where there was a nightly performance of the Golden Strings, who would wander from table to table playing their violins − very enjoyable.

We then departed for our Honeymoon in Mexico. We flew to Mexico City for a week and then spent two weeks in Acapulco. On the flight down, we were served champagne. Mary couldn’t handle any more champagne.

We had a bottle from Mary’s dad waiting for us in our room in Stillwater and another at the Foshay Tower. She hasn’t been able to drink champagne since. We stayed at the Reforma Intercontinental Hotel in Mexico City and enjoyed seeing the city’s sights.

We rented a car with a driver to take us from Mexico City to Taxco where we would take a bus to Acapulco. The driver was very young and had his girlfriend with him. I didn’t think we would live through that trip. We traveled on narrow roads through the mountains. He paid no attention to which lane he should be in, and we found ourselves on the wrong side of the road a good deal of the time, especially when we were going around a tight, blind curve. Neither the driver nor his girlfriend spoke any English. I remember that the girlfriend knew every word of the songs in English as she sang along to the radio’s music.

We finally arrived in Taxco and were relieved to still be alive. When we arrived in Acapulco, we checked into the Caleta Hotel. Paul O’Leary, Mary’s godfather and a rich relative, had insisted that we stay there as 70

it was a really classy place and he always did. I realized that this wasn’t where we wanted to stay as soon as I found out what the room price was. Besides, we didn’t fit in with the hotel’s older clientele. They projected an air of superiority. The next day we found a hotel, I believe the Casino Hornosas, that was more in line with our budget and one that had guests closer to our age and liking. It was right on the beach and had a swimming pool as well. Despite the fact that the elevator didn’t always work, we enjoyed our stay there. A nice fringe benefit that RCAS had was an extra week of paid vacation when you got married. We enjoyed that.

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Back on the Range May 9th, I flew from Minneapolis to California and caught a MATS flight on a C141 at Travis AFB to Hickam AFB. The next day, I flew to Kwajalein to join the Vandenberg. In my absence, a number of personnel had been reassigned from the Arnold to work with me on the Vandenberg.

Tragedies Onboard the Arnold The Arnold was a sister ship to the Vandenberg, which was the ship I was assigned to work on. When one ship was supporting missions, the other ship was in port for repairs and updating. The Arnold had a couple of episodes that made me glad I was on the Vandenberg. Once, while it was in port in Portland, Oregon, one of the RCAS personnel went on a shooting rampage late one night. Fortunately, most of the RCAS personnel were not on board. The shooter had a pistol and would open the door to the sleeping rooms. He shot a few of the people while they were in their bunk beds. Luckily, no one was seriously wounded. I don’t know what happened to set this fellow off, and I don’t know what happened to him.

Another episode the Arnold went through was on the way back from a mission while she was headed for Japan. One of the Merchant Marine crew had a serious family problem at his home, and he had requested leave when the Arnold arrived in Yokohama. The captain declined, and that pushed the crew member over the edge. He had a pistol and went into the captain’s stateroom and hid in the shower. When the captain started to get into the shower, the man shot him several times at point-­‐blank range in the chest.

The Navy was notified of what had happened and that the Arnold’s Captain was near death. The Navy responded by flying two medics to the ship where they parachuted into the ocean. They were able to save the captain’s life.

The personnel from the Arnold were already on board the Vandenberg by the time I had arrived from my honeymoon and I was glad to finally have the Computer Section staffed at normal levels. The Vandenberg returned to Pearl Harbor, and on June 22nd, departed for Johnson Island, an atoll that had been substantially expanded through coral dredging. The island was basically used for refueling and military purposes. It was the site of some nuclear weapons above-­‐ground and underground tests, as well as launch site of a number of nuclear test missiles. There were no indigenous inhabitants at Johnson Island, only military and civilian contractors.

Before we sailed, two new RCAS personnel joined the Computer Section, an engineer and a programmer.

They hadn’t yet been on any mission, and I had to train them. In addition, I was to take over the development of Easy/Edit, a program Bob Abbott had started at the direction of RCAS at The Cape.

Easy/Edit was to be tailored for the Vandenberg’s computer system and easier to use in an operating environment. Easy/Edit was a low-­‐level programming language that was one step above machine language. It was a simple language directly matched to the native computer, or machine language. It basically converted mnemonic instructions to binary machine language. Bob had made a lot of progress on it, but he had been given another programming assignment and didn’t have time to complete Easy/Edit.

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We stopped at Johnson Island and several of us went ashore for a brief meeting. We then departed for TSP to support another shot several days later. The mission was to start at 2 a.m., but it couldn’t as there was some unknown electrical noise interference with the instrumentation. The problem was finally identified as an alarm bell that was stuck and radiating electrical noise. The Bell sounded when the radars were ready for use. No one was allowed on deck as radar emissions were dangerous if you were exposed to those them. That was an expensive malfunction. The mission was scrubbed at 5 a.m., and the next day we headed back to Pearl Harbor.

On June 2nd, we departed on a two-­‐month-­‐long mission, and we would be incommunicado the entire time.

We had a new SIM who was just promoted and in charge of all of the RCAS personnel. Three days from departure, we were scrambled late at night to support a mission to track a missile that the Soviets had just launched. We couldn’t acquire their reentry vehicle as we weren’t in range of it. The SIM called me to his stateroom after the failed attempt and demanded to know why we couldn’t track the ICBM. I could tell he was drunk, and I explained that we were so far away that it was next to impossible to acquire the target.

That seemed to placate him, but I could tell that he was really remorseful and was blaming himself for the failure. I heard that he had been drinking since we left for the mission. The next day the SIM resigned, and I believe Ben Dillon was appointed to take over as acting SIM. The SIM departed the Vandenberg when we returned to Port. I later learned that he committed suicide. What an awful tragedy.

Several days after the failed mission, we received word that the Soviets were launching another ICBM. We worked for six hours attempting to acquire the target and collect data, but we didn’t get any. Two days later, I discovered a computer programming bug that prevented the radars from pointing correctly. I don’t know if that was what prevented us from acquiring the target on the mission the SIM resigned over.

I believe the ICBM was out of range of our radars and the program bug wasn’t the cause of failure.

When They Tried to Kill Us We arrived on OSP and found a Soviet tracking ship there. Something had happened to our agent, and we had no clue when the Soviets were going to launch the next ICBM. We started shadowing the Soviet ship to monitor their electromagnetic emissions as they would need to calibrate their instrumentation before a launch. That would be the only clue we would have that a launch was imminent. Otherwise, we would not learn of it until it after the launch and the ICBM was in flight and picked up by our radars based in the Alaskan Aleutian Island chain. Without the intelligence from our agent, we did not know what trajectory the ICBM would follow. We knew the coordinates of the launch and the impact. For the first time since I graduated with my Applied Mathematics degree, I solved differential equations for several possible trajectories. We selected one that was judged to be the most probable.

The Soviet ship started radiating emissions, and we got quite close to her. We expected that a launch was coming and started calibrating our instrumentation. All of a sudden the Soviets shut down their calibrations and just drifted away from us. We also shut our calibration efforts down and stayed in place.

We concluded their launch had been scrubbed, as it sometimes was. Not so, all of a sudden the Aleutian radars picked the bird up. We loaded the trajectory in the computer and pointed the radars accordingly.

We immediately acquired the target. The RCAS radar techs chatter over the ship’s internal mission communication system went something like this; “DC, we’ve acquired target”, a few minutes later, “Wow, look at those boxcars (radar data they observed on the operator display). They’re beautiful”. Some 73

minutes later, “My God, the receivers are saturating. The f_ _ ing thing’s gonna hit us”. KABOOOM went the explosion. I heard it loud and clear. The computer room was located below the water line and I could not only hear it, but I felt its vibration. The Soviets had armed the reentry vehicle with enough explosives to destroy the warhead. They were suspicious that the US could retrieve it and wanted to prevent that. In fact, we could. I later learned the US had advanced technology for deep water recovery. Years later, April 15, 1995, I heard an explosion almost identical to that one. I was sitting in my office three quarters of a mile from ground zero when Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.

All of the RCAS personnel hurried to the topside deck to see where the Soviets were. Their ship was positioned over a mile away, and they launched a helicopter to fly over the Vandenberg. They shot some video of us. The entire RCAS contingent gave them the one-­‐fingered salute.

Joe Cousins, a tech in the Navigation Section, had managed to take video of the ICBM’s reentry and impact. He developed the film and showed it to the RCAS personnel that night. You could see the explosion as the reentry vehicle impacted the water. It was less than a half mile from where the Vandenberg was. The Soviets did a good job of luring us into the impact zone and lowering our guard.

Despite all of that, we really got a lot of high quality data on a key weapon they were developing.

My Final Missile Test Missions The next day we headed for Kwajalein. Since we were going to support US launches, the ship’s status changed and we were not incommunicado. The ham radio antenna was put up, and we could use it. The RCAS contingent developed a case of low morale as we weren’t informed when we would be returning to port, what our next mission would be, or where our next port would be. Many of them threatened to quit. Bob Yost planned to take DRL when we finally got to our next port, and he asked me to fill in for him.

That gave me time to learn about the Navigation Section, which reported to him, before he left.

Bob gave me my annual performance review and recommended a nice raise of 8.5%. We arrived at Kwajalein, and I went ashore and bought a 16-­‐place set of silverware for $20.80. Our family used that for 40 years before it was retired. RCAS yielded to the poor morale and increased the ship board bonus from 15% to 20%.

I was kept busy with a program sent out by RCAS from the Cape that had not been debugged. We supported a shot on July 19th near the Kwajalein Lagoon and headed for Johnson Island a few days later for another mission over a week later. We then headed for Pearl Harbor and docked there on July 31 st.

After we left Kwajalein, I wrote performance reviews for all of the personnel who reported to me. I gave one of them a bad review, and I put him on a performance improvement plan. This fellow was the most senior person under me and had joined the ship when we last left Hawaii. His résumé read like he could walk on water. He was a Senior Systems Engineer and was paid accordingly. I unsuccessfully attempted many times to get him to accomplish something useful, but he didn’t even make an effort. I discussed this with Yost and told him that I was going to terminate this guy if he didn’t improve by the time we arrived in Hawaii. Yost told me I was wasting my time, that the RCAS management at the Cape wouldn’t allow me to fire the guy. When we arrived at Pearl Harbor, I told Yost he hadn’t changed his behavior, and I wanted 74

permission to fire him. Yost discussed this with the management, and they gave me the requested approval.

On August 2nd, the Vandenberg departed for the US mainland. We arrived, I believe, in San Francisco on the 8th. The Vandenberg was going to undergo extensive dry dock reconditioning and instrumentation upgrades, and it was relocated to a shipyard on the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, on the 17th. She was scheduled to be there until February 15, 1968.

The Great Northwest The entire complement of RCAS and Pan Am personnel rode the ship to Oregon and sailed down the Columbia River to Portland. I was awed with the scenery. It was magnificent, especially from the vantage point aboard the Vandenberg. The Vandenberg was to have its radars, telemetry, and computer systems replaced with state-­‐of-­‐the art systems. Quite a few of the RCAS staff and some of the Pan Am personnel presence would be required to provide technical liaison with the contractors during the upgrade process.

Since the ship would not be staffed with Merchant Marine Crew and there would be extended periods without electrical service on the ship, everyone was to find onshore living accommodations. RCAS gave each one of us $14 per day to cover lodging and meals, more than what it cost most of us. Dick Campbell quit RCAS to go to college.

Vandenberg in Drydock-­‐Portland, OR

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I rented a one-­‐bedroom unfurnished apartment for $120 per month plus utilities. It was on the second floor and had a nice kitchen, bedroom, and balcony. The apartment was about twenty minutes from the shipyard. It had a great view. You could see the hills on the west side of Portland, Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Rainer from the balcony. Bob Abbott and his wife lived nearby. I also bought a used 1960 two-­‐door Dodge for $395. It had quite a few miles on it. I ended up driving that car for almost two years before it finally gave out.

While en route to the West Coast, I talked to Mary via ham radio, and I asked her to come to Portland during the Vandenberg’s upgrade. When that was complete, I would resign my employment with RCAS, and we would return to Minneapolis. I wanted to finish my MBA and thought I could get a good job in the Twin Cities and finish it in the evening Executive MBA Program. Finally, we could begin our married life together.

The month after Mary graduated from college from the University of Minnesota in March, 1965, she was employed by Honeywell’s Defense Systems Division in Hopkins, Minnesota. She majored in English and her job was editing technical manuals pertaining to submarine torpedo weapons and weapon proposals.

She had a Secret Security Clearance. The Vietnam War was underway and it wasn’t unusual for her to encounter protests when she went to work. Mary lived with her parents and was dutifully repaying the loans her parents gave her to cover college expenses.

Mary resigned from Honeywell and packed up a couple of boxes of household items for shipment to Portland. She flew out to meet me. During the flight, she smoked her last cigarette. On my way to meet her at the airport, I finished my last cigarette. When we started dating that was one bad habit we both had.

When we became engaged, we both vowed to stop smoking, but as soon as I left for the job with RCAS, we both started again. When I returned for Christmas, we both stopped temporarily, as we did when we got married and took our honeymoon. This time we really did kick the habit. I had started smoking when I joined the Army. By the time we quit, I was going through two and a half packs a day, the equivalent of $220 per year in cost. In 2011, that would cost about $9000 per year just for the tobacco. Never mind the cost to one’s health. I remember dreaming that I started smoking again several years after I quit. I got so mad at myself in my dream that I woke up.

Initially, I kept pretty busy coordinating with the contractors who were doing the ship’s upgrades. In addition, the Cape kept Abbott and me busy debugging programs that they sent out. When the ship was placed in dry-­‐dock, it was difficult to concentrate on doing anything. I remember sitting at my desk in the computer room and the shipyard construction crews would be operating a jack hammer one to two decks above me as they were tearing up the concrete decks. It was deafening. I looked forward to lunch time and would go back to the apartment to have lunch with Mary and have some time together. We had a lot to catch up on.

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Ultimately, the ship’s upgrade progressed to the point that there were not many days that I could actually work. Mary and I used that time to explore the great Northwest in our little ’60 Dodge. You could drive in any direction from Portland and see completely different scenery, the ocean to the west, Columbia River Gorge and the desert to the east, the Cascade Mountains to the south, and the beautiful state of Washington to the north. We travelled all over Oregon and Washington states, Seeing Oregon in the '60 Dodge and closed down several state parks as the winter approached, including Crater Lake. We really enjoyed taking frequent day trips and bringing along a picnic lunch to enjoy along the way. We still have the Coleman cooler we bought MEA at Crater Lake at Fred Meyer in Portland to pack food for those picnics.

We had an extended period of power outage and took about a week exploring western Canada. We visited the City of Vancouver and travelled throughout British Columbia and Alberta, putting a lot of miles on the Dodge. In Alberta, we drove through Jasper and MEA at Multnomah Falls, OR Banff national parks and visited Lake Louise. We drove through National Parks Glacier, Yoho, and Kootenay in British Columbia. That was quite a trip. We really enjoyed the beautiful rugged scenery in the Canadian Rockies.

That winter, we drove in the mountains near Portland, and we harvested a blue spruce for our Christmas tree. We also brought back a bucket of snow and threw snowballs at some of our neighbors. I remember walking around a park in Portland with Mary New Year’s Eve and seeing roses in bloom. Portland was near sea level, and it was rare to see ice or snow on the lower levels.

MEA at Lake in Canada

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You could see some snow on the western hills at times. We did experience a rare snowfall on the lower levels once while we were there. Portland had a lot of great restaurants and cultural activities. I became especially fond of a downtown Oyster Bar that served those tiny Yakima Bay Oysters. They were delicious.

We took in our first opera (at least for me), La traviata. Anna Moffo was the soprano and star of the performance. It was a beautiful performance, and I thought I could become an opera regular.

Nick Nichols and his wife were living in eastern Oregon, Ontario, and they visited us for a weekend. I remember they gave us an electric can opener as a gift. I thought that was rather extravagant. Nick and Marge knew their way around Portland and took Mary and me to a night club. It turned out to be a strip joint. I think they just wanted to see the shocked expression on Mary’s face when the act started. One of the things that we loved was going to the local fish market on the Columbia River and buying fresh salmon that had been caught the same day. You could buy half a side of salmon and feast on it for a week. It was a real delicacy.

I don’t remember when it was, but Ben Dillon became severely ill, and he was admitted to a hospital in Portland. It turned out to be cancer. He progressively worsened and finally died. I really thought a lot of Ben and was saddened with his passing, as were the other RCAS and Pan Am folks.

The Vandenberg’s upgrade was progressing and nearing completion at the beginning of February. I turned in my resignation effective February, 23rd, and sent letters with my résumé to three firms in the Twin Cities: Univac, Control Data, and Electrical Mechanical Research (EMR) requesting an interview when I arrived in Minneapolis. They all responded affirmatively. I said goodbye to Bob Yost and the Computer Section guys as well as other ship mates, and then we departed Portland.

Back to Minnesota−March 1968 Mary and I took our time getting back to Minnesota. We headed down the Pacific Coast, stopping in San Francisco, enjoying the 17-­‐mile drive near Carmel, driving through Big Sur, and stopping at the Hearst Castle. We took in Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm in the LA area before we went to Las Vegas.

Mathematician that I was, I had worked out a surefire get rich fast scheme. We were going to be millionaires, and I had budgeted, I think, $20 for each of us to gamble with. About twenty minutes from placing my first bet on the roulette table, I hunted up Mary who was doing just fine playing the nickel slots. I had an improbable streak of bad luck and just knew I could beat the odds, if only I had a few more dollars. Mary reluctantly gave me $10 more, which I promptly lost. I have hated gambling ever since.

We continued our trip, driving by the Grand Canyon and over Route 66 to Sullivan, Missouri. We had our wills drawn up there and visited old friends and relatives. We then headed for Minnesota, arriving there in time for my first interview on March 12th. We stayed with Mary’s parents and spent the next several weeks interviewing and checking out possible places to live once we knew where we would be working.

Mary interviewed with Honeywell, Univac, and Control Data. I interviewed with Univac, several divisions of Control Data, and EMR. I received job offers from each interview. Mary also received offers from each of the companies she talked to. As soon as I accepted Control Data’s offer, Univac withdrew their offer as they didn’t want her if I would be working for a competitor. That would be considered discrimination

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today. Mary accepted Control Data’s offer. We both had good starting salaries, with me at $1000 and her at $535 per month, not the highest offers, but not the lowest either.

Since Mary and I would be working at Control Data’s Arden Hills facility, we rented an apartment that I had previously lived in at 3728 Foss Road in St. Anthony Village. It had two bedrooms, a nice kitchen with a dining room, and a large living room. It was on the ground floor overlooking the grounds and opposite the parking lot. We moved our furniture from Mary’s parents’ home and started work on April 1st.

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Control Data Corporation 1968−1991 Systems Management 1968−1971 I had interviewed with both the Special Systems Division and the Standard Systems Division for a Systems Management position. I accepted the Standard Systems position and would work for Dewy Thoms in the 6000/7000 Systems Directorate. I had worked with Dewy during my first job with CDC, and as soon as he saw my résumé he called me directly. The Systems Directorate was responsible for project management of 6000 and 7000 series super computers, the most powerful computers of that period. The System Manager had overall project responsibility to insure that a customer’s contract was fulfilled in accordance with the contract terms, technical specifications, the schedule, and the allocated dollars. It involved a lot of coordination with the factory, field service personnel, site preparation, and the customer. These systems sold in the range of $2 to $15 million. A lot of the customers had special requirements that involved creation of engineering and programming changes.

The 6000 and 7000 Computers and the peripheral equipment: tape drives, card readers, disk drives, extended core memory, etc., occupied a lot of space. The computer room had to be environmentally controlled and the electrical power regulated to exacting specifications.

The equipment was installed on a raised floor plenum cooling and cabling system. All of the equipment cooling was under the raised floor. Site preparation was an involved project.

CDC 6600 Computer System

Mary ‘s job was in the publications department. They were responsible for writing, editiing and publishing technical manuals for the equipment CDC produced. Mary’sposition was technical editor. We worked in the same building and our jobs required secret clearances.

I knew a number of the engineers in both of the divisions I interviewed with. I found out that Elmer Lalli had been terminated.

He was my supervisor at the time I resigned from CDC when I left for UNIVAC. Right before that, Elmer had assigned a project to me that he had to take over when I left. That project involved the MEA Seated at Computer Console evaluation of the integrated circuits that Fairchild Semiconductor had just brought to market for use on CDC’s QSE projects. Elmer had given management a recommendation to use the circuits on a major expensive project. The design did not work, and Elmer was the fall guy. That could have been me.

I handled a lot of different customers: Fleet Numeric Weather Facility in Monterey, California, Los Alamos Lab, New Mexico, Kirtland AFB Weapons Lab, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Babcock & Wilcox and other firms engaged in nuclear energy research. All of these customers needed the fastest available scientific computers. I also handled a lot of university accounts that were early adapters of distributed computing.

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CDC had developed an Operating System (OS) that allowed remote terminals to time-­‐share the computer system. The OS was called Kronos and was developed primarily by Greg Mansfield, a brilliant systems programmer. It was a forerunner to network computing.

Systems management was a great experience for me. It involved a lot of different disciplines, and it was a great way to learn about project and business management.

One of the Systems I was responsible for was a CDC 6400 System for the Flour Corporation in Los Angeles.

They were a leader in big petrochemical plant construction projects worldwide and wanted to use the system for management of their massive inventory. This was basically a business application, and it required a data base management capability. CDC did not have much experience in this arena, scientific yes, commercial no. The contract required a major software development effort. Marty McHale was designated to lead this development program, which required a lot of ground to be plowed that CDC was not familiar with.

Marty soon fell behind schedule, and he was under a lot of pressure to make it up. He told Bob Eisenhardt, the division General Manager (GM), that part of his problem was the lack of a system to check out the code. He complained that I wasn’t responsive in getting what he needed. That was news to me as I had everything scheduled that he needed in accordance with the schedule he requested. I remember Bob and Marty confronting me on this. Bob chewed me out royally while Marty looked on. I didn’t say anything in my defense only that I would see what I could do. That must have impressed both Bob and Marty. Not long long after that Bob promoted me to Manager of ten System Managers. Marty finally got the database working, and I coordinated delivery of the system and was successful in getting it accepted and paid for by Flour.

The Division seemed to be in a perpetual state of reorganization. I found myself reporting to a different manager on a regular basis. Business dropped off, and my Division was consolidated with another Systems Management organization in Plymouth, Minnesota. I was relocated there and had a 45-­‐minute commute.

CDC also reduced its workforce across the board by 10%. Each organization had to totem pole their employees according to performance and other criteria. The bottom 10% were terminated. CDC also cut everyone’s pay by 10%, and everyone had to take two weeks off to offset the reduction in pay. Several months later, further consolidations were made as a result of business continuing to drop. The Systems Management headcount had to be reduced and that meant there would be fewer managers. The original Plymouth organization had Managers who were quite a bit more senior than I was. I ended up being assigned to report directly to the Division GM, Norm Dufresne. It was a lateral assignment. I realized that they wanted to protect my job, and would restore me to management when business conditions improved. My new job was to develop a process for providing the manufacturing organization with an 18-­‐ month sales projection of computer products. I didn’t have a lot of enthusiasm for that job.

My Injuries Mary started working in the Technical Publications Department of the Standard Systems Division at Arden Hills. We commuted to work together. We enjoyed being back in the Twin Cities and taking advantage of its many venues. During the first winter we were back, we planned a party and invited a number of our friends. Before the party, Bill and Mary Lou Kruse and Mary and I went ice skating. This was the first time 81

I had been on skates since we returned to Minneapolis. I was doing just fine, and I thought I would jump over an imaginary barrel. I picked up speed and jumped about six inches high. When I came down on the ice, my ankle gave way and I fell down. I couldn’t get up, and my ankle really hurt. Mary Lou felt my ankle, and she told everyone she could feel the broken bones.

Mary took me to the Brooklyn Park Hospital, and Bill and Mary Lou went back to our apartment to host the party. I was operated on, and the doctor put my ankle back together, screwing pins on each side. I got out of the hospital in a few days and was on crutches for most of the winter. Mary had to drive me to work, and she would drop me off at the front entrance. I remember being concerned that my crutch would slide out from under me when I encountered ice on the sidewalk, but that never happened. I finally healed and went to my doctor’s office to have my cast and pins removed. He sawed the cast open and removed it. He then took a pair of pliers and screwed the pins out. He didn’t give me anything to relieve the pain, and I thought I was going to pass out while he was unscrewing those pins. That was the most pain I have ever endured. It must have been close to what women suffer when giving birth.

My next encounter with a hospital, as a patient, was in 1988. We had moved to Oklahoma City, and I was working for Control Data’s operation there. One morning I noticed that I was having some mild soreness in my side and thought it was due to having worked out on a new machine at the gym. I had to go to Minneapolis the next day for a short meeting. When I returned, I was feeling pretty crummy. I rationalized that there was a lot of flu going around in Minnesota and that I had picked it up. Several days later, I was shaving and looked in the mirror. I looked like death warmed over. I knew something was wrong. I went to work, and as soon as my doctor’s office was open, I called for an appointment. The doctor spent a couple of minutes examining me, and he told me to walk across the parking lot to the hospital for admission. That night, Dr. Gelnar finally operated on me and removed my appendix. He told me that I would have died if I hadn’t been in such a good physical condition, and also the fact that there were some new drugs available to counter all of the poison I had in me from five days of that leaking appendix.

I stayed in the hospital for about a week before I was released. It took me about a month before I recovered enough to be close to normal. I couldn’t even drive to Missouri a week after being released.

Mom and Dad had their Golden Anniversary celebration, and Mary had to do the driving.

My next hospitalization occurred in October, 2002. Mary and I had spent several days visiting Dad and taking in some of the Ozarks fall foliage. Dad was in the nursing home in Gerald, Missouri, and not doing well. When we returned to our home, I experienced difficulty breathing. The next day it seemed a lot worse, and I had a lot of pain. Mary had already left for work at the State Capital. I called her, and I told her that I was afraid something seriously wrong with me, maybe a heart attack, and that I was going to drive to Mercy Hospital’s emergency room. She thought I should call an ambulance, but I drove instead. I was checked out, and they couldn’t determine what the problem was, so I was admitted. A lot of tests were run, including x-­‐rays and MRI scans. Dr. Adler concluded a blood clot had lodged on one of my lungs.

I spent a week in the hospital under observation. Dr. Adler put me on Coumadin, a blood thinner, and restricted me from any workout activity for four months. Doris called my home on October 22nd, the day after I was admitted, and found out that I was in the hospital. She called me there, and I learned that Dad had just passed away.

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I had a couple of other injuries involving broken bones. In 2005, I had an oversized, 12-­‐year-­‐old neighbor kid knock me down during a basketball-­‐related episode. I hit the concrete driveway really hard and cracked my ribs. The pain reminded me of what it felt like when I had the blood clot.

The other instance was several years later during a family ski vacation at Solitude Mountain Ski Resort in Utah. I had only skied downhill once, about 20 years before. I didn’t plan to downhill ski this trip, just to do a little snowshoeing and cross country skiing. Daughter Jennifer had other ideas. She coaxed me on to the bunny slope and praised my skiing skill. Ultimately, I ended up on an advanced (for me anyway) slope.

I should have known better than to go out in the afternoon after a fatiguing morning of skiing. Going down that slope proved to be more challenging than I expected, especially with a lot of kids zipping around on snowboards. I ended up falling and breaking my left wrist. It took about six months to regain normal usage of my wrist.

In 2012 Mary and I were driving to Austin and I started noticing that my vision was acting up. The dashed lines separating the lanes seemed to be diverging to the left. I could shut my right eye and see normally but couldn’t when I tried to see using only my right eye. Dr. Gourley examined me and concluded that I had scar tissue on my right eye’s retina and would have to undergo surgery. The scar tissue was caused by the fluid within my eye solidifing and damaging the retina, not uncommon for people of my age. I regained normal use of both eyes almost immediately following the operation with the exception of a small spot that blurred my vision near the point where I focused my eyesight. This gradually improved over the next year or so to a smaller blur that was somewhat off of the point of my focus.

Starting the Family Mary and I took a trip in the summer of 1969. The 1960 Dodge had given out, and we bought a 1969 Buick Skylark. Mom and Dad wanted to meet Doris and Bob and us in Cheyenne, WY, for the world famous Frontier Days Rodeo in July. We started our trip travelling through South Dakota and visiting Mount. On July 20th, we stayed in a little town north of Cheyenne; I believe it was Lusk, Wyoming. That night, we watched TV in our Best Western Motel room and saw Neil Armstrong, Commander of Apollo 11 spacecraft, set foot on the surface of the moon. There was a tremendous thunderstorm, and rain was coming down in buckets. The TV kept cutting in and out, but we got to see most of man’s first step on the moon.

We met everyone in Cheyenne and had a great time watching the parade and the rodeo. Mary and I continued on our trip, visiting The Grand Teton and Yellowstone National parks. From there, we drove through Idaho and to Ontario, Oregon, where we spent a few days with Nick and Marge Nichols. We returned to Minneapolis via Montana and North Dakota. We visited Mount Rushmore, the Custer Battlefield National Monument, later renamed Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, where Lt. Colonel Custer and 263 US Calvary fought several thousand Sioux and Cheyenne Indian Warriors on June 25 and 26, 1876. All US personnel perished, and the event has become known as Custer’s last stand.

Mary and I visited my parents in Sullivan, Missouri, several times a year, usually over the holidays. I don’t think Dad was happy with the fact that Mary was a Catholic, and he would make frequent comments critical of Mary’s religion. That all ended when Dad gave her a bad time for going to church on a Saturday 83

evening and causing dinner to be delayed. She had enough of that and really told him off. That was the end of Dad saying anything disparaging about her religion. I think she gained a lot of respect from Dad for standing her ground.

Mary and I were not getting pregnant, and we visited a doctor to find out why. Mary was put on fertility drugs. These drugs were quite new and the doctors were very cautious with Mary and monitored her constantly. She finally got pregnant around July, 1970. We were relieved as we were beginning to doubt if she ever would.

A month later, we learned that Mom and Dad were having problems with their marriage. Dad was working at the Sullivan Community Hospital. He had started there as Maintenance Engineer, and he took over as Hospital Administrator in September, 1963. At that time the hospital was operating in the red. He turned that around and in 1964, Sullivan’s hospital was one of the few profitable ones in the state of Missouri. The hospital was expanded in 1965 with the addition of 17 beds, bringing the total to 52. In 1969, the hospital qualified for some Hill-­‐Burton grant money. It was expanded significantly with added ancillaries, another operating room, treatment rooms, x-­‐ray, lab, and a kitchen.

Dad was under a lot of pressure dealing with the construction at the hospital. In addition, city politics entered into the picture. The mayor maneuvered behind the scenes and hired an inexperienced individual as assistant administrator. Dad also became involved with a young married woman who worked at the hospital. Mom became aware of this, and their marriage was nearing the breaking point. The pressure of the job coupled with the affair culminated in him resigning from his position as Hospital Administrator.

Mom told me that she was relieved that Dad had resigned. She could see that he was as well. It was a big load off his shoulders. He decided to take off and look for work outside of Missouri, and he left for Oregon. He was gone for over two months.

Mom visited Mary and I near the end of September. It was clear that she didn’t want to leave Dad, and she was in hopes that they would remain together. Dad returned in early November. Dad started building homes again, and Mom and Dad reconciled. They had a happy marriage for the rest of their lives.

Mary and I planned to build a home. We decided to continue renting until we had saved for it. In the meantime we started looking for a building lot. We checked out North Oaks, a gated community with large lots and an abudance of woods and lakes. This was an exclusive area, and we decided that we would try and buy a lot there. The North Oaks Company (NOC) owned all of the undeveloped land. It was part of the railroad magnate James J. Hill’s farm that he bought in 1883. Subsequent generations of Hill would periodically release new lots for sale in limited numbers.

In the spring of 1970, a new section was opened up. We checked it out, but we didn’t know what the prices would be. The NOC advertised that the area would be sold on a first come, first served basis. They set the date in June that the lots would be available for sale. Mary and I had determined which lots we wanted to buy, and as soon as we got the price list, we raced to double-­‐check the lots we had on our list.

By the time we got back to the NOC office, our number one choice had been bought. We ended up with number two and paid $9,500 for it. The entire amount was financed by the NOC at 5% annual interest

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with principal and interest payable in five annual installments. Mary and I wanted to pay off the lot before we built a home.

The doctor restricted Mary from any extensive travel. We weren’t allowed to fly or take major car trips for fear of inducing miscarriage. Jennifer Elizabeth Alexander was born on April 25, 1971. We were overjoyed. Mary worked at CDC until a month before Jennifer’s birth. Our apartment was supposed to be adults only, but Mr. Mortenson, our landlord, agreed that we could stay after Mary gave birth. Right after Jennifer was born, we bought our Blesi Great-­‐grandparents W ith Baby Jennifer first TV set. Six weeks later, we took a vacation and visited Mom and Dad and my Blesi and Alexander Grandparents to show off Baby Jennifer. We stayed with them several days and then drove thru the Ozarks, visiting a number of scenic areas.

Jennifer weighed about 5.5 pounds at birth. She hadn’t gained much more weight by the time we took this trip. I remember some of the people we met along the way were shocked that we would take a baby as small as Jennifer on a major trip. I had the feeling they would have called the cops on us if they could have. Anyway, Jennifer was a happy, Alexander Great-­‐grandparents With good-­‐natured baby, always smiling at people, and she didn’t suffer any Baby Jennifer from our “abuse” of her.

The University of Minnesota had an eight-­‐year time limit to complete all of the requirements for my MBA Program. As soon as I returned to Minneapolis from working for RCAS, I resumed the program and took one course that spring. One of the more demanding courses was Government and Business, which was taught by Professor Ericson. He assigned the class a number of books to read and to write a paper on.

These books were by prominent economists and each one had a different philosophical underpinning.

Authors included were Kefauver, Polanyi, Hayek, Galbraith, etc., ranging from socialist Polanyi to free market Hayek. I really got a lot out of this class. The best grade I made was on the paper I did for the Hayek assignment. The book was “The Road to Serfdom”. Professor Erickson gave me an A with the caveat that I wasn’t critical enough of Hayek. I had completely agreed with Hayek’s thesis.

The MBA Program I was enrolled in was a Plan B Program, which required that I write three major papers on subjects I selected, but they had to be approved by the faculty. The three were approximately equivalent to a Master’s thesis. I completed the required graduate courses in December 1970, and still had to do the Plan B papers. The eight-­‐year time limit would run out by the start of the fall quarter in 1972. I finished all three Plan B’s by May of 1972 and applied for graduation. I was surprised to learn that I had not completed some undergraduate courses, sociology and basic economics. I couldn’t understand why that was required since I had satisfied all of the graduate level requirements. I protested, but it fell on deaf ears. I would not be able to get my MBA degree if I didn’t take those courses during the summer, which I did.

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After getting the MBA degree, I continued to take a number of graduate-­‐level courses in accounting, investment, and finance. In total, I took 63 hours of graduate and six hours of undergraduate courses.

We had some good friends, Barb and Steve Nemesi, who we did a lot of things with. Steve was from Hungary and was just a small child when the Soviets invaded Hungary. His family was able to get out with just the clothes on their backs and a few other necessities. Steve was a Mechanical Engineer and worked for a manufacturer of air conditioning equipment. Barb had been a good friend of Mary’s since before high school. She worked for Bell Telephone, and supervised a number of telephone operators. We spent a lot of weekends together and would take turns having each other over for dinner.

They lived near Lake Minnetonka, and Steve and I spent a lot of time fishing. We usually went fishing over Memorial Day weekend on Lake Winnibigoshish at the headwaters of the Mississippi River.

We usually had a couple of other guys with us, and we stayed at McArdle’s fishing lodge.

After Mary stopped nursing Jennifer, she resumed taking fertility drugs. The doctor told us Mary could not take those drugs for more CFA W ith Walleye Catch on Lake Winnie than a year, as they were so new that there wasn’t a lot of patient history on the long-­‐term effects. At the end of that year, she still wasn’t pregnant and had to stop taking the fertility drugs. We were really depressed. Two months later, Mary discovered she was pregnant. Boy, were we happy.

When Mary started showing, I talked to Mr. Mortenson about staying in the apartment for a couple of more years. I couldn’t persuade him to bend the rules. So Mary started looking for a house to rent. She found a three-­‐ bedroom home with a large backyard, perfect for the kids to play in. The owner, Odd Brathen, was a retired Norwegian who rebuilt classic Cadillacs in a large garage behind the house. When he found out we had two kids, he told Mary he wouldn’t rent to us. That really upset her, and she read him the riot act. He backed off and agreed to rent to us. He said he would move in the basement and board up the stairwell.

He would use a staircase that was in the breezeway as a separate entrance into the basement. The home was located at 2817 County Road H in Mounds View, a St. Paul suburb.

Our Home at 2017 CountyRoad H

We moved in before Brian was born on October 28, 1973.

Moundsview, MN Odd was really happy having us as tenants, as we didn’t disturb him and made sure the house and yard was well taken care of. Mary was a great housekeeper and I put in a nice garden. Jennifer attended preschool at a school close by the house, which was in the Mounds View School District. We stayed there for almost three years. In August 1976, we moved to our new home that we had built in North Oaks.

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Terminal Systems Development (TSD) 1971−1974 Marty McHale contacted me in December, 1971 while I was working for Norm Dufresne in Systems Management at the Plymouth, Minnesota, facility. Marty had taken over the development of equipment at the Terminal Systems Operation (TSO) in Roseville, Minnesota. He was the Director of the Terminal Systems Development organization and was shaking the organization up. He wanted me to apply for a Program Manager position that had been posted for his organization. I was not happy with my new job and decided to find out more.

Development Program Manager Marty had just hired Ravi Bakshi to head up the Program Management Department. Ravi told me that there was little coordination between development, manufacturing, and sales. Marty wanted to have a focal point to do the project management. Another fellow from Systems Management, Frank Wasmer, and I went to work as Development Program Managers for Ravi.

The development programs I was responsible for involved the R&D of a Terminal Facility, which had a programmable mini-­‐processor that controlled multiple devices: CRT with keyboard, character printer, line printer, card reader, tape cassette, and a magnetic drum storage device. In addition, development of the controlling firmware, software, and diagnostics was part of the project. I didn’t have any people reporting directly to me, I but had the authority to coordinate the development activity to meet schedule and stay within budget. This was a new role at TSD. I wasn’t appreciated by the line management as they weren’t used to anyone meddling in their affairs.

The mini-­‐processor was the forerunner of the computer chips Intel developed for the personal computer.

It was the Intel Model 4004, a 4-­‐bit central processing unit (CPU), the first complete CPU on a single chip.

It was also the first commercially available microprocessor.

TSO was losing money and had to undergo some belt tightening. I believe we had to lay off about five percent of the employees in TSD. Although I didn’t have anyone reporting to me, I was privy to the list on who was to be terminated. I saw that one of the best engineers, Joe Hood, was on the list. He worked in Chuck Pence’s Section and was difficult to deal with. Joe had tunnel vision, and his field of vision was limited to a few words at a time. It took him a lot longer to read a spec, but his power of concentration and deep analytical skills overcame that deficiency. The problem was that Chuck didn’t always agree with his recommendations.

Joe was very persistent and a thorn in Chuck’s side. This layoff was a convenient way to get rid of Joe. I went to bat for Joe, and I became a real nuisance to Chuck until he finally caved in to me and took Joe off the list. I never told anyone about this. It was just between Chuck and me.

Systems Engineering and Analysis After I headed Program Management for three or four months, Marty asked me to establish a new function. He was frustrated that our sales and marketing people would make proposals to customers for products that were dreamed up. These sometimes turned into contractual commitments. Little if any detailed thought went into these proposals. Marty wanted to gain control of the process, and I was to establish a function that would take a proposal for custom terminal subsystems and do the analysis to 87

determine technical feasibility, establish the technical approach, generate a cost and schedule to develop the proposed hardware and software, and provide a manufacturing start-­‐up and recurring cost estimate.

I recruited about ten senior engineers, programmers, and analysts to staff this function. It was quite a crew, and we had a lot of work. In April, 1972, Intel introduced the first 8-­‐bit microprocessor, the Intel 8008, which had four times the addressable memory of the Intel 4004. The market was hungry for intelligent computer terminal systems for all sorts of applications. My organization was kept really busy with a lot of new interesting proposals to work on.

Software was one area I had trouble staffing for. Personnel was on the lookout for a Senior System Software Analyst for me. They found one, Grady Jefferson, and gave me his résumé. The personnel guy was very excited about that. I couldn’t understand why he told me that I had to hire him. He hadn’t even met Grady. His résumé looked good, but until I interviewed Grady, I didn’t want to make a decision. The personnel guy told me “Chuck, don’t you understand that this guy will help me meet my goals?” I asked him what he meant. He said “He’s black, and we have EEO goals to meet.” He had picked up on his name and concluded that Grady was a black. It was more important to the personnel department to meet their EEO goals than it was to hire the best people for the job.

I interviewed Grady, who was black, and thought he was qualified, and made an offer. Grady accepted.

Up to that point, I hadn’t thought much about racial discrimination. The first fellow I was assigned to work with at CDC in 1964 was Mike Tremain, a black. I also worked for Walt Colymore who was one of the General Managers in the Systems Division when I was a manager in Systems Management. I liked Walt a lot. He was also black. I suppose I had limited exposure to blacks when I was growing up. In fact, Sullivan didn’t have any blacks living there and none attended the schools in Sullivan, and very few blacks attended college with me. I have always judged people on their ability, character, ethics, and never on race.

Manager, ALS Program In April, 1972 CDC was awarded an $87.4 million contract by the US Air Force for an advanced real-­‐time inventory control system. It was the Advanced Logistics System for the seven Air Force Air Material Areas (AMA's). There were seven CDC Cyber 70 (CDC branded almost every major product as Cyber this or that).

The Cyber 70 was the brand for the next generation of CDC 6000 series and 3000 terminal devices as part of the contract, plus a tremendous amount of software development. TSO had the responsibility to develop and manufacture the terminal equipment, which had a contract price of $20 Million.

Chuck Pence was appointed the ALS Program Manager. He was responsible for staffing the program, developing the custom terminal subsystems and manufacturing the terminal equipment. He completed most of the program development and was just starting the manufacturing when Marty McHale made the decision to pull him off the project. Chuck’s new assignment was to head up the standard product development. Marty promoted me to be the new ALS Program Manager. The program was staffed with 60 engineers, programmers, technicians, and manufacturing personnel. During my tenure, the development was completed, and most of the manufacturing was done. This assignment lasted six months. The program team was then disbanded. I learned a lot.

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A number of years later, I met Marty at a Comdex trade show in Las Vegas. He had been promoted to oversee some of the Cyber Computer Manufacturing facilities and was considering me as a candidate for the General Managers position for the CDC facility in Mississauga, Canada. When he learned that I had recently built my home in North Oaks, he decided not to pursue me as he thought it was poor timing . I appreciated the consideration.

Systems and Integration (S&I) By the time the ALS Program was wrapped up, TSD was deeply involved with developing standard products that utilized the new Intel chip sets. I was given the job of managing development of some of those products plus creating a new function called design verification that would make every attempt to eliminate technical bugs before the products went into manufacture. I had 40 personnel in four different units reporting to me, two units for firmware development, one unit that developed software diagnostics and one unit that did the design verification. It also had technicians that troubleshot problems in the field.

I had one outstanding programmer that I promoted to manager. She was one of the few female managers in TSD. I remember Sam Parks, an Executive Consultant who was viewed by CDC Headquarters as a technology expert and a visionary. He was enamored with the Intel microprocessor and Intel’s roadmap for future offerings. He was never short on grand ideas, and he sold Bill Norris and a lot of other executives a lot of blue sky. He came up with a concept he called the Modular Terminal Controller (MTC). Sam didn’t bother with details, just concepts. He oversold what other people would have to develop, and he presented unrealistic schedules and costs. Every time Sam made a presentation at headquarters, it would result in a lot of work at TSD putting facts together to keep from getting railroaded by his grandiose proposals. I think almost every major technology organization has its Sam Parks.

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New Business Development 1974−1980 CDC developed a marketing strategy to focus on various industries that were thought to be prime prospects for CDC’s computers and services. A number of Industry Management Offices (IMO) were set up and were headed up by senior executives and support staff. The IMO had the charter to develop a strategy to increase market share in the targeted industries and to execute that strategy. Walt Collymore was the General Manager of the newly created Transportation IMO. I had worked for Walt when I was in Systems Management at Plymouth, Minnesota. He hired me to be the financial analyst for the Transportation IMO. About a week after I started, I was approached by Bill Fuhr who worked for the Vice President who TSO reported to, Tom Bassett. They had just been directed to find a business partner who would fund the development of a plasma terminal display, and they needed someone to take charge of that. My involvement with TSO made me an attractive candidate. I really hated to let Walt down, but I thought this alternative was a better career path and would be a lot more interesting than crunching numbers as a financial analyst. Bill Fuhr was the General Manager in charge of business development for Tom Bassett, and I would report to him in this role.

Plato One of the pet projects Bill Norris had was Computer Based Education (CBE). A grand strategy to improve classroom productivity using computer and telecommunication technologies was developed. It was based on using CDC Cyber 70 Systems with a time sharing operating system, educational software (courseware), and remote graphical terminals that provided a vehicle for the students to interact with the Cyber 70 through the courseware. The computer system that was to provide CBE was named Plato.

CDC had been working closely for several years with the University of Illinois at Urbana, and a great deal of feasibility work had been done on a number of pioneering technologies Plato was to incorporate. The vision was to provide the students with the ability to interact with Plato using speech and touch-­‐sensitive terminal screens. Courseware provided the students with the instruction, testing, and monitoring functions. In addition, the courseware required that the terminal have not only character display but graphical display capability. Plato was to be the first system to combine graphics and touch-­‐sensitive screens.

In 1973, CDC settled a four-­‐year old lawsuit with IBM. CDC brought the lawsuit against IBM to curtail them from announcing paper tigers. IBM had announced a new version of the famed System/360, Model 92, which would be just as fast as CDC's 6600. This machine did not exist, but that did not stop sales of the 6600 from drying up as customers waited for the mythical Model 92’s release. Bill Norris did not take this tactic, dubbed as fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD), lying down, and he launched an extensive antitrust lawsuit against IBM. CDC received an $80 Million cash settlement, and IBM’s Service Bureau Corporation (SBC), which ran computer processing for other corporations on its own computers. The terms of the lawsuit required CDC to apply the cash settlement towards directed research. Plato required that level of 90

R&D funding and then some. Everything except the interactive graphics terminal was covered by the IBM settlement.

CDC had laboratory work underway in their Government Systems Division (GSD) on plasma technology that was suited for the CBE terminal. Plasma was ideal for Plato as students working for long periods of time with the screens did not fatigue since plasma screens do not flicker and can display graphics. At the time, the biggest challenge to implementing terminals with plasma screens was the development of cost effective display electronics. In addition, plasma screen manufacturing required a significant investment in the manufacturing equipment. Plato needed $20 Million to develop and startup the manufacture of plasma terminals.

The Education IMO presented the Plato business plan to Bill Norris and the Executive Management Committee. Bill indicated approval. The IMO VP asked Norris how development of the Plasma terminal was going to be funded. Bill told him to find a rich widow. When asked who a rich widow was, Bill replied “Oh, those Arab #*&#$’s. They’ve got all that oil money.” Bill used colorful language.

Iran − Computer Terminals of Iran (CTI) Doing the Deal The Government of Iran was identified as a prime prospect to partner with. CDC had a presence in Tehran with Control Data Institute (CDI) and a sales organization. CDI provided training to the Iranians in computer technology, and the Government had a number of CDC Computer installations. The Shah of Iran had a thirst for advanced technology and wanted to modernize the country through manufacturing that could be exported. The plasma terminal for Plato fit the bill. Given that Iran was lacking in any advanced industry and still had a commerce mentality based on bargaining at the bazaar, the question in my mind was, how do you convince the Iranians to part with $20 Million to develop technology that wasn’t even out of the laboratory.

Part of Bill Fuhr’s past was in proposing highly classified advanced technology programs to the various US Government agencies. He helped me a lot in putting the proposal together. Tom Bassett had been one of the top executives in GSD and solicited help. One of the guys, Ken Boyer, I believe was his name, had led various proposal efforts there and was assigned to help me. He had access to graphic artists. The two of us generated the proposal. It was on a flip chart and in color. It almost convinced me we knew what we were doing.

The concept was that the Government of Iran would fund the development of the plasma terminal, and CDC would do the R&D with the participation of Engineers from the Iranian Government. This development would be done at CDC’s TSO facilities in Roseville, Minnesota. When the development was finished, a Joint Venture (JV) 51% owned by CDC and 49% owned by the Government of Iran would be established, CTI. Somewhere in Iran a factory would be built and equipped to manufacture the terminals, which would be bought by CDC for sale with Plato. CDC was to have management control and hire the CTI JV Managing Director. The plan was presented to Norris and the Executive Management Committee and they approved it.

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Ken and I scheduled a trip to Iran to present the proposal to the Iranian Government. In Tehran, we met John Menoundakos who was the salesman assigned to the project. I hadn’t met him before, but I was aware of his reputation. One of the System Managers I supervised at Plymouth was responsible for a CDC customer in New York, The Port Authority of New York. John was the salesman on that account and had a reputation of misrepresenting CDC to the customer. John arranged for a meeting to present the proposal.

We met with Admiral Ardalan who was in charge of Iranian Electronics Industries (IEI), Dr. Saied Haeri, and Mr. Mansori.

Dr. Haeri obtained his PhD in Electrical Engineering with a minor in acting from a prominent university in England. He was in his early thirties and had married an English woman who was a bit of a feminist. She had her own talk show on a radio station in Tehran that was broadcast in English. Mr. Mansori was Dr. Haeri’s assistant.

I thought the presentation to the IEI people went well. When we got back to the CDC office in Tehran, John Menoundakos exploded. He told us that the presentation was terrible and the price of $20 million couldn’t be supported. I knew that he was going to be next to impossible to work with.

When we returned to Minneapolis, I learned John hadn’t wasted any time lobbying Bob Schmidt, the Senior Executive Vice President of Marketing, to take me off the project.

Naturally, my version of what happened didn’t coincide with John’s, and I was retained on the project.

The initial visit was followed up with a total of 12 more through 1978. CDC retained the law firm of Oppenheimer to provide me with legal support. Oppenheimer was the firm that L to R: Mansori, Menoundakos, Haeri & CFA represented CDC in its antitrust suit against IBM. Dick Moen was the attorney, and he was on most of the trips that involved contract negotiations. I remember one of those trips. Since Oppenheimer didn’t have any presence in Iran, they found a law firm in Tehran that had experience with Iranian intellectual property law, Ghania and Tavikola. We needed to understand if Iranian law would conflict with the proposed contracts we had drafted. We visited their office and had to wait for a half-­‐hour before we could see one of their lawyers. The room we were waiting in was lined with Iranian law books. Quite a few were in English, and I perused a few of them and was amazed at the explicit descriptions of various criminal sexual acts. I didn’t know there were so many ways sex could be performed.

The Hotel InterContinental was first class and convenient to the CDC Tehran Office. We always tried to stay there, but usually had to slip the front desk clerk some money, baksheesh, to motivate him to double check and “find” our reservations. That usually did the trick. On some trips, the CDC Expatriates who staffed the CDC Office in Tehran would be traveling, and we were allowed to stay in their homes. They lived in the prime real estate area, the hills above Tehran, and they had lavish quarters. On one of the 92

trips, Dick Moen and I arrived several days before Bill Fuhr did. We were staying at a villa that the CDC Controller occupied. He and his wife had returned to France for a holiday. We were to meet Bill at the Mehrabad Airport, and had arranged for a taxi to pick us up at the villa and take us to the Airport. As we were leaving the villa, I realized we didn’t have its address, and I wasn’t sure if I could get the taxi driver to wait for us at the airport. The neighborhood was a real maze, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find our way back. I really concentrated on memorizing the way out of that neighborhood. We picked Bill up but had to get another cab. I was amazed I got us back.

During one of the visits, Admiral Ardalan invited the CDC people to dinner. John Menoundakos told me that only two people from CDC were invited, Bill Fuhr and himself. The next day, Bill informed me that Admiral Ardalan was disappointed that I wasn’t feeling well enough to attend and had a place at the table set for me. GREEKS!!

The Education IMO had to report on the progress of the Plato project on a regular basis to Bill Norris and the Executive Committee. CTI was often a subset of the presentation. I was the only one who hawithd detailed knowledge and had to be present during the presentation. One time I went to the meeting and was the only one from Bassett’s organization there. Norris didn’t appreciate that and demanded Bassett get his ass in the conference room. When Tom arrived, Norris really grilled him. It was obvious that Tom hadn’t had much to do with the project. He became more involved after that.

Negotiating the contract was a frustrating experience. Dr. Haeri was my counterpart. I had made several trips with Dick Moen to negotiate the various legal documents that covered the deal. By the time we got through, it was several hundred pages long. I was under a lot of pressure to get the deal done. There was a lot of front end cash IEI would pay when the agreement was approved by both parties. Tom Bassett called me into his office and told me that if I got the deal done before the end of the year, he would make sure I received a nice bonus. I decided to go to Iran and not leave until that was achieved. Dick Moen and I went to Tehran.

A lot of the contract had been negotiated, but there was still a lot left to do. We would meet with Dr. Haeri one day and agree to some of the terms and conditions. The next day Dr. Haeri would revisit what we had already agreed to. I could see that this wasn’t going anywhere and told Saied that at the end of each day, we would both initial each item we agreed to that day. He agreed, and we started making good progress. Even so, it took me a full month to get everything agreed to and signed off.

After I returned to Minneapolis, the bean counters got involved as they needed to reflect the deal in the financial forecasts. Ed Strickland was the Senior VP reporting to Norris. He had oversight for developing countries and had made a few trips to Tehran. He called me into his office to understand the financial aspects of the deal. Ed prided himself in understanding sophisticated financial matters, but he didn’t really understand how the deal would flow from a Profit and Loss standpoint. I found myself at odds with his interpretation and tried to get him to understand the transaction. He gave up and got another VP of Finance involved who could translate the deal into a Corporate forecast.

When it came time for the bonus to be paid, Tom Bassett said that I hadn’t earned it as CDC hadn’t signed off on the agreement before the end of the year. That really upset me, and I told Bill Fuhr about Tom’s 93

commitment to me. I had made detailed notes in my notebook about what he had told me, and I showed Bill those. He made a copy and talked to Tom’s boss. I got the bonus. Even though the agreement hadn’t been formally approved by the end of the year, CDC booked the payment that year. I later did an analysis and found out that CDC would have lost money that year without that payment.

Harry Ashbridge took over the New Business Development function that reported to Bassett. Harry was hired away from Telex where he did a lot of their Merger and Acquisition work. Bill Fuhr and I reported to him. I was glad to be removed from being under Basset. On my next trip to Iran, Harry told me he would arrange for me to stay at the Hotel George V in Paris when I returned. I think he was trying to make up for the way Basset treated me. The Hotel George V was one of the top hotels in Paris. On my return, I stopped in Paris and remember landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport. I encountered Ex Vice President Spiro Agnew on my way to baggage claim. He was avoiding eye contact. I don’t think he would have acknowledged his mother. I stayed at the George V for one night. It was very suffocating with all of the pretentious stiff guests who stayed there. I ate by myself in the dining room, and wished I had found a quiet outdoor café instead. I did manage to liberate an official Hotel George V ashtray as a memento.

Setting up CTI CDC set about developing the Plasma Display, and a number of Iranian engineers joined the development team in Roseville, Minnesota. Jerry Horsager was the General Manager in charge of developing the Plasma technology. He joined me on one of the trips I made to Iran. John Menoundakos hosted a dinner at a night club in Tehran one evening. Dr. Haeri, Mr. Mansori, Jerry Horsager, and I attended. Jerry was feeling a bit under the weather and had a touch of diarrhea earlier that day. I had told him to take some Lomotil as that worked for me during the frequent diarrhea episodes I experienced in Iran, especially during the very hot summers. I cautioned Jerry to be careful about drinking as alcohol and Lomotil did not mix well together. Jerry took some Lomotil and had his diarrhea under control by the time we went to dinner.

One of the main dishes we had was Beluga Caviar and Vodka that was served in a bottle caked in ice. The caviar was served with condiments and washed down with the iced vodka. I really enjoyed the Beluga Caviar. I was keeping an eye on Horsager and noted that he had started the meal with ice water. He was sitting next to Menoundakos. As the evening wore on, I noticed Menoundakos replenished Horsager’s water glass with vodka. A short time later, belly dancers appeared and starting dancing. They danced from table to table. As they neared our table, Horsager stood up and shouted for them to dance on top of our table. He proceeded to grab the table cloth, wrap the dishes in it, and clear the table. Two of the Belly Dancers got on top and danced for a few minutes. I knew what Menoundakos was going to report.

Horsager and I got back to Minnesota a few days later. I was immediately called into Bassett’s office with Bill Fuhr. Menoundakos had gone to Bob Schmidt and painted a story that was designed to get Horsager fired. I gave them my version of what happened, and Horsager kept his job.

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The factory was to be built in Shiraz, Iran. I went there with John and a few others to take a look at the site. While we were there we took a side trip to see Persepolis, which was about thirty miles from Shiraz. This was the site of an elaborate 2,500-­‐year celebration of the Persian Empire in October, 1971. It marked the founding of the Iranian monarchy by Cyrus the Great. The intent of the celebration was to demonstrate Iran's long history and to showcase its contemporary advancements under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Persepolis, CFA Right the Shah of Iran. Most of the world’s rich and famous descended on Persepolis for this event. It was an extremely lavish affair. The main attraction at the time of our visit was the ruins. We stopped in one of the only hotels, a Sheraton, for a drink. I remember sitting in the lobby and watching a small mouse skitter across the marble floor. Funny how small things like that stick in your mind.

One of the men who was with me was Bill Armstrong. Bill worked for CDC in LaJolla, California, in the division that had taken over Product Management responsibility for the CDC 1700 Computer System. I was trying to sell some of the CDC 1700 technology to IEI as CDC was starving the CDC 1700 of R&D funding. Bill made the product presentations in Tehran. He was not comfortable with being in a country that was run by a dictator, especially with tales that SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police, kept an eye on a lot of the foreign businessmen.

Also, Bill didn’t care for the food. I had persuaded him to try Cheol Kabab, the national dish of Iran. I thought it was delicious. Chelo Kabab consisted of grilled tender young lamb that was served on piping hot rice, which was mixed with a raw egg. The hot rice cooked the egg. I think the raw egg bothered Bill, and I don’t think he liked lamb. He wasn’t eating much on this trip.

We were in Shiraz and taking a taxi to a meeting. I was in the front passenger seat and Bill was behind me.

In the side view mirror I could see a guy on a motorcycle approaching us in the right lane. The motorcycle had a butchered goat strapped in back of the driver. The goat had been skinned, and its head was swaying to and fro with blood running over the goat’s head and neck and dripping on the road. Dark smoke was spewing from the motorcycles exhaust. I said, “Bill, don’t look now, but tonight’s dinner is about to pass us.” I thought Bill was going to throw up.

Driving in Iran was a terrifying experience. I relied on John’s driver or taxis to get around. Very few American’s drove. It seemed that the right of way was determined by who was in front, even by a nose.

Americans called it “The Rule of Nose”. There was a heavily traveled street in front of the Hotel InterContinental that intersected another street. It was controlled by a traffic light. As soon as the light turned green, the traffic would race each other and if the car on the right was a little ahead of the one on the left, that driver could turn left and the other driver had to yield. That led to a lot of accidents. When that happened, the drivers involved in the wreck got out. They would stand next to their cars and negotiate. The driver that had the right of way would watch the other driver lay down money on the car’s hood until the other driver indicated enough had been paid. That negotiation didn’t cover damages, it was just to get an agreement to move the cars so the police wouldn’t get involved. When the cars were 95

moved out of the way, negotiation on how much the damages would cost started. Rule of Nose-­‐what a system.

I remember leaving for the airport one time. I had finished my trip, and I had ordered a taxi to take me to Mehrabad Airport. It was early in the morning and the InterContinental Bell Captain instructed the driver where to take me, and made sure that the amount I was to pay was settled. The cabbie started driving, and right away I felt that he didn’t know the way to the airport. He went up an exit ramp on a new highway and drove right through the oncoming traffic. I was really glad that it was quite early, and the traffic was light. I didn’t think I would survive that ride. He finally exited on an entrance ramp near the airport. I didn’t give him a tip.

There was a young bellhop at the InterContinental who was always trying to do favors for me. He wanted someone to sponsor him so he could find a way to get to the USA. I felt badly for him, but I couldn’t get involved. I liked the Iranian people. For the most part, the ones I dealt with were polite and friendly, and very family oriented. I did experience a sense of hostility from John’s driver. He was a devout Muslim and observed the prayer rituals. I could tell he resented me and the other CDC people who were with me.

CDC had the management responsibility for the CTI JV and had to find a Managing Director to move to Iran and oversee it. Bill Fuhr asked me if I wanted that job. I didn’t have to think about it. Bill had a hard time finding candidates. He finally found a willing prospect, Jay Kershaw, who had a long distinguished career with CDC. He had been involved in a lot of high-­‐tech projects and had a background in manufacturing. Jay was ready for one last challenge before he retired.

Jay and I traveled to Iran together. As was my practice, I usually broke up the very long trip to and from Iran with a one-­‐ or two-­‐day stopover somewhere in Europe (London, Paris, Athens, Rome, Zurich, or Amsterdam, etc.) to diminish jet lag. On this trip, we stopped in Rome. As usual, our bags got lost at the Leonardo da Vinci Airport. It seemed the Italians couldn’t figure out how to handle baggage, or they would be engaging in their national passtime, striking. I would have to go back to the airport the next morning to claim or find my bags in the lost baggage storage. I really got to know that airport.

Jay was an early riser and he walked all over Rome the morning after our arrival. He discovered where the famous restaurant, Alfredo’s, was located and we decided to have dinner there that night. Jay wanted to have an early meal, and we opened the place up. It turned out Alfredo had a rule that he would personally serve the first customer of the evening. We were there first, and Alfredo fixed Fettuccini Alfredo at our table.

One weekend while we were in Iran, Jay and I were offered one of CDC’s drivers to take us to the resorts on the Caspian Sea. The mountains separating Tehran and the Caspian Sea were really rugged and steep.

The roads were unpaved and quite narrow, but the scenery was stunning. Jay and I had a good time when we got to the Caspian. There were a number of casinos, and we stayed at one. For the most part, they were deserted. One of the things I remember was that the people were much different in that area. They were quite a bit shorter and had different facial features than elsewhere in Iran.

On one of my trips into Iran, I was flying Pan American Airways. The flight originated in London and made numerous stops along the way. One stop was Damascus, Syria. We landed there and were parked on the 96

tarmac. A mobile stairway was used for disembarkation. I didn’t want to go into the terminal, but I thought I would stretch my legs on the tarmac. When I started to exit the plane, there was an armed guard blocking me. He had an AK-­‐47 and looked very stern. I decided it was a good idea to stay on board.

Several days later, I was reading the International Herald Tribune in the coffee shop at the InterContinental. I saw an article about an airplane being hijacked at the Damascus airport by a guard.

That may have been the guard I saw. I don’t really know.

I did travel around Iran somewhat in connection with CTI site selections, and I visited Tabriz and Esfahan, two of Iran’s larger cities. I remember visiting the bazaars there and in Tehran. It was an amazing experience. You could buy just about anything, that is, if you wanted to spend the time required to haggle for a good deal. When you would throw up your hands and begin walking away, the price or deal always got better. I regret I didn’t buy any handwoven rugs. Some of the expatriates made a fortune when they sold them after they left Iran following the fall of the Shah.

One of the things I learned at the bazaars from Dr. Haeri was the ready access of cassette tapes with recordings from radical Imams who had been exiled. I wondered why the Shah seemingly allowed this since the SAVAK could have easily stopped it. I believe this was instrumental in fueling the discontent who was building against the Shah. Technology strikes again.

There was fierce rivalry between Iran and the rest of the Arab world. The Iranians are not Arabs; they are Persians. I attended an evening meeting at the Tehran Sheraton with some CDC Corporate VP’s and Admiral Ardalan and Dr. Haeri. We waited in the hotel lobby for the meeting, and I picked up a magazine.

I believe it was the British magazine, “The Economist”. It showed a map of the region with the Arabic Gulf on it. The word Arabic was crossed out and Persian substituted in its place. The other thing I remember about that meeting was the Hookah. After the meeting, someone ordered a Hookah. The tube and mouthpiece was passed around. It was offered to me. I hadn’t smoked for about ten years and didn’t want to again, but I thought I would never have another opportunity to try a water pipe, so I took one, and only one puff − most unsatisfying.

In 1978 the Plasma Terminal development was nearing completion, the factory in Shiraz was under construction, and the manufacturing equipment was being procured. Jimmy Carter was the President of the United States, and he seemed hell-­‐bent to destroy the Shah. He suspended sale of parts the Iranian Air Force needed to maintain their fleet of military aircraft that had been procured from the USA, and undertook a number of other actions that contributed to undermining the Shah. Even though the Shah was a dictator, he was a benevolent one, and one of the few strong allies the US and Israel had in that part of the world.

In the 1960’s the Shah introduced a number of reforms known as the White Revolution. These were aimed at eliminating a lot of the adverse social conditions in Iran and improving living standards for the general population. Some of the early reforms included land reforms and abolishment of feudalism; privatization of government-­‐owned enterprises; sharing of private enterprise profits with the workers; providing women with the right to vote and many more.

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By the 1970’s, the White Revolution was bearing fruit. Land reform, increased literacy, the enfranchisement of women, higher living standards, and industrialization was radically transforming the country. Internationally, the Shah had emerged as an essential Western ally with a major security role in the Middle East and with one of the fastest growing armed forces in the Persian Gulf. Jimmy Carter destroyed all of that. Iran was taken over by radical Islam headed by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Iran became the world’s leading terrorist country. He traded a valuable progressive ally for a regime that was to become the number one threat to world security. End of editorial.

My last trip to Iran was made in January, 1979. The Shah left Iran for exile January 16, 1979. Almost immediately, Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile and began to take over the country. Dr. Haeri planned for this, and got his wife and two children out of the country to England. He had a forged passport, and he walked out of Iran to Turkey. He ultimately made his way to the US. One cold winter night he appeared at Bob Schmidt’s home, looking like a bum. He only had the clothes on his back and no money. Bob took him in and later arranged for him to interview Hughes Aircraft for a job, which he got. I don’t know what happened to Admiral Ardalan or the other Iranians I met, except for Admiral Ardalan’s boss, General Toufanian. He was executed by the new Islamic regime. The occupants of the posh residential neighborhoods in the hills above Tehran changed from the supporters of the Shah to the supporters of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

After the fall of the Shah, I was always concerned that my passport contained Iranian visas. While infrequent, there were a number of situations where terrorists attempted to, or actually did hijack commercial air flights. If that happened to me, I thought that would put me at risk if the terrorists discovered my involvement with the Shah’s regime. I was relieved when my passport with those Iranian visas expired in July, 1982.

Around-­‐the-­‐World One of the trips I made with Bill Fuhr was an around-­‐the-­‐world trip. We started out in Vienna, meeting with the CDC sales folks, and then we went to Iran where we had meetings with IEI concerning the fit-­‐up of the Shiraz manufacturing facility. The mood of people we met with was one of gloom and despair. It was doubtful that the Shah could hold onto his power much longer.

When we departed Tehran, we were flying Air France and were next in line for takeoff. All of a sudden a snowstorm swept down from the mountains and dumped a lot of snow on the airport. All of the planes had to be deiced. We thought we would be first in line, but it turned out we were last. Air France opened up the bar while we waited. I think it was drunk dry by the time we were deiced and took off. I later learned that Air France had inadvertently confused a highway that was under construction near the airport with a runway and had landed on that. The Iranians took this as an insult; being put at the end of the line for the deicing was payback.

The first stop this plane was to make was in New Delhi, India. I hadn’t been to India, and thought I would at least disembark and look around. When I got to the exit door, I was greeted with the hottest, most humid air possible. With my head hurting from all that alcohol I drank before we took off, I gave up, returned to my seat, and went to sleep.

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Our next stop was Karachi, Pakistan, for dropping off and picking up passengers. We then flew to Bangkok, Thailand, where we spent several days enjoying the sights. From there, we flew to Hong Kong and did some shopping and sightseeing. We took a ferry to Macau and had lunch in a casino. I had heard squab was delicious and wanted to try it. The casino was packed with Chinese, and I don’t believe anyone spoke a word of English, certainly not our waiter. I flapped my arms like a pigeon, and he understood what I wanted. Squab is overrated.

Our next destination was Tokyo, where Bill had meetings scheduled with Hitachi. I remember meeting the fellow from Hitachi at the Hotel New Otani. We were in the dining room overlooking a beautiful Japanese Garden with water falls and a small stream with lots of choi. I asked him how old the fish were. You would have thought I had asked him a life and death question. How could he not know the answer to such a weighty question? He excused himself and hurried off in quest of an accurate response. I don’t recall the exact answer, except that those were very old fish. Japanese tend to get uptight about the darndest things.

Bill and I took in a Kabuki performance before we left Japan. The costumes were very elaborate, and the faces of the performers were coated with a thick layer of white makeup. I didn’t know if I was watching a man or a woman. I couldn’t tell them apart. I guess Kabuki didn’t add much to my cultural polish. I though the whole thing was bizarre.

Our final destination, before returning to Minneapolis, was San Diego, California, at the Hotel del Coronado. We met several days there with Iskra, our business partner from Slovenia. It was good to be going home.

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Building our First Home One of the senior executives who was with IBM’s SBC when CDC acquired it as part of the antitrust settlement was transferred to work for Bassett. I don’t remember his name, but he was put in charge of a number of functions under Bassett, including New Business Development. This fellow seemed clueless.

He stymied all of the people who reported to him, as he was incapable of making a decision on his own.

Outside of my Iranian project, I didn’t have anything to do. I had a lot of time on my hands. Fortunately, I had started planning to build our home in North Oaks and was glad that I had extra time to do that. This executive was transferred somewhere else after four or five months.

I had developed a floor plan for our dream home, drawn up detailed plans, and taken them to a couple of contractors to get a rough estimate on what the construction would cost. Those plans were bigger than our budget, and I had to repeat the process a number of times to get in the cost range we thought we could afford and still have most of the features in our home that we wanted. When I approached the banks, I learned the interest rates were so high that I couldn’t afford the payments, and there really weren’t any loans being made for new construction. I didn’t think I would ever be able to build, and I became discouraged.

I don’t recall what changed, but all of a sudden money for new construction became available. I selected Globe Builders to work with. The owner, Norris Thorstadt, was one of the top builders in North Oaks, and he helped me finalize the plans and get the loan. I also had to get the North Oaks Architectural Committee to approve the plans. Norris told me I should have the plans drawn professionally as the committee might not approve them if they thought an architect wasn’t involved. I found a draftsman who redrew my plans for a reasonable fee. We also had to submit samples of the brick and stone we intended to use in the house and provide samples of the exterior stain color. They approved the plans without requiring any changes.

The home was to have 1250 square feet upstairs and 1250 square feet downstairs, an oversized double garage that had a pre-­‐stressed concrete floor with a basement under it, and a redwood deck with a three-­‐ seasons porch on the upstairs floor. It was very compact, but it had all of the features we wanted. We planned it as though we would live there for the rest of our lives − our dream home.

We had plenty of time to shop for the appliances, carpets, light fixtures, etc., that we wanted for our new home. We kept an eagle eye out for sales and bought most of what we wanted on a lay-­‐a-­‐way basis. We saved a lot.

Globe Builders broke ground in the fall of 1975 and had the rough-­‐in complete before Thanksgiving. We were not far enough along to install the natural gas line without incurring excessive cost since the frost line had gotten too deep for normal excavation. Norris recommended that work be suspended until the ground thawed out the next spring. Norris was easy to work with, and we were able to do a lot of sweat equity work. That winter, Mary and I installed all of the wall insulation, the drain pipes around the perimeter of the house, and the wiring throughout the house for a stereo speaker system we wanted to install sometime in the future.

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Dad came up during the summer of 1976, and he helped me finish the lower walkout level that had a large family room, the kids bedrooms, laundry room, and a full bath. The weather was exceptionally hot and humid for Minnesota while he was there. He complained a lot about that for many years later.

Globe Builders also had a millwork company as part of their business. They built all of our cabinets and installed them. Their workmanship was impeccable. Norris took great pride in doing the little extras. We had a fireplace that had a double opening in the downstairs family room and single opening in the upstairs living room. The backside of the upstairs fireplace faced the dining room and had wood paneling. Norris handcrafted the wood paneling where it butted up against the brick side. He cut the paneling to fit it into the jagged edges of the brick. He was a perfectionist. For many years, Norris sent us a fruit basket for Christmas.

Our Home in North Oaks

When I signed the contract with Globe builders, I arranged for VA financing with Home Federal for $67,500. My contract with Globe was for $78,201 and included $2500 lender points. During the construction, I was able to get a standard loan for $65,000 without any points from First Federal Savings at 8.75% payable monthly for 25 years. Several months before closing, First Federal told me they couldn’t finance the $65,000, but could finance $61,000, a classic banker’s squeeze. I called Dad and he made up the difference. I paid him the annual interest amount until we moved to Oklahoma and sold the home, when I paid off the principal. The monthly principal and interest amount for First Federal was $502.03.

North Oaks was a gated community in a heavily wooded area with a number of lakes and trails. It was like living in a beautiful park. The roads were owned by the homeowners association and were maintained by the association, which included snow removal. The snow removal service was always done before the county plowed the public roads. North Oaks didn’t have a public water or sewer system. We installed a septic system and drilled a water well 195 feet deep.

We moved into our new home in early August 1976. Odd Brathan was really sorry to see us leave. He told Mary that we were the ideal tenants, and he didn’t think he could find anyone better. Our North Oaks address was 36 South Deep Lake Road, about four miles from the front entrance gate. We had to be careful with our shopping, as the nearest store was about five miles from our home. Major grocery stores were 10 miles away. You just didn’t run to the store every time you ran out of something. Neighbors cooperated with shopping and would take turns buying things at various places.

Our neighbors were really great. We had a block party nearly every Labor Day weekend. Everyone brought a dish. The whole community was like that. Every Memorial Day there would be a kids parade.

All of the kids would decorate their bikes and a short parade would be held. In the winter, an ice hockey rink was set up. Hockey practice was a routine event. It had to get colder than 20 degrees below zero to cancel it. Our home had a small hill in the back, and the kids would sled down it. Ice-­‐skating and cross-­‐ 101

country skiing were also very popular activities. We lived close to a cross-­‐country trail that linked up with a network of trails throughout North Oaks.

There was a large deer population in North Oaks, especially during deer hunting season. The lot next to our home was vacant and a favorite place for the deer. We counted more than two dozen deer at once there. They were attracted to our yard in the winter, and would lie down over our septic tanks as that provided some warmth. We even discovered deer nose prints on the downstairs kids bedroom windows.

The deer attracted poachers, and several times I found crossbow arrows imbedded in trees on our lot. I reported this to the police, and they said the poachers would drive around North Oaks, see a deer in the woods, and shoot the deer with a cross bow. The deer would drop, and the poacher would return late at night and retrieve the carcass. Our home was on a bend in the road, and I was concerned that they might shoot at a deer and end up hitting someone on the road.

I bought a sailboat, a 16-­‐foot Laser, and kept it and a canoe, on Pleasant Lake, which had a surface of about 550 acres. It was a short walk from our home. I could take the kids sailing with me, and I used it after work quite a bit. We did a lot of canoeing on South Deep and Pleasant lakes.

There were a lot of great places to go camping or Family Float Down The St. Croix

canoeing in Minnesota. Our favorite was the St. Croix River. We loved to put in at Taylor Falls and spend the day canoeing down the River with several other couples and their kids, picnicking along the way.

Other favorite outings would be to visit a local apple orchard in the fall and buy apple cider and apples.

Our Camping Tent Fall drives down the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers were popular events. Bill Fuhr and Allison had a large motorboat that was docked on the St. Croix near Stillwater, Minnesota. He named it the Alibi, and it had twin motors and could sleep eight people. They invited us a number of times for an outing with them on the boat. It was a great time.

We made frequent trips to Missouri to visit Mom and Dad. There were a number of times we would have a family get-­‐together in Iowa around Des Moines. Mom and Dad, Doris and Bob, and my family would meet on a Friday afternoon at a motel and spend the weekend together.

North Oaks was the home to a lot of executives from 3M and other major corporations. One of the founders of CDC, Bill Keye, had an enormous home overlooking Pleasant Lake. Chief Justice Warren Burger maintained a home there. Vice President Walter Mondale had a home on Pleasant Lake also. One 102

time Mary and a friend were walking along Pleasant Lake and they were at Mondale’s driveway. The Secret Service made their presence known. That was when Mondale was the Vice President, and he must have been there.

Property values really jumped up right after we finished building our home. The lot next door to us was vacant. I think it was priced at $10,500 when we bought our lot. It was resold, I believe in 1979 for $100.000, to someone who built a really nice home on it. When I heard that, I really hated I hadn’t bought it as an investment.

We had a major tragedy when one of our neighbors killed his wife, two children, and dog before taking his own life. The family lived at the end of South Deep Lake Road on Pleasant Lake Road. I can’t remember what triggered this, but it was extensively covered by the news media. It took several years before that home could be sold.

I worked at CDC’s headquarters in Bloomington, Minnesota, and I had a 45-­‐minute commute, which went through downtown St. Paul. There were about four of us who carpooled to work. The price of gasoline had climbed steadily during the 1970’s, from around 35 cents per gallon to around 90 cents per gallon.

The biggest increase was under President Carter. It jumped nearly 50% during his tenure. Carpooling saved a lot of money, but it was a real inconvenience as my job didn’t lend itself to an eight to five schedule, and I couldn’t hold up the other people in the car pool.

I spent a lot of time doing work that involved a lot of international travel. I would be gone for weeks on end. Mary had to fill the void in my absence. On one of my trips to Brazil, she was returning home with the kids and noticed the kitchen window was wide open and the screen was off. Brian was heading downstairs to his room and Mary saw that there were tracks on our white living room carpet. She tried to stop Brian from going downstairs, but he was already there. Luckily, the intruder must have heard them come in the house, and he escaped out the sliding glass door in the family room, but not before he took my Nikon Camera, lens, and binoculars. The intruder was later captured, and I recovered the lens and binoculars. The fellow had been released from jail a few days before he broke in.

On another occasion, I was out of town, and the neighbor across the street was away. His burglar alarm went off in the dead of night. The police came out and found that the home had been broken into. They stopped by our house and asked Mary if she saw anything, which she hadn’t. They asked her if she had a gun. She told them she had the .38 Special. They wanted to know if she knew how to use it, and she told them she did. They told her to load it and keep it near her bed.

Mary had arrangements with other mothers in the neighborhood, and they took turns watching each other’s kids. Mary got involved with the North Oaks and White Bear Lake League of Women Voters and took over as editor of their periodic publication, “The Bear Facts”. She kept busy with that and taking care of the kids. Brian started preschool at North Oaks, and Jennifer went to Snail Lake School, which was part of the Mounds View School District. Later, Brian went to the Snail Lake School, and Jennifer transferred to the Chippewa School when she entered the fourth grade.

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Slovenia−CDC Mini Computer Technology Transfer In early 1977, CDC’s East European Regional Sales Office in Vienna, Austria, requested that a proposal be made to Iskra, an electronics manufacturer in Slovenia, which at that time was one of the six republics that made up Yugoslavia. The various republics were intent on acquiring the technology to manufacture minicomputers, and each one was in discussion with different American minicomputer manufacturers. It was a matter of pride for each of the major republics to have their own minicomputer technology.

Competition was fierce. It was thought that the central government of Yugoslavia would not allow more than one or two republics to invest in the technology. CDC was the dominant computer competitor in Slovenia and had the CDC 1700 minicomputer that was of interest to the Slovenes. I was tasked to put together a proposal and negotiate a license to allow Iskra to manufacture the CDC 1700 in Slovenia.

I was excited about the prospect of visiting Yugoslavia, and I really didn’t know much about it. I spent a number of evenings at the library doing research. It was a fascinating place, with a collection of republics and provinces, a variety of religions, and a great many different native languages spoken throughout the various entities. The cuisine was also very different from area to area. After all, the area that comprised Yugoslavia was the trading crossroads of the world for many centuries. A great many invaders had left their mark on its people and culture.

The Slovenes wanted to first justify the investment that they would have to make to acquire the technology. I was asked to do a market study and define the size of the market for minicomputers in Yugoslavia, something I knew absolutely nothing about. I met the CDC salesman from Vienna, Helmut Koehler, who had responsibility for Slovenia. We drove to the capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana, and had meetings with a number of the key Iskra managers and engineers. They arranged for me to visit various computer users at universities and government organizations in Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia.

Two of the senior Iskra executives, Helmut, and I went to The University of Maribor, Slovenia, the university of Zagreb, Croatia, and some organizations in Nova Sad and Beograd, Serbia. It was apparent there wasn’t any meaningful computer deployment in any of the places we visited. Anyway, the market study concluded that there was sufficient demand to justify the investment in minicomputer technology.

Almost all of the meetings were conducted in the local language. I don’t believe I contributed to the actual writing of the study. It was written primarily by the Iskra people and Helmut. I was a figurehead and provided the political cover Iskra needed.

When we were in Beograd, I was shown around. As we were driving around, the Senior Iskra executive, Ivo Banic, pointed out a large, tall building and asked me if I knew what it was. I told him no, and he said “That is the headquarters of the Yugoslav Communist Party”. I think he was trying to shock me. I just said “Really?” We stayed at the InterContinental hotel on the Danube that night. After dinner, we went for a walk and encountered a Gypsy fortuneteller. They had her tell my fortune. She told me I was destined to have a very successful life etc., etc. I’m sure she got some coaching from Ivo. I returned home and started working on putting together a proposal. Over the course of several months and visits to Iskra, and Iskra visiting us, Iskra agreed to enter into contract negotiations. An attorney from Oppenheimer was assigned to support me, and a draft agreement was generated. Negotiation locations alternated between the US and Slovenia. Iskra usually selected the Grand Hotel Toplice to conduct 104

negotiations. It was located on the shores of Lake Bled, a very scenic venue. It was quite close to the summer home of Marshall Tito, President of Yugoslavia, and about thirty miles from Ljubljana. Iskra’s factory was located in Kranj, a small city between Ljubljana and Lake Bled. It had some interesting history.

During World War II, the Nazis occupied much of Slovenia, including Kranj. They converted the factory to manufacture Messerschmitt fighter aircraft for the Luftwaffe. The Iskra people liked to explain that the aircraft produced in Kranj had a severe quality problem and frequently crashed.

Negotiating the Deal Iskra’s negotiating style was considerably different from the Iranians’. In Iran, negotiations were pretty much conducted between Dr. Haeri and me. The main problem I experienced was the Iranians didn’t seem to know if they had gotten a good deal after an agreement had been reached. This insecurity led them to constantly try and improve the deal. If I hadn’t been firm with Dr. Haeri, we would have ended up with an unacceptable agreement. Iskra, on the other hand, couldn’t decide what they wanted. They had a room full of people involved from their side and it seemed that they all had to agree with what their position was. No one had the authority to take a position, not surprisingly, considering they were communists.

The one thing they all agreed to was that the price and royalties were too high. They would attack that by raising objections on the most trivial matters in an attempt to gain a bargaining advantage. I was very creative in proposing solutions to their “concerns”. The longer the negotiations dragged out, the longer the contract became. I knew it was just a matter of time before their management got tired of not having a deal, and was very patient in my negotiations.

East Block Travel Intrigue On one of my trips, Bill Fuhr was with me. Between the two of us, we had meetings scheduled in Zurich, Vienna, Budapest, and Tehran. Bill had some business with the CDC Swiss Country Manager in Zurich.

After that meeting, we went shopping for some provisions to eat on the train to Vienna. We bought some cheese, fresh rolls, red wine and bunderfleisch, which is seasoned, air-­‐dried beef that is thinly sliced.

Despite the mess we made in our train compartment, I’m convinced that is the only way to take a long train ride. In Vienna , we discussed some of the Iskra contract issues with the CDC sales management.

From Vienna we took a train to Budapest. I remember the border crossing. Soldiers with submachine guns and customs agents boarded the train, thoroughly inspected it, and scrutinized everyone’s passport.

Bill had his meeting, and we did a walking tour of Budapest. It had been under the control of the Soviets since World War II and was showing signs of significant infrastructure decay. The best hotel in Budapest was the Hilton that overlooked the Danube. It still had a lot of bullet pockmarks on its exterior surfaces which were incurred when the Soviets invaded Hungary in the Revolution of 1956, some twenty years earlier.

It was Friday, and our meeting in Tehran wasn’t until earlier the next week. We decided to spend several days in Istanbul, Turkey. We had booked flights on the national Hungarian airline, Malev. The airplane we flew looked as though it could have been used as a World War II Soviet bomber. All that seemed to be missing were the doors over the bomb bay. During the flight, we learned that the flight was going to make a nonscheduled stop in Bucharest, Romania. No explanation was given.

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Upon landing, we were told to take all of our personal items with us. We disembarked and were escorted by armed guards to an area and told to form several lines in front of some little screening rooms. Bill and I were in different lines. I entered my screening room before Bill entered his. My passport was quickly checked, and I was allowed to exit into the next room. I thought Bill would soon join me. After five minutes or so he hadn’t appeared, and I began to wonder if the authorities hadn’t learned that he had been a CIA agent. He had a top secret, or higher, clearance and couldn’t travel outside the US without the CIA clearing his travel. He couldn’t even travel in the East Block without someone traveling with him. I don’t know all that Bill did for the CIA, but I heard he had a lot of technical expertise in electronic communication technology, and that he was at Check Point Charlie in East Berlin to take photographs of a border crossing. I was concerned that Bill had been detained, and I wasn’t sure how I would deal with that. All of a sudden, Bill appeared out of nowhere. He said he was just walking around. I couldn’t figure out how he beat me out of the screening room and where he went.

Bill and I speculated that the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police, had gotten information that a refugee from East Germany was on the plane, and they wanted him apprehended. A lot of East Germans escaped the Iron Curtain by various means at that time. We boarded the Malev flight and flew to Istanbul. The two things I remember most were that the bazaars were a lot neater and more organized than in Iran, and that almost every automobile on the road would have qualified as an antique car in the US. Iskra finally decided they needed an American lawyer to help them with the negotiations and hired one from New York City. He sat through one or two negotiations and concluded that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with me. We were holding a negotiation in Minneapolis and one morning the New York attorney went to the Oppenheimer Law Office and took over the word processor that the agreement we were negotiating was stored on. He rewrote the agreement to reflect Iskra’s concerns. When we met to negotiate, he presented that as Iskra’s position. As the CDC side knew what had happened, we told Iskra that this approach was unacceptable and if they wanted to continue negotiations, they had to accept the version of the agreement that both sides was using. We would not start over with the New York attorney’s version. They reluctantly agreed and that was the last time we had to deal with their lawyer.

Iskra was constantly complaining that the agreement was too long. I agreed with them that it was very long, but the reason was due to the constant addition of solutions to concerns raised by them. I decided it was time to deal with this, and I had Oppenheimer print the agreement on long legal-­‐size paper with smaller type, double-­‐sided. That cut the amount of pages over 75 percent. The next negotiation was held in Lake Bled. When the meeting opened up, I explained that I had taken their concern into account and had reduced the page count significantly. For some reason, they thought this was a major victory for their side, and they had big smiles on their faces. When I passed out the copies, they saw I was playing their game. The tone of the negotiation got serious from then on. We concluded the agreement soon thereafter.

As a reward for concluding the contract negotiations, CDC told me to take Mary for an extended weekend to LaJolla, California. That was a nice perk.

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CDC/Iskra Joint Business Committee It was envisioned that the minicomputer manufacturing agreement would be the basis for establishing a broader cooperation that would extend to additional manufacturing agreements. Included in the agreement was a provision that established a committee to explore other possibilities for cooperation. It was called the Joint Business Committee (JBC). The committee was comprised of senior management from Iskra and CDC. The President of Iskra, Mr. Mihev, and Dusan Res, Milan Clemente, and other managers represented the Iskra side. Dusan had been one of the senior managers involved in the contract negotiations, and Milan Clemente was the sales rep who covered Yugoslavia for CDC. He worked for Iskra. Harry Ashbridge, Bill Fuhr, Helmut Koehler, Al Breslauer, and I represented the CDC side. I was to be the secretary and would organize the meetings, publish the minutes, and follow up on open items. Al Breslauer was with the LaJolla organization that had responsibility for the CDC 1700 Computer System, and he had supported me in the contract negotiations. He was to be the program manager for making sure that CDC complied with the manufacturing agreement. Meetings would alternate between the USA and Europe.

The manufacturing program got underway with CDC assigning two engineers from LaJolla to provide training and technical support to Iskra’s factory in Kranj. I remember attending one of the early kick off meetings in Kranj. I was surprised to see soldiers in the fields next to the factory with Howitzers on full alert. I can’t remember the exact circumstance that prompted this, but the Soviets were rattling sabers at Tito, and they were displaying resolve to not be pushed around or intimidated. The workers in the factory didn’t act like this was out of the ordinary, but I was a little concerned about what might happen.

One of the first meetings was held in LaJolla, California, at the CDC plant that produced the 1700 System.

We went to lunch at a nice restaurant. The Iskra manager who headed up their New York office for sales of Iskra products in the US attended the meeting. He took it upon himself to order wine for the table of 10 or so. The Sommelier presented him with the wine to taste. He did, and told the Sommelier that it wasn’t suitable. I thought he was all show, but the Sommelier tasted it and said “You are absolutely right, sir”. I was amazed when he explained that he didn’t drink wine.

JBC meetings were held in Dubrovnik, Croatia, New Orleans, the Algarve and Lisbon, Portugal, which was close to Pamela where CDC had a disk drive manufacturing operation, the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, and Lake Bled, Slovenia. In 1979, another meeting was planned to be held in Dubrovnik. The wives were to be included in the meeting, and Mary and I decided to take advantage of that and planned a month-­‐long European vacation trip that overlapped the meeting in Dubrovnik.

Several months before the trip, Mary and I took an after-­‐hours’ course at the Mounds View High School in conversational German. A German-­‐born lady who had immigrated to the US taught it. We were ready to communicate in Deutsch. We bought two, 30-­‐day Euro Rail Passes and drove the kids to Missouri for Mom and Dad to take care of while we were away. We landed in Frankfurt, and took a train to Mainz where we spent the first night. The next day we took a cruise up the Rhine River to Koblenz, and saw a lot of old castles and beautiful scenery. I was amazed that the vineyards were planted with rows of grapes growing straight up the hills. I thought it would have been better erosion control to have the rows contouring the hills, but apparently not.

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We continued to Holland, staying in a B&B in Amsterdam, where we visited the Van Gough Art Museum and saw a lot of the city sights. I was quite familiar with Amsterdam as it was one of the places I used as a stopover in my Iranian project travels. What I wasn’t exposed to was the liberal attitude about drugs. Mary and I went to a little restaurant for lunch. There were a couple of people there who looked like they were doing a drug deal. I was concerned we might get implicated if the police showed up. We made a hasty retreat.

MEA & CFA in Slovenia

Switzerland was our next destination, and we stayed in Zurich one or two nights and then headed for St. Moritz. I remember it was early June, and one morning the whole village was covered with snow. From there we trained to Vienna. We shared a compartment with two Austrians. One was an elderly lady, and Mary eagerly tried to have a conversation with her in German. Apparently, Mary’s Deutsch was not to her standard and she said, “Would you please speak English?” She got off the train at one of the stops and the other Austrian told Mary that her Deutsch was quite good and the old lady was just being rude.

The CDC office in Vienna had made hotel reservations near the Vienna Opera House. We stayed across the street from it at the Hotel Bristol. We had a large suite, and I was glad that CDC would pay for San Marcos Square Venice expenses for this part of the trip. The CDC Vienna people treated us to an opera performance. We were in Vienna about the time that Jimmy Carter was there for the signing of the SALT II treaty with Leonid Brezhnev. I took a picture of a cake in a bakery with an icing decoration of both of them on it.

Rialto Bridge, Venice

Our first JBC meeting was held in Lake Bled. This is a very scenic place, and Mary was really impressed. We took a rowboat and visited the old church on the island in the middle of the lake. We then flew to Dubrovnik where the wives of the Iskra people joined us. Al Breslauer and Ardis, Harry Ashbridge and Donna, and Bill Fuhr and Allison were with us. We stayed in a hotel overlooking the Adriatic. Our “meetings” lasted two or three days. Even though not much business was conducted, everyone had a great time, especially exploring the ancient Port City of Dubrovnik.

After that, Mary and I caught a bus to Split, Croatia, where we boarded an overnight ferry to Rijeka. We had a sleeping cabin that was so small you could barely turn around in it. Most of the passengers didn’t have sleeping accommodations and slept on the deck. The next morning, we docked and rented a car to continue to Trieste, Italy, where we could resume use of our Euro Rail passes. We spent some time in Venice and Verona before went to Frankfurt and caught our flight to the US. 108

My involvement with the Iskra project came to an end in early 1980 when I took a new position at CDC. Iskra implemented the CDC 1700 Minicomputer manufacturing license. I lost touch with how well that went.

Minor Projects I was involved with a number of smaller projects during the time my primary focus was on the Slovenian and Iranian activities. There was a constant flow of prospective deals to look over for possible detailed evaluation. I checked out a number of small US companies that had interesting technology, but I rejected them for further consideration as most of them were not a good fit or lacked a compelling advantage.

Some of the more interesting projects included: Tape Transport License -­‐, Gene Kirsch, the Vice President of the Valley Forge Division, which developed and manufactured magnetic tape transports, felt that a low-­‐end tape transport was needed to round out the tape product line. He didn’t have the funding to develop one, and he requested that a manufacturing license be acquired to fill this void. I was assigned to get in touch with some of the company’s that had a low-­‐end tape transport. Tandberg Data and Cipher were two companies that had a Tension Arm Tape Transport that met Valley Forge’s requirements. Tandberg Data was the more receptive of the two to entertain licensing CDC with their product technology. I found negotiating with Tandberg Data to be considerably easier than with the Iranians or Slovenians. Valley Forge got the license, and I received a little plaque from them when they produced the first one. They named the product “The Spirit”.

Cuban Intelligence Service Visit -­‐I was frequently asked to meet with various companies and foreign government officials who wanted to discuss the possibility of acquiring CDC technology. One such episode was when two gentlemen from Cuba visited CDC. I was asked to meet with one of them. I knew that it would not result in anything, even if CDC had a desire to do something with Cuba, since the export control laws would not allow it. Anyway, I met this fellow, and he presented me with his “business card”. It just had his name and Havana, Cuba, on it, but no title, phone, or organization. The conversation was rather strange. He seemed to be fishing for what kind of deals we were doing and with whom. I didn’t share anything meaningful with him. The CIA debriefed me later, and they led me to believe the fellow was part of the Cuban Intelligence Service.

Russia’s Hermitage Cooperation -­‐Bob Schmidt was the senior marketing executive for establishing business with the Iron Curtain countries. A major challenge to this was finding ways for those countries to pay CDC for what they bought as they lacked sufficient hard currency. Bob explored all sorts of ways to extract payment. One approach was to take payment by bartering their goods for our computer products.

I remember a couple of deals that were discussed that would take cement as payment. Another was to take high quality shotguns that were manufactured in Russia.

I got involved with one of Bob’s ideas. It was to take collections from Russia’s renowned Hermitage Museum in Leningrad (now named St. Petersburg), and exhibit them throughout the western world.

Earnings from the exhibition would be used to pay CDC for products sold to Russia. I wrote a Memorandum of Understanding that described the proposed relationship in general terms. I don’t believe that it was ever signed.

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French Imaging Technology -­‐Claude Barathon was a senior sales rep for CDC France. One of his customers was developing technology to show the flow of blood throughout the body in real-­‐time. The patient was injected with a fluid that irradiated blood, and this company could measure various parameters associated with its movement through the cardiovascular system. They had developed the software to display the movement in real-­‐time on a CRT. This was a forerunner to Computer Aided Tomography (CAT). I was asked to visit the company and evaluate whether or not it should be considered as an acquisition candidate.

I met Claude in Paris, and we took a train to Orsay where the company (I don’t remember its name) was located. This was the first time I had met Claude, and he was very excited about this company. He was certain that this would be a no-­‐brainer. Claude left me to spend the day with the company, and he returned to Paris.

I was impressed with the technology, but the owner wasn’t even close to having a product. It was like a hobby shop. Every system was different, and there wasn’t any way to turn the concept into a salable product without spending more money than I knew CDC would be willing to invest. My report reflected that, and Claude was informed of my recommendation. That evening, I ate at a local restaurant. I sat at a bar with a number of older Frenchmen. They didn’t speak much English, and I didn’t speak any French.

We were able to find out a little about each other, and they bought me several drinks. We had a good time.

At that time, I was still under Tom Bassett, and before long Claude and his boss came to Minneapolis to meet with him and try to reverse the decision. My office was close to Bassett’s, and when the Frenchmen arrived they asked Tom’s Secretary to see him. She went into Tom’s office to see if he would meet with them. You could hear Tom all over the eighth floor, “Tell those goddamn Frogs I don’t have any time to see them”. The Frogs slunk away. Terrible Tom struck again.

Minicomputer Product Charter Fight -CDC had invested in one of Israel’s oldest high-­‐tech companies, Elbit, located in Haifa. They had a minicomputer product line and wanted to have CDC give them responsibility for all minicomputer products. CDC’s LaJolla operation had that charter, with responsibility for the CDC 1700 Minicomputer product line. A tug of war ensued between the two organizations. Elbit claimed it had superior architecture and its product road map would be more successful. If Elbit could wrest away the product charter, CDC would fund their development, and LaJolla would lose their funding.

That was what the fight was all about.

Elbit sent one of their top computer technologists to Minneapolis to make their case. I don’t remember the fellow’s last name, but he was called Eli. He made a great presentation to the senior management about the products that were planned at Elbit. I sat through this, and I marveled at how little detail Eli had in his presentation. It seemed like all smoke and mirrors to me. The powers that be wisely concluded a task force should be formed to evaluate where the charter should go. I was asked to chair it.

The task force was comprised of Eli, a product planner from Corporate, and various product line management personnel from LaJolla. We kicked the first meeting off in the LaJolla facility. The LaJolla representatives presented detailed product plans and roadmaps, schedules, and budgets. Eli gave the 110

same presentation as the one he did in Minneapolis. He was immediately challenged for his lack of detail, especially about the architecture. I asked him for documentation on it. He said it hadn’t yet been documented. I asked him to lay out a block diagram of the system on the blackboard. He did his best to draw up a concept. It was obvious that he was making it up as he was drawing it. When he was finished, I asked him if that was the extent of the documentation he could provide. He knew his bluff had been called and agreed it was. I asked if there was a Polaroid camera available to take a picture of the block diagram. It was Exhibit A in my report. LaJolla kept the minicomputer charter.

ICL South Africa -One of the projects I worked on involved the South African subsidiary of the British computer company, International Computers Limited. ICL sought to increase its South African manufacturing content and was exploring the feasibility of manufacturing disk drives there. They approached CDC to discuss obtaining a manufacturing license. I was invited to visit their operations in South Africa, and I obtained a visa to enter the country. All of a sudden the project was placed on hold. I think ICL became concerned that South Africa was vulnerable to international sanctions and might not be able to import the parts required to sustain production as South Africa was increasingly under international criticism due to its Apartheid practices.

Brazil−Docas de Santos In 1978, a delegation from Campania Docas de Santos (Docas) visited CDC in Minneapolis. Docas was owned by two highly wealthy aristocratic Brazilian families, the Machado and Guinle families. They had a 100-­‐year concession from the Government of Brazil to manage the Docks of Santos near Sao Paulo, which was to expire within a few years. In anticipation of this loss, the families had their male children educated at leading US Universities, and they were searching for technology that would perpetuate their families’ fortunes. The Docas delegation wanted to discuss the licensing of CDC disk drive technology for manufacture in Brazil. I was assigned the job of putting the deal together.

A Memorandum of Understanding was negotiated in Minneapolis that outlined which products would be licensed and what the pricing would be. This was to be a $12 million deal over five years. The products under consideration were manufactured in CDC’s Oklahoma City facility. The initial products included a 12-­‐MB Cartridge Disk Drive, and a Flexible Disk Drive, commonly referred to as a Floppy Drive. The Oklahoma City Operation identified George Eifler and Lester Davis to support me. George was the General Manager of the Business Management Office (BMO) and Lester was a product manager. I had a lot of volunteers from Headquarters to support me. I really didn’t need anyone from there, but I had to oblige a corporate attorney who was dying to see the sites in Rio. On the way to Rio de Janeiro, we had to make a connection in New York at JFK. We went to the Pan Am Clipper Club that I had a membership in. The connection time was several hours, and my team consumed a lot of drinks, which were on the house. When it came time to depart, a couple of them helped themselves to several bottles of booze. I wasn’t aware of this. After I boarded the flight and took my seat, I was paged to come to the boarding gate. The Clipper Club’s manager confronted me and told me that unless the bottles were returned ASAP, they would kick me and the rest of my team off the flight. I was really ticked off and embarrassed about that. What a way to start the trip.

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Dinner in Rio With Docas de Santos

We landed early the next day and we checked in at the Meridian Hotel on Copacabana Beach. Our rooms weren’t ready, and we decided to go to the open-­‐air lounge on the hotel’s top floor. We were having coffee and discussing how we would spend the day, when I noticed someone who looked familiar by the elevators.

I walked over and saw that it was my Uncle Emroy Knaus. It was his first visit to Brazil, and he would be there several days attending a conference for his company. No matter where you go someone knows your mother.

We met with Docas and several people they had hired to run the disk drive manufacturing business. They had set up a new company they named Elebra Informatica, S. A., to manufacture the disk drives. In addition, there were two representatives from the Government of Brazil present. They explained that Brazil had very rigid laws concerning manufacturing licenses, royalty payments and the pricing of material and equipment. The government people would sit in on the negotiations and make sure that we didn’t violate any of their many laws. I really got concerned about this and was hoping this wasn’t going to be a complete waste of time. As it turned out, the government people were really helpful in finding ways for CDC to meet its financial goals without running afoul of their laws. The reason those laws were created was due to prior experience where the big Multi National Auto Manufacturers had exploited Brazil, charging exorbitant prices and not transferring any technology or knowhow. This would not be allowed to happen again.

Compared to the negotiations I had with the Iranians and Slovenes, this negotiation turned out to be very straightforward, without a lot of games and brinkmanship. Several trips back and forth between Brazil and the US yielded an agreement that was approved by both parties in October 1979. On one of the visits to the US, I invited the Docas folks to dinner at my home in North Oaks. They got lost when they entered North Oaks, and it took them over an hour to locate my home. The roads in North Oaks are difficult to navigate if you are unfamiliar with them.

CDC’s Oklahoma City Operation recruited one of the Quality Assurance Engineers, Joaquim Braganca, from its disk drive factory in Pamela, Portugal, as the program manager. Portuguese is the language of Brazil and Joaquim was a welcome addition to the program. I made one trip with Joaquim and we stayed at the Caesar Park Ipanema Hotel right on the beach. Joaquim and I checked in. I noticed that he was receiving a lot more attention than I was. I asked him what his room number was and he told me. It was on the top floor. I later learned that the hotel thought he was royalty since Braganca is a very important family in Portugal. He was given a suite to stay in.

The area around the Caesar Park consisted of a lot of exclusive shops and apartments. Once you walked five blocks inland from the beach, you bumped into poorer neighborhoods. The slums were not far away, and I was warned by the hotel staff to not venture into them. You might not survive the walk. One morning I was standing outside the hotel and heard a lot of yelling and shouting. A crowd had surrounded a man who tried to pick someone’s pocket and got caught. He had been knocked on the ground, and a big 112

guy had his foot firmly planted on the pickpocket’s throat. He wasn’t going anywhere. I was told by the Docas people that he was lucky, as people were really fed up with that type of crime, and it wasn’t unusual for the perps to be killed when they got caught red handed.

One weekend the Docas people offered Joaquim and I use of one of their drivers. We spent a day driving to Petropolis, which once served as the summer home of the ruling elite of the State of Rio de Janeiro. It was about 40-­‐miles from Rio and very beautiful. We also visited Sugarloaf Mountain and Cristo Redentor.

As I was leaving Rio, I was at the Galeao Airport standing in line to check my bags for the return flight. All of a sudden, a porter with a cart full of bags bucked the line and started putting bags in front of me. I was indignant, and I started to confront whom the bags belonged to. I turned around and saw that it was Bob Eisenhardt. I hadn’t seen Bob since I worked for him at CDC in Systems Management. He was the one who promoted me into management. He was president of a company and was doing business in Brazil.

No matter where you go, somebody knows your mother.

On one of my trips to Brazil, I was asked to visit a metallurgical company in southern Brazil. A major bank in Sao Paulo had contacted the CDC Brazil office and requested that someone visit this company to see if there might be a way for CDC to utilize it to manufacture components for use in the production of CDC’s electro mechanical peripherals. I had some business in Rio, and I flew from there to Sao Paulo. At the Sao Paulo airport, an official from the bank greeted me. He walked me to a helicopter, and we flew to the top of the bank’s building. They described the company, and their concept of a working relationship with the company.

That afternoon we flew to Porto Allegra and drove to Caxias do Sul. I believe it was a three-­‐hour drive over narrow gravel roads. Most of Caxias do Sul’s population had emigrated from Italy in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Italian was about the only language spoken in Caxias do Sul. I found it fascinating that Brazil had so many highly concentrated ethnic pockets. Sao Paulo had about 100,000 Japanese immigrants, the largest number of any city outside of Japan. There were also a lot of places that German immigrants dominated the population.

Eberle was the company of interest. It manufactured a lot of different products, including cutlery for resale by Solingen in Germany. I was taken to the Companies Board Room for our meeting. The Eberle people were proud of their history and showed off the photographs of their employees who had worked there for more than fifty years. There were a lot of pictures hanging on those walls. I could not visualize how CDC and Eberle could establish a manufacturing relationship.

As in the Iskra Agreement, I included a provision for a Joint Business Committee that would consist of representatives from both companies and meet several times a year, alternating between the US and Brazil. The Docas members brought their wives to the US on one of the first JBC meetings. CDC hosted a dinner one evening. The wives of both sides were in attendance, and the CDC wives were amazed at how fluent the Docas wives were in English, and they wanted to know how they learned it. They were told that the wives accompanied their husbands when they were attending college in the US. They watched a lot of US soap operas on TV, and they learned it from that. They didn’t even have much of an accent.

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My involvement with the Docas and Elebra relationship was interrupted in 1980 when I took a new position with CDC. In 1983, I transferred to CDC’s Oklahoma City Operation, and I once again became involved with Elebra as Joaquim Braganca worked in the organization I managed. Elebra Informatica implemented the manufacturing of the 9427H Cartridge Disk Drive in its facility in Sao Paulo.

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Peoples Republic of China (PRC) In early 1979, a company, California Trade Delegations, Inc. (CTD), solicited the participation of CDC to join a trade delegation to The Peoples Republic of China. This would be the first USA delegation to visit the PRC since the normalization of relations. The PRC and US were to open embassies in each other’s capitals, Beijing and Washington DC, on March 1, 1979. Doug Burke from CTD was organizing the delegation, and he had contacted a number of companies in the minicomputer industry, and requesting that they participate in the delegation’s visit. A total of seven companies agreed to join the delegation. As I recall, CDC, Data General, IBM, Prime Computer, Wang, Digital Equipment, and Burroughs were on the list.

I was given responsibility to lead the CDC effort and work with Tom Heideman from LaJolla to represent CDC on the trip. Tom was a key engineer involved with CDC’s 1700 Minicomputer Product Line and would make the technical presentations. The itinerary involved conducting seminars in Beijing and Shanghai.

When I learned that I would be going to China, I researched Chinese customs and protocols and discovered that the Chinese place great importance on the etiquette of seating arrangements. It was important for the senior members of each party to be seated in accordance with the established custom in both business meetings and banquets. This was valuable information that kept me from committing a serious faux pas during my involvement with the Chinese.

First PRC Visit March, 1979 − All of the delegation members, approximately 14, met at the San Francisco Airport. Doug Burke held a press conference before we boarded our flight. The local TV stations and press covered this event. Our flight encountered severe headwinds, and we didn’t have enough fuel for the 747 aircraft to make it to our scheduled destination, Hong Kong. The captain radioed the Chiang Kai-­‐shek International Airport in Taiwan for permission to land and take on fuel. Permission denied!! The large Chinese community in the bay area had seen the press coverage of our trade delegation at the airport, and had communicated that to their friends and relatives in Taiwan. The Taiwan government wasn’t about to aid and abet anything that would benefit the PRC. The next best option was to detour the flight to Formosa. We had enough fuel to do that. We stayed one night in Hong Kong and took a train the next morning for the PRC border. The train tracks in Hong Kong were not connected to the tracks in the PRC. The delegation cleared customs and crossed the border on foot to board the PRC train. The boarding platform was packed with Chinese, and we had to wait inside the station. As soon as the PRC train arrived, there was a mad scramble of the Chinese passengers to board the train. The arriving passengers started to disembark, and the departing passengers started boarding by climbing through the train windows. I had never seen anything like it. It was sheer pandemonium. After the platform had been cleared, we were escorted to a car reserved for the delegation. We headed for Guangzhou where we boarded a propeller-­‐driven plane to fly to Beijing. It was a long flight, and the plane landed for dinner at an airport restaurant.

In Beijing, the members of the delegation took turns making presentations on their respective companies and products. The presentations took a lot of extra time as the presenter had to wait for the Chinese interpreter to translate the presentation into Chinese. All of the interpreters I encountered had a lot of difficulty translating English words for numbers to the equivalent Chinese words. It turns out that there is 115

also a big difference in how number-­‐naming systems in Western and Asian languages are constructed. In English, we say fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen, so one would think that we would also say one-­‐teen, two-­‐teen, and three-­‐teen. Not so in China, Japan and Korea. They have a logical counting system. Eleven is ten one. Twelve is ten two. Twenty-­‐four is two ten four, and so on. This difference slowed the translation process. I learned that it also explains to a certain degree why Asian children master math faster. That difference means Asian children learn to count much faster. Four-­‐year-­‐ old Chinese children can count, on average, up to forty. American children, at that age, can only count to fifteen, and don't reach forty until they're five. By then, American children are already a year behind their Asian counterparts in the most fundamental of math skills.

Our hosts showed us the more popular sites and exposed us to a lot of famous cuisine. We visited Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, Badaling Great Wall, Ming Tombs, etc., and sampled Peking duck, Pot Stickers, and other delicacies. Our hosts took us to see a variety of musical and dancing performances at the International Cultural show in Beijing. They also gave us a tour of various craft factories that did jade carving, painting, making dough dolls, etc.

Trade Delegation at The Great Wall − CFA 2 From Right nd

We went shopping at the Friendship Store, a department store for foreigners. Payment in hard currency was required. The pricing was really low, and most of the delegation bought a lot of nice items to bring back. I remember that the Chinese were Engels, Stalin, Marx, Lenin Displayed in Tinanmen Square 1979 − Removed in 1980 mostly dressed the same in little blue Mao jackets and wore little Mao hats. They mostly walked or rode bicycles for transportation. Bicycles were everywhere, and there were large parking areas for bikes. Also, there were buses, but the lines were long and if you did get on one, it was suffocating and crowded, especially for the foreigners. Coal was the primary fuel for heating and cooking, and the air in Beijing was heavily polluted with coal soot. It seemed that every fourth or fifth Chinese wore a facemask to breathe through.

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On one of my trips to the PRC, I rode a bus. I got on it at the Friendship Store and took it to the Beijing Hotel. It was an amazing experience. I boarded the bus at the rear door. There was barely room to stand, and before I knew it, the bus arrived at the Beijing Hotel. I exited the bus from the front door. Somehow the mass of humanity in that bus had managed to move me forward to the front door without me realizing it.

The delegation stayed in the Hotel Qianmen, and it was very basic. My room was fine, but a number of the delegation complained that the bathroom plumbing didn’t work very well. China was very primitive and had been greatly retarded by the Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong and his wife, Jiang Qing. Deng Xiao Peng was about to change that. The visit by the USA delegation was an early step in that direction.

Trade Delegation in Front of Propaganda Poster

Tai Ji Quan on The Bund − Shanghai

In Shanghai, we stayed at the Peace Hotel near the Bund on the Huangpu River. I took an early morning walk in the park along the river. I thought I was alone, but I heard a voice say, “Hello”. I turned around, and there was a young Chinese, probably a college student. He asked me if he could practice his English. We walked together while he practiced his English. We came upon a group of elderly Chinese doing exercise. It was as though they were performing karate in super slow motion. I found out that it was Tai Ji Quan, a common form of exercise

throughout China.

From Shanghai, we flew to Canton and took a Hover Craft down the Pearl River to Hong Kong. Before we boarded, we had to go through an exit process where the officials had to account for all of the hard currency that was spent and was being taken out of the PRC. You weren’t allowed to take any renminbi out either. On the ride down the Pearl River, a Red Army soldier with a machine gun was stationed on the bow of the Hover Craft. He guarded us until we got to the mouth of the Pearl River where a small military boat that headed back up the Pearl picked him up. We continued to Hong Kong and flew back to San Francisco. The CIA paid me a visit when I returned to my office at CDC. At that time they didn’t have much of a window into the PRC and asked me a lot of questions about what I saw.

Sometime after the delegation left China, CDC opened a small office in the Beijing Hotel and staffed it with a part-­‐time employee, Laja, to serve as liaison with the various PRC Ministries. Laja was a foreign student at the University of Beijing and was from Sri Lanka. He spoke excellent English and did part-­‐time work as a 117

tour guide for tourists. Laja was well connected as he had managed to secure a coveted room at the Beijing Hotel that served as CDC’s office and his living quarters. I believe he reported to Jack Klingert, CDC’s Sales VP for developing markets. Jack was based in Minneapolis.

Laja met with the Fourth Ministry of Machine Building and obtained agreement for CDC to send people to China in August 1979, and conduct seminars on a number of different computer peripheral devices and technologies. They were interested in disk drives, magnetic media and terminal devices. Lester Davis from the Oklahoma City Disk Drive Operation, Dick Poffenbarger from the Omaha Magnetic Disk Media Operation, and Larry Schulze, from the Roseville Terminal Division, were assigned to support me on this visit.

Second PRC Visit August, 1979−On our way to the PRC, we met in Waikiki, Oahu, to coordinate the presentations and do dry runs; a nice way to break up a long flight. During the flight to Hawaii, the captain had a contest to see who could get the closest flight time from takeoff to the midway point. He gave us a lot of variables, including wind speed, takeoff temperature and humidity, altitude, arrival time, etc. I guesstimated how these would impact the flight time. The passengers gave their estimates to the flight attendants and selected the closest answer. I was within a minute and won a bottle of Champagne.

Our itinerary in China had been arranged by The Fourth Ministry and was to start in Beijing, proceed to Hangzhou, and then to Shanghai. Along the way, we made stops in some of the major cities along the Grand Canal, Nanjing, Wuxi, and Suzhou. Our hosts treated us to visits at the traditional sites in Beijing as they did with the Trade Delegation in March.

We gave presentations in Beijing to a group of around 30 people, mostly engineers. There was always an observer from the Communist Party present to ensure that nothing was said by the Chinese that would have violated the party line. We were assigned an interpreter, Ming Li, to interpret our presentations.

Ming stayed with us for the duration of the trip, and I got to know him quite well, too well in fact. He and I would sit together during our travels and talk about what our lives were like.

Ming told me about what happened to him during the Cultural Revolution. He was a young college student when it started, attending the University of Beijing. He, like many of the students and intellectuals, was separated from his family and moved to a commune in the country to work as a peasant in the fields. He was not permitted to have any books or to read anything. He told me that on rare occasions he was able to get a book, and would sneak out and hide in the fields to read it. He told me, “I hungered for books to read.” The Cultural Revolution destroyed an entire generation of Chinese intellectuals. Ming managed to overcome the interruption in his education and became a competent translator.

The Party observer must have taken note that we were forming a friendship. On subsequent trips to China, I would inquire about Ming and would be told that he had been assigned to a different organization. A year or so after my involvement with the PRC project, I received a guarded letter from Ming. He expressed his disappointment that it wasn’t possible to meet me during those visits when I had asked about him. He wished my family and me good health. It was obvious that Ming was not able to freely communicate.

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The Fourth Ministry hosted a dinner for the CDC team at a small prestigious restaurant in the Forbidden City. Its use was restricted to high-­‐level government officials and their guests. We were told the main course we were served was from the Ming Dynasty and was called Three White Delicacies. I can remember that two of the items were abalone and white asparagus. I’m not sure, but I think that the other was a chicken breast. It was delicious and unforgettable.

Lester Davis had a film that he showed as part of the disk drive presentation. It compared a 747 flying an inch over the surface of the earth to a disk drive read-­‐write head flying above the surface of rotating magnetic media. The scale was comparable, and the Chinese really got excited when they saw that. They instantly understood the analogy. For the most part, the Chinese didn’t have any real experience in the various computer technologies we were presenting, but they did understand the theory. Almost every major university in China had a laboratory program working on some aspect of computing technology.

We visited the university in Wuxi. They had a laboratory that was focused on magnetic media. Dick Poffenbarger gave a presentation on CDC’s magnetic media. The audience was spellbound as he dazzled them with techno speak. I remember one engineer in particular, a woman, gazing up at Dick as though he was the God of Magnetic Media. They were really thirsty to find out what was happening in their field outside of China.

In one of the hotels we stayed at, Lester Davis saw a funny sight. He was walking down the hall towards his room and saw a man, a hotel employee, ironing shirts on an ironing board. The man who was ironing the shirts had wide gaps in his teeth. Lester saw him pick up a bottle of water and fill his mouth. He then sprayed the water through his teeth onto the shirt. Lester decided he would get an extra day or two out of his shirts before he sent them to the laundry.

We wrapped up our trip visiting Hangzhou and Shanghai. West Lake is located in the center of Hangzhou and is considered to be one of the most famous scenic places in China. There are numerous temples, pagodas, gardens, and artificial islands within the lake. We spent several days enjoying the sights there.

In Shanghai, we stayed at the Jingjiang Hotel near the Bund. Our hosts showed us the Yu Yang Gardens and took us to a Chinese acrobatic performance. I remember taking an early morning walk in a park adjacent to the Huangpu River. I thought I was alone until I heard this faint little voice say “May I practice my English with you.” It was a student eager to get experience with an American. At the conclusion of the visit, the Fourth Ministry informed us that they would like to visit CDC in the US and tour a number of our facilities.

We flew to Canton on a plane packed with Chinese. As we started to land, an announcement was made, and most of the Chinese stood up and retrieved their belongings from the overhead bin. A lot of them hadn’t taken their seats by the time we touched down. They didn’t have any passenger safety protocol.

When we arrived in Hong Kong, we stayed at the Peninsula Hotel, one of the most elegant hotels in Hong Kong, and the world for that matter. They had three or four hotel staff members for each guest. I remember sitting in the lobby early in the morning reading a newspaper, and I was fairly close to an elderly lady who was having her morning tea. She was joined by a good-­‐looking Oriental male in his twenties. She leaned over to him and patted his hand and said, “You were really great last night. Here’s a 119

little something extra.” I couldn’t tell how much she tipped him for services rendered, but he had a big smile on his face when he got it.

PRC Delegation Visit to US−The Fourth Ministry sent three senior engineers and an interpreter to the US to tour a number of CDC facilities that had technology of interest to them. They visited facilities in Omaha and Rapid City that developed and manufactured magnetic recording media for tape and rigid disk drives.

They visited the Valley Forge Tape Drive Operation and the Oklahoma City Disk Drive Operation. Jan Laitos was assigned to be their escort, and he did a great job hosting them. Upon the conclusion of the facility tours, they came to Minneapolis for further discussion. I invited them to dinner at our home in North Oaks. That was quite an experience for them to visit an American’s home for dinner. They were really excited, and they had to call their factory in China to let them know about it.

The Fourth Ministry sent 13 more people to Minneapolis to sign a Memorandum of Understanding that would license the Fourth Ministry rights to manufacture one of the Oklahoma City disk drive products, train their people, and sell them the parts required for the manufacture. This was a big deal for the PRC, and they sent Vice Minister Li Rui to head the delegation and sign the MOU. I had drafted the MOU, and it was signed by both parties. That was the easy part. The detailed contract had to be negotiated, and was going to take several years.

PRC Delegation at CDC HQR to Sign MOU – CFA Standing Middle

Before the delegation left, CDC hosted a dinner for them at a nice restaurant. The Chinese didn’t know what to order and asked me what would be typical of Minnesota. I recommended walleye pike, wild rice, vegetables, and a salad. Almost every one of them followed my recommendation. I noticed that not a single one of them touched the wild rice. After dinner I asked the interpreter why no one ate the rice. He 120

said, “Because it’s rotten.” They thought the rice must have been bad since it wasn’t white and didn’t look like any rice they had ever seen.

CDC asked me to arrange for the Chinese to go to an entertainment event. I found out the Minneapolis Philharmonic Orchestra was doing Handel’s Messiah. I wasn’t sure if a performance with a religious theme would go over, but decided they would enjoy the music anyway. I observed them during the performance, and they seemed to really have a good time. They confirmed that to me, but I doubted that it went over when Beijing heard about it.

Third PRC Visit April, 1980−Protocol required high-­‐level CDC executives to reciprocate visiting The Fourth Ministry in China. Tom Kamp, President of CDC’s Peripheral Products Company (PPCo), led the entourage. In total, there were 10 CDC people plus the wives of Tom Kamp and Harry Ashbridge. Jack Klingert and two other sales people, Harry Ashbridge, George Eifler, Carl Fraidenberg from Valley Forge, Dick Poffenbarger, Che Wei Ho from Omaha, and I made up the group. We flew to Hong Kong and traveled to Canton by train, and we then flew to Beijing and stayed at the Beijing Hotel.

As was the standard routine, our hosts treated the first time visitors with sightseeing of the major attractions in and near Beijing as well as hosting several dinners. They treated us to Peking Duck at a restaurant near a hospital. The restaurant was aptly named “The Sick Duck”.

One evening, a banquet was held for the CDC delegation. A number of Fourth Ministry people were in attendance. After dinner, the toasting began with Tom Kamp toasting and the senior member of the Fourth Ministry reciprocating. Next, someone from CDC toasted, and then someone from the Fourth Ministry did. At some point, I became the object of one-­‐on-­‐one toasting, with each toast offered by a different person from the Fourth Ministry. I was fortunate that the glass they gave me to toast with didn’t contain more than a thimble of Mao Tai, which is the traditional Chinese toasting liquor. Mao Tai is made from sorghum that ferments for a year and is aged for more than four years. It is 53% alcohol and smells and tastes awful. I almost had to hold my nose to drink it, and I thought it tasted like what I imagined jet fuel would taste like. I held my ground and didn’t get outwardly drunk. My head didn’t feel very good the next morning.

CDC Delegation in B eijing CFA – Right

At another banquet, I was sitting close to the minister of the Fourth Ministry of Machine Building. He was explaining that his organization consisted of a number of communes with a total population of over a million people. Someone asked the Minister how he managed all those people. He replied, “Well you 121

can’t just shoot them.”; An interesting response. Apparently that was something within the realm of consideration.

Most of the CDC delegation returned to the US. Dick Poffenbarger, Che Wei Ho, and I stayed behind. The Fourth Ministry had arranged for us to visit Wuhan where there was a manufacturing facility that was a candidate to manufacture magnetic media. We flew to Wuhan, and our hosts met us at the airport. They dropped us off at our hotel a little past lunchtime. We were hungry and dropped our bags in our rooms and hurried to the hotel restaurant. The service was really slow, and I was wondering what was going on.

Eventually our order was taken.

There was an English woman and her daughter having lunch near us. We struck up a conversation with them. The daughter was a student at the University of Beijing, and her mother was visiting her, and they were spending time together seeing some parts of China that they hadn’t seen before. Since our part time office manager in Beijing was a student at the University, I asked the daughter if she knew Laja. “OOOH Laja, yes I know Laja.”, she swooned. Laja was exceptionally handsome, and I had heard that he was quite the lady’s man, and was known to have seduced a lot of foreign female students at the University, rumor confirmed.

We were finally served. I think we must have spent around three hours in the restaurant. When we returned to our rooms, it was obvious that all of our bags had been thoroughly searched. Apparently our hosts had arranged for the restaurant staff to delay our meal so they could search our belongings. They were looking for industrial secrets or pricing information that would give them an advantage in negotiations. We didn’t have anything with us that we didn’t want them to see. They wasted their time.

That night, I called Mary to wish her a belated happy wedding anniversary. At that time it was really difficult to get an international call through from the PRC. I had been trying for several days to call home.

This time I got through. Mary was watching Ted Koppel of Nightline on TV when I called. While we were talking, Nightline was interrupted with news that an attempt to rescue the American hostages from the Embassy in Tehran had been attempted. The rescue party, a contingent of Special Forces in helicopters, was forced down in the Iranian desert due to a sandstorm. It was called Operation Eagle Claw and it was a disaster. All I could think of was President Carter’s incompetence. I told Mary that the son of a bitch had deliberately set the mission up to fail. I don’t know if he really did, but I didn’t give him the benefit of any doubt.

The next day, we visited the Wuhan factory and made our presentations. The next stop on our itinerary was Guilin. When I learned that we would be visiting Wuhan, I requested our hosts to arrange a visit to the University in Guilin and visit its computer lab. I really didn’t care about the lab, but I had heard how beautiful and scenic the Guilin area was, and I wanted to see it. Our hosts made the arrangements. The interpreter and several other Fourth Ministry people accompanied us on an overnight train to Guilin.

Dick, Che Wei, and I were given a first class compartment with bunk beds for the trip. Our fellow Chinese travelers were relegated to a regular passenger car without sleeping accommodations. Che Wei Ho was an Engineer in the Omaha Magnetic Media Plant. He had immigrated to the US from Taiwan and had become a US Citizen. Chinese was his first language, and he served not only as a technical resource, but 122

helped keep the communications with the Fourth Ministry on the up and up. Since his homeland wouldn’t allow him to enter Taiwan if he had a PRC Visa in his passport, he had a special visa to enter the PRC that didn’t go into his US passport.

The three of us were sitting in our compartment with the sliding door closed discussing the day’s events.

It was getting stuffy, and I slid the door back to let some fresh air in. There was a Chinese guy sitting in a chair next to the door pretending to be asleep. He “woke up” when I opened the door and rubbed his eyes. I looked at him and asked if he spoke English. He acted like he didn’t understand me. I tried to shake him up a little by accusing him of eavesdropping and calling him derogatory names. He was unflappable.

Che Wei started speaking to him in Chinese. They really were deep in conversation. I suddenly interrupted them and said, “You speak English, don’t you?” The poor guy was so flustered that he said, “No I don’t ….well, just a little bit”. With his cover blown, he got off at the next stop. That was a Charlie Chang moment.

In Guilin, we visited the University and then went on a city tour. We were taken for a cruise on the River Li. We saw fishermen in boats using Cormorants to catch fish. The birds would dive in the water and catch fish.

They were tethered with a rope around their necks to prevent them from swallowing the fish. This area is famous for its mountains, and the scenery was spectacular.

River Li−Guilin

When we returned to the US, I was interviewed for a position with a new organization that was part of Magnetic Peripherals, Inc. (MPI), Peripheral Products Company’s Disk Drive Operation. MPI was a Joint Venture owned by CDC, Honeywell, and Honeywell Bull. CDC had majority ownership and management control of MPI. Jack Fasching was the Vice President of the newly formed International Operation. MPI had manufacturing facilities in Pamela, Portugal, and Heppenheim, Germany. In addition, it was a majority owner in United Peripherals, Ltd., a Joint Venture with DRICO in the UK that manufactured Disk Drives. These facilities had reported to a counterpart product division in the US and were transferred to the International Operation under Jack. The goal of the International Operation was to make the European operations more or less self-­‐sufficient in terms of organizational capability, on the theory that this would enable CDC to be more competitive in Europe and increase profitability of the European business derived from the products manufactured there.

I was interviewed for the position of International Business Management Office (BMO) Director and would have to establish BMO functions within each of the European operations. I needed to broaden my operations experience, and I thought this opportunity was a good career move. I started the job in June 123

with the understanding that I would transition whoever was hired to replace me in my New Business Development role. Henry Hodde was hired as my replacement. He had a lot of related experience and had been instrumental in negotiating a Joint Venture with the Government of Romania that manufactured Line Printers.

Most of my projects were either complete, or nearly so, except for the PRC activity and the JBC’s with Iskra and Elebra Informatica. I was to accompany Henry on the next trip to the PRC. Final PRC Visit, November, 1980-­‐Harry Ashbridge approved that I could take Mary on this trip, and CDC paid for her expenses. George Eifler took his wife Karen. Our group also included Henry Hodde and Che Wei Ho. We all met up in San Francisco and stayed the night at the Mark Hopkins Hotel. We broke up our flight to Beijing with a two day stopover in Tokyo. This was Mary’s first exposure to the Orient. We toured Tokyo and visited the Emperor’s Palace.

We flew directly from Tokyo to Beijing. I remember collecting our luggage at the newly opened terminal when we arrived. The baggage handling equipment had just Emperor’s Palace Grounds−Tokyo been installed. The airport management hadn’t bothered to have the equipment degreased, and my bag ended up looking like it had been dragged through a grease pit.

We stayed at the Beijing Hotel. Laja was supposed to have made our reservations, but he said that they were sold out of rooms. He knew one of the foreigners who had a permanent room in the hotel. This fellow was traveling, and Laja was somehow able to get the room for Mary and I. I don’t remember how he arranged for rooms for George and Karen, but they and Henry all stayed at the Beijing Hotel. It turned out that Al and Peggy Steldt, our neighbors and close friends from North Oaks, were on a tour of China and were also staying at the Beijing Hotel.

Our hosts arranged for Mary and Karen to see the sights in Beijing while George, Henry, and I met with the Fourth Ministry to negotiate a manufacturing license for the manufacture of a disk drive that was produced in Oklahoma City. Mary and Karen were escorted in a government automobile and had an interpreter take them around. They visited a lot of the traditional places as well as craft factories and elementary schools.

George and I accompanied Karen and Mary to the Great Wall and other major sights in the Beijing Area. It was an incredible experience for them.

The Eiflers and Alexanders−Great Wall

Temple of Heaven−Beijing

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Forbidden City−Beijing

Summer Palace Marble Boat

MEA (Middle) at Great Wall

Tiananmen Square−Beijing

One evening, we had dinner with Peggy and Al Steldt. They told us about all of the places they had visited and were going to visit. They were to visit Mao Zedong’s Tomb in a few days. I thought that would be something to see, and the next day I made a request for the Fourth Ministry to arrange for us to see it. They told me it wasn’t possible for foreigners to visit Mao’s Tomb. BS!! That evening I told Peggy about it, and she said she could get the travel company she was using to allow us to go to the Tomb with them.

Bicycle Park-­‐Beijing The next morning, I opened the meeting by telling the Fourth Ministry that we would be a little late as I had made arrangements to visit Mao’s Tomb. Our hosts were somewhat shocked when they heard that. After much bickering in Chinese, someone left the room. A few minutes later he returned, and they told us a car would pick us up early in the morning and we would be taken to Mao’s Tomb for a tour. The next morning a big car, the Hong Qi Red Flag Limousine,

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which was manufactured in China based on a Russian design, picked us up and drove the five of us to Mao’s Tomb.

We went to the head of the line of tourists who were waiting for the Tomb to open. I can’t say I was impressed with Mao. He looked a little crusty and moldy. This was quite a turn of events. I realized this was just part of the Chinese style of negotiation. They were always playing mind games with you. I didn’t let it bother me, but Henry didn’t appreciate their tactics. He was used to dealing with the East Block Communists where the language was blunt and points were made with table pounding, a la Nikita Khrushchev. The Chinese figured this out and were always doing something to get his goat. I knew that Henry was in for a long, hard slog before he would finalize the license agreement negotiations. After all, the Chinese have thousands of years negotiating experience.

We were in Beijing during the 1980 Presidential Elections. Mary and Karen went to the US Embassy to monitor the returns while George and I met with the Fourth Ministry. We adjourned the meeting early as George and I were keenly interested in the outcome of the race between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and wanted to go to the Embassy. When we arrived, the results were already in, and Ronald Reagan had won by a wide margin. The Embassy staff knew their jobs were in jeopardy, and there were a lot of red eyes. Someone was handing out Jimmy Carters Life Story, “Why Not The Best”. I got the last copy, a bilingual English-­‐Chinese paperback book. I couldn’t have been happier to see Jimmy Carter’s days as President numbered.

I had requested the Fourth Ministry to visit Xian China and West Lake, Hangzhou, and they had made the arrangements. Mary and Karen were eager to leave Beijing as it was getting cold and buildings were not allowed to be heated until the week after we left. They were shivering a lot.

We were escorted to Xian by our interpreter, Mr. Kan, and three others from the Fourth Ministry. We flew from Beijing to Xian and did a tour of the city. It was once the capital of China and had a fortress like wall surrounding it.

My main objective in visiting Xian was to see the Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses, a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. The figures date from third century BC and are a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210-­‐209 BC, and whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife.

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Our Interpreter−Mr. Kan

Some local farmers accidently discovered this “Army” in 1974 near the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. The figures are all different and lifelike, varying in height according to their roles, with the tallest being the generals at over six feet tall. The figures include warriors, chariots, and horses. Estimates are that there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses in the Terracotta Army. The site was in its early excavation stage, but enough had been unearthed and restored to appreciate its magnitude. It was an incredible sight.

Terra Cotta War Horse

Beast of Burden−Xian

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We visited the site where Chiang Kai-­‐shek was kidnapped and forced to cooperate with the Chinese Communists in the war against Japan in 1936. Our hosts seemed to relish showing us this site.

Mary and I were taken to a Chinese Opera one evening at an open air theater. We were seated in front of some Frenchmen. Our host spoke excellent English and was explaining the meaning of the performance.

All of a sudden, one of the Frenchmen rudely told our host, “Please stop speaking English.” I looked around and glared at him, and then I told our host: “Never mind him. He’s just being French.” If looks could have killed.

From Xian, we travelled to Nanjing and Wuxi. When we flew out of Xian the temperature was forty degrees F; still no buildings being heated. Mary and Karen looked like a couple of Eskimos. They were really looking forward to West Lake as the date we would arrive there was when the heat would be turned on (in Beijing).

In Nanjing we visited Sun Yat Sen’s Memorial and Lake

Sun Yat Sen Memorial−Xian

Grand Canal−Wuxi

Xuanwu. We boarded a train there and went to Wuxi where we saw the Grand Canal and Lake Tai. We also visited a factory that made clay figures.

We traveled to Hangzhou and saw Monks at a Buddhist Monastery, took in a Chinese Opera, and visited an Arboretum that raised Bonsai trees. We toured several Temples and Pagodas. We spent a West Lake Scene lot of time seeing West Lake and its very beautiful parks. Mary and Karen were excited to finally be in Hangzhou as they thought the heating would be turned on in the buildings. They were disappointed to learn that the date to turn heating on was a week later in this region of China as it is further south of Beijing. Our hosts had us stay in a very nice VIP suite.

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We wrapped up our trip by spending several days in Shanghai, visiting the Bund, Dragon Park, and some department stores. Kenny Rogers stayed at the same hotel we were in. We encountered him, and Mary got his autograph. He was visiting China as a tourist and was not doing any performances.

On the way back home, we broke up the trip by spending a few days in Hawaii.

George had his camera case stolen at the airport. We were waiting for our bags, and George set the case on the floor.

When he wasn’t looking, someone MEA Getting Kenny Rogers Autograph−Shanghai picked it up. Months later, he started receiving some of the pictures he had taken in the mail. I don’t believe he ever found out who stole it.

We stayed at a hotel overlooking the beach on Waikiki. We did the usual touristy things and visited the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor.

Henry Hodde completed the disk drive license agreement. By that time, the product that was licensed was at end of life. I was the Director of Product Line Management of the Small Disk Division in Oklahoma City and was presiding over a phase out of its production. I anticipated this, and tried to convince Henry to offer the Fourth Ministry a substitute product. Henry wouldn’t even consider it. The Fourth Ministry sent about a dozen people to Oklahoma City for training. We R&R on Waikiki sold them about a hundred sets of parts. With the product being out of production, that was the extent of what we could provide. I still visualize all those Chinese workers in the Hangzhou factory building those disk drives, and then disassembling them and then rebuilding them, over and over again. Clearly, all that the fourth Ministry wanted was the training and transfer of knowhow so they could build their technology base in magnetic recording devices.

The Fourth Ministry’s people stayed at a Holiday Inn near the CDC factory where they were being trained.

One night, a fight broke out in a guest room adjacent to a room occupied by several of the Chinese. A shot rang out, and a bullet went through the wall and into the Chinese’s room. Luckily, they weren’t hurt.

The police were called, and they took the offenders into custody.

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Business Management Office (BMO) 1980−1982 International Operations I started working as Director of the International BMO in June, 1980. There were three disk drive manufacturing facilities in Europe that were part of the International Operation. Jack Fasching had identified managers to handle the business management function in each of the plants. They would report to me on a dotted line basis and to the plant manager on a direct basis. In addition, I recruited three people to help me establish the International BMO, which had profit and loss responsibility for the business generated by the European manufacturing facilities. The BMO functions consisted of customer account management, order processing, factory scheduling, and forecasting product orders.

In addition, there was a lot of work to do in transitioning those functions from the BMO’s in the other domestic divisions to the International BMO. I was met with a lot of resistance as those BMO’s did not want to lose the European customers. Jack had sold the concept of the International Operations on the basis that the European operations would be more profitable under him than under the domestic divisions. He had the European Plant Managers develop a plan to source some of the material in Europe so that the European content would enable the products to be exempt from duty. That, coupled with the savings in transportation costs, would enable us to increase the customer prices by seven percent, thereby justifying the International Operation.

There was an after-­‐hours reception of some sort that Mary and I attended. This event occurred just before we left for China to transition Henry Hodde to take over negotiations with the Fourth Ministry of Machine Building. Jack told Mary how pleased he was with my work and that he didn’t know how he had gotten along without me. When we left for China, I left Taroon Kamdar in charge during my absence. I had recruited him several months prior to assist me in the BMO Upon my return, Jack chewed me out. He told me I had left everything in a big mess. Apparently, I had misjudged Taroon. I thought he was capable of handling the BMO while I was gone, but apparently doing highly detailed analysis wasn’t his strong suit. He was a big picture person, and he complained a lot to Jack during my absence. I was on Jack’s list, and I couldn’t do anything right in his eyes. He gave me impossible assignments, and I became determined to not give him an excuse to fire me. My work schedule increased to seven days a week, and I frequently put in fifteen hour days. Peggy Steldt commented to Mary that I looked emaciated.

A major challenge I had was to transition the European customers account management from the domestic divisions to the International BMO. I had to convince the International customers that the seven percent price increase would be less than the reduction in freight and import duty. It was not easy to get the customers to accept this, and it required a lot of meetings and discussions with them. Most of the European Sales Force went along with it, except for several individuals in the German Sales Organization.

Ultimately, all of the customers had their prices increased.

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I made frequent trips to Europe, visiting the BMO’s in Germany, the UK, and Portugal, to coordinate various matters. On one trip I visited the UK to work with Mike Cooke, the BMO Manager in Crew where the UPL Joint Venture was located. I flew in on a Saturday from Frankfurt where I had been meeting with Jürgen Hoffmann, the BMO Manager of the Heppenheim, Germany facility. Mike picked me up at Heathrow Airport, and we drove to the Lake District where Mike had reservations at a Bed & Breakfast.

That afternoon, the B&B offered “high tea”, and that was the first time I experienced it.

Mike and I drove around the Lake District that afternoon and the next morning. It is one of the top scenic areas in England. We headed for Crewe in the afternoon. Along the way , Mike said, “Chuck it is about time you learned how to drive on the wrong side of the road”. I took over driving. Right away we entered a small village on a narrow road. A lorry was headed towards us. I edged over to the left side of the road, and Mike said, “Get over. Get over”. I thought he was concerned that I was crowding the lorry, and moved even further to the left. All of a sudden, “Whack.” The driver’s side view mirror was almost ripped off. Mike had wanted me to move to the right. He had just gotten a brand new Company auto as part of his compensation package, and I had just made a mess of it.

One of my favorite places to visit was Portugal. The factory was located in Pamela, about 45 minutes from Lisbon city center. Jaime Riberio was the BMO Manager there, and he knew the best seafood restaurants on the coast near the factory. Portugal was a poor country and very economical to visit. The products manufactured there had the best quality of any of MPI’s factories. Once the workers were trained, they did not deviate from the manufacturing process and produced very consistent results.

March 30, 1981 I was working in my office on the eight floor of CDC’s corporate tower, which overlooked the Minneapolis-­‐St. Paul airport. Someone called one of the people near me and said, “President Reagans been shot”. He had been in office a little over two months and represented one of the few hopes I had that the country could be pulled out of the mess that it was in. I feared that he would die and the country would remain mired in the quagmire Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter had collectively gotten the country into. Fortunately, the shot wasn’t fatal; and he recovered and proceeded to create the environment that led to unprecedented economic growth and prosperity.

The economy fell into recession in July, 1981, and CDC instituted its classic response by reducing salaries and the headcount by 10%. Everyone had to take ten days extra vacation as an offset to the salary reduction. Mary and I decided to take a trip to the East Coast with the kids. We drove the entire trip, traveling through Michigan where we visited Mackinac Island and crossed the Canadian border at Ste. St. Marie. We traveled to Niagara Falls, and went on

Niagra Falls

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the Maid of The Mist boat excursion. From there, we drove to New York City, and we met Mary’s brother, Bill, who worked for one of CDC’s Subsidiaries that specialized in computer applications for stock trading. Bill showed us around Wall Street, and we visited Lady Liberty, Brian’s Maid of the Mist favorite attraction.

We spent several days visiting Bill and his Family at their home in Middleton, NJ. Bill commuted to New York City by train every day, spending Lady Liberty over an hour riding the train each way.

Our next stop was at Mount Vernon, home of George Mt. Vernon

Mount Vernon

Washington Monument

Washington. From there, we visited Washington DC and saw the usual sights, including the Smithsonian Museum and the FBI Building. We visited one Minnesota Congressman’s offices in the capital. We packed a lot into that day, and Jennifer and Brian were really getting tired. We kept them going by reenergizing them with ice cream. One night, we returned to our motel and went to a nearby

Last Issue of The Washington Post

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restaurant for dinner. Jennifer was so exhausted that she fell asleep face down in her plate.

From D. C. we drove through the Smoky Mountain National Park and onto Louisville, KY, where we visited the Nemesis’s. Barb and Steve had moved there a few years earlier. After that, we drove to Sullivan, Missouri, and spent several days with Mom and Dad before returning home. That was quite a long trip, especially for Jennifer and Brian.

I had trouble getting regular exercise in the winter, and I couldn’t jog in the summer as that hurt my ankle that had been broken in 1968. I joined the YMCA where I worked out almost every morning on my way to work. One of my favorite activities was playing racquet ball. I discovered that my ankle could endure that and was able to resume jogging. All I had to do was tough out the pain and build up some endurance.

A lot of the people in North Oaks left the majority of their lots in a natural state, landscaping only the area immediately adjacent to their homes. It provided a lot of habitat for wildlife, and we had a large population of deer that resided there. The deer attracted outsiders who would poach the deer with crossbows. I discovered a number of arrows embedded in trees on my lot. I talked to our resident police officer about that, and he told me the poachers would drive around during the day and drop a deer with the crossbow. The foliage hid the deer, and the poachers would return at night to retrieve the carcass.

They would dress the deer and sell it to restaurants that offered venison on their menus.

The summer of 1981 wore on. The recession deepened and with it a decline in business. My boss Jack, was the subject of a lot of criticism by the other MPI Division VPs. They were eager to see the International Operation disbanded and the European manufacturing plants reporting back to them. The top management of MPI was getting tired of the constant sniping and bickering and decided in their favor.

International was disbanded in October.

Large Disk Division Jack was assigned to head up product planning for MPI. I was transferred to the Large Disk Division (LDD) to replace Dick Jenson as Director of LDD BMO. Dick was a key architect of a new disk drive interface called the Intelligent Peripheral Interface (IPI) and found that work more to his liking than running the BMO. Luckily for me, the timing was perfect.

The VP of LDD was Gene Kirsch who had been VP of the Valley Forge Tape Manufacturing Division, and he had recently been transferred to Minneapolis to run the LDD. I reported to Gene. The BMO had about forty people, with Accounts Management, Product Management, Product Pricing, and Factory Scheduling functions reporting to me. Heppenheim, Germany was the European manufacturing location for LDD products, and it also reported to Gene Kirsch.

Several months after I was on the job, Roger Fisher passed away. He was the most senior manager reporting to me and was responsible for Accounts Management and Factory Scheduling, a critical job. I recruited Bob Maeser to replace Roger. Bob was manager of Customer Quality Assurance, and I was impressed with his professionalism and attention to detail. He and the manager of Applications Engineering, Bob Darwin, made trips to the top customers several times a year to identify quality and technical issues arising from their use of LDD products. Their trip reports were comprehensive and impressive. Bob turned out to be an excellent choice for that job.

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I remember there was a rash of quality issues that customers reported to Tom Kamp, president of PPCo. A lot of them were the result of careless mistakes that weren’t followed up on in a timely manner. Kamp sent a scathing letter to all PPCo employees on integrity. His point was that when you made a commitment to do something, it is your responsibility to see that it is done according to what you committed to. I especially appreciated his definition of integrity, “Integrity is consistency between word and deed.” Over the years, I frequently reminded myself of Tom’s words.

Dick Timmer was the Manager of product management, and for some reason unknown to me, his performance became substandard. I reflected that on his performance review and put him on a performance improvement plan. Either he made significant improvements in his performance or he would be terminated. Fortunately for Dick, he improved and I removed the poor review from Dick’s file. I was pleased I didn’t have to follow through with termination.

LDD had just completed the development of a large disk drive, the CDC 9776, which had an industry leading storage capacity of 675 MB. It was the size of a refrigerator, and it was one of the most advanced disk drives on the market. At the time it was being designed, the price was projected to be in excess of $30,000. IBM had a rival product that was priced even higher, but for some reason customers were balking at evaluating it for possible integration into their computer systems. These customers were manufacturers of high-­‐end computer systems. They spent enormous time and engineering resources qualifying disk drives before they would commit to production using them.

ICL was showing early interest in the CDC 9776, but it would not even place an evaluation order at the price LDD was asking. I knew that unless we got a major customer to commit to it, the 9776 wouldn’t get off the ground. I convinced my management that we needed to drop the price by a third. They agreed, and ICL placed the evaluation order based on the new pricing. LDD ultimately got ICL’s production order, but it wasn’t very profitable. I believe the fact that the worldwide economy was still in recession had an awful lot to do with customer price resistance.

Early in the fall of 1982, the recession hadn’t yet bottomed out and orders were shrinking. PPCo’s largest customer, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), cancelled 60% of its orders that were scheduled for manufacture over the next six months at both LDD and its sister division in Minneapolis, the Small Disk Division (SDD). In the face of this, it became apparent that the business would not support both LDD and SDD as separate organizations. A decision was made to combine the two divisions and eliminate a significant number of employees so that costs would be better aligned with revenue to maintain profitability.

Dean Bowman was the VP of the SDD, and he was chosen to be the VP of the newly combined division.

Don Berglund was the BMO Director reporting to Dean at the SDD, and Dean decided to keep Don as BMO Director, as well as all of his SDD staff, to run the new division. I was out of a job.

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Oklahoma City-­‐Small Disk Division 1983−1991 The recession finally ended in November, 1982. GDP had dipped 2.7%, and unemployment had reached 10.8%. There were scant job openings for me to pursue. There was one bright spot within PPCo. The PC was just taking hold, and MPI’s Oklahoma City (OKC) Disk Drive operation had a product that was in demand by the PC manufacturers. It was the Flexible Disk Drive (FDD) that was integrated as part of the PC. It was used to load software to run on the PC and to store user application files. Demand for the FDD was growing, and it had gotten to the point that a decision was made to set up a separate division for it.

Jeff May was the BMO Director for the OKC rigid disk drive operation, and he was promoted to be general manager of the new FDD Division. Jeff had moved to OKC several years earlier to replace George Eifler who had taken a position with another company. With Jeffs move to the FDD Division, his old position was open. I was offered that job, but I would have to relocate to OKC if I accepted. That was a difficult decision. Mary and I didn’t really want to leave Minnesota. We really loved our home and living in North Oaks. Besides, I wasn’t all that impressed with OKC. However, this was probably the only significant opportunity I could realistically expect, and we decided it would be the right choice. We thought OKC would be a three-­‐year move and that we would seek an opportunity elsewhere later. We expected the economy to improve and that there would be more options available then.

CDC offered to buy our house, but when the appraisal came in it was way below what I thought it was worth. The real estate market was severely depressed as a consequence of the depression, and it took eight months for our home to be sold. The buyer turned out to be an IRS Agent, and he paid close to our asking price of almost $185,000.

On January 1, 1983, I flew to OKC and started working the next day. I stayed at a hotel and rented a car.

CDC paid those expenses plus meals for over two months. They couldn’t maintain that arrangement indefinitely, and I had to move into an apartment and provide my own transportation. I returned to Minnesota to retrieve my auto, a Camaro, and I drove back on St. Patrick’s Day. It was snowing as I left North Oaks.

In the meantime, I used the weekends to shop for a house to buy. I must have looked at over a couple of dozen before I found one that was within the price range I was willing to pay and had all of the features that Mary and I wanted. It had just been built and would cost less than what I expected to receive from the sale of our North Oaks home. I made an offer and put up $5,000 escrow, subject to Mary’s approval.

Life in OKC As soon as we accepted the offer from the IRS agent, Mary and the kids came down to OKC for house hunting. Nadine Fearnow was the realtor I used, and she took Mary to see the house I made an offer on.

Mary walked through the front door, took one look at it, and turned around and walked out. She told Nadine she would look at it one more time. She did, and she told Nadine she couldn’t live there; so much for my opinion. Nadine showed her some other homes that I thought were acceptable. She and the kids 135

fell in love with the most expensive of these, and I would end up paying quite a bit more than I wanted to and more than what the North Oaks home was sold for.

I thought I got a great deal when my offer for that home was accepted at $10,000 less than the listed price. Little did I realize the oil boom that had fueled the OK economy was ending, and the effects of the Penn Square Savings and Loan failure was still rippling through the economy. The real estate market in Oklahoma and elsewhere tanked. It took almost twenty years for the market value of our new home to recover to the level of what I paid for it. The new home was located at 2521 Bent Trail Road in Edmond, Oklahoma, on a lot that overlooked a creek. The property across the creek belonged to the Trails Home Owners Association (HOA) and was heavily wooded with large oak trees. When Mary and the kids saw the woods, they were sold on the house as it reminded them of our home in North Oaks. The HOA had a pool, and that was a plus.

Our new home had just been built and was approximately 3600 square feet with four bedrooms, a large kitchen with eating area, two living areas, and a formal dining room. The master suite was huge, and it had a large bath with a spa on the deck surrounded with privacy screens. The back of the house had a covered deck that spanned the entire length of the house. It made our North Oaks home look like a dwarf’s house in comparison. The home had been built for the owner of the construction company that built it. Before we closed on the home, the owner disclosed that it had been flooded in one of the hundred year rains. I could see there wasn’t adequate drainage installed in the street, and I had a clause inserted in the purchase agreement that the contractor would install a storm drain that would “keep water from entering the property from the street during heavy rains”. That was agreed to. The construction company installed a flume drain. I told the seller this would not be adequate as there was no way to divert the water into the drain. He didn’t listen to me.

We moved into the home in August, 1983, just in time for the kids to begin school. Jennifer was in the seventh grade, and Brian was in the fifth grade. They attended schools in the Edmond School District, which had a reputation as being the best District in Oklahoma, and one of the main reasons we chose Edmond for our home.

Mary got upset when she learned that Jennifer had been placed in a class below her level, and she became extremely involved with all the things at school that involved the kids. Jennifer was moved up to a class appropriate to her level, and Mary kept a watchful eye on the school.

Parents in Edmond were more lax and permissive with their kids than we were accoustomed to. One time Jennifer was invited to an overnight party with some of her girlfriends. Mary took Jennifer to the home where the party was to be held. She insisted on meeting the mother of the girl having the party. Jennifer wanted her to drop her off, but Mary insisted on talking to the mother. She found out the parents were getting ready to go to a concert. Mary asked the mother who was going to supervise the party. The mother told her the girls would just be fine and not to worry. Mary told her that Jennifer would not be allowed to attend a party without adult supervision. The mother thought Mary was unreasonable. Later, Jennifer told Mary that as soon as the parents left for the concert, a group of boys showed up at the party.

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Raising Jennifer in Edmond had its challenges. Jennifer had some friends that invited her to go to a movie.

I was suspicious that they were up to something else and made sure that I stayed up until she came home.

She arrived just in time before her curfew. I asked her how the movie was. Nonchalantly, she said it was fine. I told her I had just seen the movie on a recent business trip I took and started asking her about the movie, making up various things about it and asking what she thought about some of the ficticious scenes.

Jennifer sensed that I was onto her and started slowly backing up the stairs towards her bedroom. I told her she was lying and that I knew she hadn’seen the movie. She said she didn’t know why she lied to me, because I always knew when she did. I can’t remember how long she was grounded, but it did have an effect on her behavior.

In 1984, Mary became involved with the Edmond Family Council, a nonprofit organization, which provided counseling for families with troubled kids. She became a volunteer board bember and served as treasurer.

This association lasted many decades. In addition, Mary was president and treasurer of another nonprofit organization, the Edmond Task Force for Youth, which worked with community leaders, school counselors, and parents to identify programs for youths in the community. She was quite involved as a volunteer.

One of the programs she spearheaded was the “after hours prom party” that provided a supervised, drug-­‐ free venue for kids to enjoy after the formal prom was over.

Mary and I made a number of friends through the newcomers club. We were part of an offshoot group where the couples took turns hosting dinner parties in their home. The host determined the menu, and each couple brought their designated food item to the dinner. Over the years, a number of the couples moved away from the area, but we retained friendships with many of the couples and continued to see them periodically, especially for Super Bowl games.

We instituted an annual event of hosting a party on Super Bowl Sundays, inviting a number of neighbors, new-­‐comers friends, and work associates from CDC and OK State. We had a lot of food and drink, and the spa was open. Usually we had 50 or so guests. We also hosted dinner parties around Christmas for people who reported to me at CDC. Unfortunately that practice fell beside the way when I left Seagate.

One of our favorite weekend routines is attending the Edmond Farmers Market. When we moved to OK, it was held in a parking lot adjacent to the city utilities office. As it gained popularity, the city built an outdoor pavilion to host it. We have our favorite farmers to buy from and try to avoid the “professionals” who buy in bulk at Dallas or OKC produce markets and resell at the market. Our favorite is Wayne who owns a farm near Coyle, Oklahoma. He grows the sweetest corn in the nation, and you have to get there early if you want to buy it. He also raises cattle and sells various cuts at the market. Another favorite farmer is a guy from Blanchard. He raises heirloom tomatoes. Until we moved to OK, I wasn’t aware of them. They are the tastiest tomatoes you can get, despite being the ugliest.

Oklahoma Weather In 1983 our first Oklahoma winter greeted us with one of the coldest winters on record, reaching a bone-­‐ chilling -­‐13 degrees Fahrenheit. Of course that was not unusual for us to experience in Minnesota. There was even enough snowfall for us to break out our cross-­‐country skis and visit the local neighborhood grocery store to buy some essentials as driving was difficult. This was our first taste of Oklahoma weather extremes.

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Annual precipitation in Central Oklahoma averages about 35” with a dry low of 20” and a wet high of 54”.

Another weather hazard in Oklahoma are ice storms, which occur late in the year through March. It is almost guaranteed to happen once every three to five years.

The temperature is near freezing and a fine drizzle or light rain starts and freezes on trees and power lines.

The results are predictable; power outages, downed trees and lots of wrecks for those foolish enough to try and beat the weather.

Just like Minnesota Typically, Oklahoma weather is pleasant except for late June, July and early August. The high temperature record was broken in July 1996 when Mary and I decided to visit Pawnee, Oklahoma to take in Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Show. We were watching the parade near the local bank and saw the temperature hit 113 degrees. Nevertheless, we attended the show on Pawnee Bill’s ranch and had an enjoyable experience.

Oklahoma is noted for its strong winds, offering excellent sailing conditions and is blessed with more shorelines that the combined east and west coasts.

This is due to the many reservoirs that were built over the years due to Majority Leader Senator Kerr, aka “The Uncrowned King of the Senate”. In exchange for other states getting their reservoir’s funded, Senator Kerr managed to obtain funding for Oklahoma to build another reservoir.

Lake Hefner was built in Oklahoma City in 1947 and is the primary source of water. It is 2500 acres with an average depth of 29 feet and is 94 feet at its deepest point. Due to the abundance of strong sailing winds and its depth, which practically eliminates swells, it is one of the best sailing lakes in the USA. In May 2005, up to 300 sailing enthusiasts participated in what was billed as one of the country's most prestigious sailboat races, Chesapeake Energy’s North American Championship J-­‐22 Sailboat Races. I watched some of these races from the vantage of my sailboat and got some excellent pictures.

In May 1986 we encountered our first Oklahoma tornado, a Force 3. Force 5 is the highest rating. It struck two neighborhoods several miles south of our home, destroying 39 homes and inflicting $6.5 Million in damage. I remember being at a dinner meeting with some Japanese customers at the Skirvin Hotel in downtown Oklahoma City when it struck. I had no idea that a tornado had hit Edmond, but as I drove home I realized what had happened since it was difficult at times to avoid debris. Our home was intact, and the only inconvenience was a power outage. I don’t recall anyone being severely injured or killed, but stories emerged about the people that endured the ferocity of the tornado. One family took 138

shelter in their coat closet. After the tornado passed, some of the neighbors saw that entire home was gone except for a small coat closet. They opened the door and saw the family huddled together without a hair on their head touched. We had experienced some minor tornados in Minnesota, but nothing on this scale.

In October, 1986, a Force 1 tornado struck on Memorial Road three or four miles south of our home. We didn’t suffer any tornado damage, but the rains that were generated flooded some of the houses in our neighborhood, including ours. I was at work, and Mary was away from home when that happened. She came home to find our house flooded. The flume drain that was installed to keep water off our property was totally ineffective. Luckily, our neighbor across the street was flooded and had called a water removal service. They were busy vacuuming up the water in his house when Mary returned home. She went over and talked to the water removal service people. They told her they couldn’t do anything to help her as they were already booked to go elsewhere. Mary didn’t accept that, and she pleaded with them until they agreed to do our house next.

Over six hundred gallons of water had flowed through our home. Everything on the first floor was wet and muddy. Fortunately the furniture was elevated soon enough to avoid much damage. The service removed the carpet and hung it around the deck to dry. I came home completely unaware that we had been flooded. By the time I got there, the service had completed everything they could do and had left.

I Retained a Lawyer There wasn’t much that could be done until the house and carpet dried out. I had a business trip in Europe and had to leave the next morning. I really hated to leave Mary and the kids with that mess, but there wasn’t much I could have accomplished by staying there.

I returned 4 or 5 days later and got in touch with the contractor who built the house and installed the flume drain. When I asked him how he was going to compensate me for the damages and to replace the flume drain with a drain that worked, he told me that was my problem, and he wasn’t responsible for anything. I told him, he would be hearing from an attorney.

I interviewed several attorneys, and ended up hiring a woman to represent me. She took depositions from the builder and several other people who were involved. In the course of taking the depositions, we were able to gain access to the original house plans that I had previously been told were not in existence.

We discovered the plans specified the installation of a drain near the entry level. When the attorney asked the builder why the drain hadn’t been installed, he stated the house was resting on bed rock and it would have been too expensive to install the drain. I think that is what ultimately led me to win the law suit.

In the meantime, I decided I would have a french drain installed to protect the house from flooding. I contacted several contractors who specialized in drains and only found one who seemed to base his proposal on solid engineering, Stan Blanchard. Five Thousand Dollars later, I had a highly effective drain system surrounding our home. Stan discovered a number of other deficiencies in the construction of our home that he corrected as part of the drain installation. I asked Stan to write up all of the problems he

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uncovered for use in the lawsuit. He wrote a very convincing detailed analysis for me, and he didn’t charge anything for it.

I put together a detailed list of all of the items that had been damaged by the flood and a list of the expenses I incurred, including the french drain installation. I believe it was around $9000. I met with contractor and told him I would settle for that amount, but if I was forced to file a lawsuit, I could justify a higher amount. He refused to consider my offer. I also contacted the City of Edmond and told them the flume drain that had been installed should not have been approved by the City when it was inspected, and the City was partly responsible for the flooding. They agreed to replace the flume with a drain that would trap water and evacuate it to the creek in back of our home. They told me they would supply the labor and equipment, but I would have to pay around a thousand dollars for the material. They installed the drain but never billed me for the materials.

Our attorney discovered she had cancer and would not be able to continue with our case. She recommended several attorneys for my consideration. I hired Jim Rice as her replacement. Jim put together the brief and filed the lawsuit March 17, 1989. I listed the damages at around $25,000. We were set to go to trial May 12, 1989 when we were offered a settlement of $21,000, which we accepted.

The most horrific tornado we experienced occurred May 3, 1999, a Force 5 that killed 40 people and did $1 Billion in damages. Multiple funnel systems were generated and it wiped out significant areas of Moore, Oklahoma. I was working at Cherokee Data when the alarms were sounded and we closed the business and sent everyone home. A group of tornados had formed near El Reno, Oklahoma , some 40 miles west of our home. I watched the weather on the local TV station and the tornado was on a path to our neighborhood. What was I to do? Right then and there, I decided to build a tornado shelter if I survived. Luckily, the direction of the tornado changed and it vectored northeast of Edmond.

I researched options for tornado shelters and found a company that had recently brought one to market.

It had been designed by a Veterinarian, and he was manufacturing them in Oklahoma City. The patented design was 28”Wx65”Lx54”D. It was made of steel with a sliding door on the top and was coated with a tar like water proof substance and was installed in our garage. A diamond saw cut out the footprint and a small backhoe excavated the cavity it was installed in, all for a cost of less than $2000. We have taken shelter in it multiple times. It could hold up to 6 people and some pets-­‐very crowded, but you only needed the shelter for up to 15 minutes before the threat passed.

During the time I was house hunting, I must have looked at over two dozen homes. Only one had a basement. Given the number of tornados Oklahoma had, I couldn’t understand why. I was told Oklahoma had a high water table and a lot of clay that over time would cause the basement to leak. Builders avoided this problem by not building homes with basements. In reality, builders didn’t know how to build a water proof basement and the cost of building a house with a basement was significant compared to homes that were built on a concrete slab.

Oklahoma’s frost line is 18” and in Minnesota it is 54”. Oklahoma doesn’t require the foundation footing to be below the frost line. Minnesota does. It’s a lot more econopmical to build a home with a basement

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in Minnesota than in Oklahoma. That’s the real reason Oklahoma doesn’t have many homes with basements.

An EF5 tornado with wind speeds of up to 318 mph struck Moore and other parts of the Oklahoma City Metroplex in May 2013, inflicting $370 Million in damages and some 20 fatalities. In earlier times, the death toll would have been higher, but the early warning system has been much improved. The residents of Moore had 36 minutes notice before touchdown in May 2013 compared to 10 minutes in 1999, and 5 minutes in 1990. Edmond by and large excaped severe damage, although a tornado did touchdown momentarily several blocks from son Brians home in Edmond.

Post Office Massacre Shortly after we moved to OKC, I joined a local gym and resumed my workout routine. I worked out early in the morning as I didn’t have any excuses then. If I worked out after work, there would be too many things that would conflict with the workout. Early on the morning of August 20, 1986, I finished my workout, and I was driving down the Broadway Extension near downtown Edmond on my way to work. I heard sirens and saw a stream of ambulances and police vehicles with lights flashing headed North towards downtown Edmond. When I got to work, I saw Lois Sturgil, one of the Account Managers, and I asked her how she was doing. She told me her husband had barely escaped with his life. He was an employee of the downtown Edmond Post Office, and she had received a call that a shooting had occurred in the Post Office. A gunman had padlocked the entrance doors to the Post Office and proceeded to walk through the work area, shooting everyone in sight. Lois’s husband managed to get out the back door. The gunman pursued him, but he decided to let him go and returned to kill as many people as he could find.

The shooter was Patrick Sherrill, a postal employee who had been reprimanded for performance reasons the day before. He came to work that morning to settle the score. One of the two managers involved in the reprimand was the first one killed. Sherrill had two .45 caliber pistols, and he killed fourteen people and wounded six more. This episode gave rise to the expression “Going Postal”. A memorial was erected to the people killed and wounded that day near the Post Office building. One of the people he killed was the grandson of Knut Rockne, the legendary coach of Notre Dames Fighting Irish Football team. Sherrill took his own life.

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Family Travels American Airlines (AA) invented the frequent flyer program and introduced it about the time I transferred to OKC. My job required enough travel that I could occasionally use the frequent flyer points I earned to fly the family to our vacation destination.

Mary and I took a vacation to Hawaii in October, 1984. We started out on Maui and stayed at a hotel in Kaanapalli on the beach. We toured the Island in a rental auto, and drove the narrow, almost impassable road to Hana. On our trip back, we stopped at the beachside Mama’s Fish House for dinner where we watched the surfers riding the waves from our dinner table. We visited many beautiful sights there, and we got up at 2:30 am to drive to the 10,000 foot above sea level Haleakala summit for viewing a spectacular sunrise. We brought blankets from our hotel On The Road To Hana, HI room. A good thing, as the temperature dropped to 31 degrees F. From Maui, we flew to Kauai and took a helicopter ride over Waimea Canyon, which is the largest canyon in the Pacific and truly a dramatic sight to behold. The canyon measures 10 miles long, 1 mile wide, and more than 3,500-­‐feet deep. We bought a T-­‐Shirt souvenir for Jennifer. It had a tropical looking plant on the back with the caption “Hawaii’s Best”. Little did we know it was a marijuana plant. We learned that when Jennifer wore it to school and her friends told her. How embarrassing.

We took the kids to Florida to visit Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida over Christmas, 1984. We arrived several days before Disneyworld Christmas Parade Christmas when the lines were short, and we were able to see the Christmas Day Parade rehearsals without having to battle large crowds. After that, we visited Bill and Mary Kruse in St. Petersburg, Florida. Honeywell had transferred Bill from Minnesota to Florida. I had worked with Bill on board the Vandenberg. Bill and Mary had also built a home near us in North Oaks, and it was good to see them and catch up on old times. We went to the beach with their family one afternoon. Jennifer had the misfortune of stepping on a bed of broken seashells. Her foot was a bloody mess, and we took her to a doctor’s office where she was bandaged and given a tetanus shot. On the way back to Oklahoma, we stopped in New Orleans to see the sights there.

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Disneyworld Christmas Parade

Anasazi Cliff Dwelings Mesa Verde

In the early summer of 1985, we took the kids on a driving trip through Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Wounded Jennifer New Mexico. We drove through Wolf Creek Pass where there was still a lot of snow pack at that elevation. Brian was complaining about being thirsty, and I stopped near a roadside stream where there was runoff from the snowmelt and told him he could drink that. I did not realize the water was contaminated, and Brian developed a fever that lasted several days. We visited Mesa Verde and explored the ancient ruins of the Anasazi people’s cliff dwellings. From there, we drove to Durango, Narrow Gauge Train to Silverton CO, where Mary and the kids took a train ride on the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. The train was pulled by a steam-­‐powered locomotive.

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Grand Canyon

Bryce Canyon

Rainbow Bridge

I drove to Silverton and picked them up. We then went to Bryce Canyon and Monument Valley.

Bryce Canyon was the most scenic part of the trip. We took the kids on a horseback ride and a hayride there. We visited Zion national park, Grand Canyon, and Lake Powell, where we took a boat ride

Floating the St. Croix

We spent a number of weekends that summer exploring the many scenic and historical sites in Oklahoma with the kids. I think we got to know Oklahoma better than almost anyone we knew. We spent a weekend at a lake resort in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and rented a pontoon boat. We made our annual visit to Minnesota to visit Mary’s parents and our North Oaks friends. As usual, we took a canoe float trip with our friends, the Steldt’s, down the St. Croix River, picnicking along the way.

Hot Springs Vacation

In March of 1986, we drove to Angel Fire ski resort in New Mexico and enjoyed a weekend of skiing. That was my firt experience wit downhill skiing, and I managed to survive it without breaking any bones. Mary was an experienced downhill sker, and the kids adapted to it quickly. We also visited Santa Fe and enjoyed the artist colony there. Jennifer bought a wide brim hat and suede jacket with fringe trim.

That summer, the guys who ived in the Harvey House with me when I was attending college got together for a weekend at Rolla, Missouri. It was a nice reunion, and we took a canoe trip down one of the nearby rivers. There must have been around eight of my classmates there with their wives in attendance.

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Over spring break 1987, I used my AA frequent flier miles to take the family to the US Virgin Islands. We flew to Puerto Rica and made a connection on a small prop driven plane. When we boarded the plane, the kids made sure that their seats were as far away from Mary as possible.

Mary is out of control during takeoff, landings, and any air turbulence. She becomes very animated, flailing her hands, grabbing the back of the

St. Croix Beach

passenger’s Catamaran−Captain Jennifer seat in front of her, and telling the pilot how to take off and land the plane.

The kids observed this during the flight to Puerto Rico, and they were embarrassed. They weren’t the only ones embarrassed by this weird behavior. I was too, but over the years I have learned to live with it. We enjoyed beaches and the resort we stayed at. One afternoon, we took a sail on a large catamaran with a group of tourists. We had a great little vacation.

In June 1987, we took our kids to Europe. This was an event that had been in the making since I was Director of the International BMO. Jürgen Hoffmann was the manager of the Heppenheim, Germany, BMO, and we had become good friends. Both of us wanted to have our kids visit each other and, we had gotten them to become pen pals. Jürgen’s daughter, Stephanie, was the same age as Jennifer, and one of his sons, Eric, was Brian’s age. Jürgen’s other son was several years older than Jennifer.

We flew to Frankfurt and rented a car. We headed toward Switzerland along the Rhine River and stayed in Zurich the first night. From there, we drove through Switzerland, sight seeing. The weather was not kind to us as it rained for several days. We decided to head for Italy to dry out, and went to Lake Como where it was sunny. From there, we drove back to Switzerland and visited Schwanden and other towns in the area in the Canton of Glarus, the home of our Blesi ancestors. White Asparagus was in season, and Mary and I ordered it every chance we got. About the only thing that Brian would eat was Weiner Schnitzel and Pommes Frites.

We also enjoyed the Swiss dish, Raclette.

When we left Switzerland we drove through Austria, and we visited Innsbruck and Salzburg. We backtracked to Garmisch-­‐Partenkirchen in Germany where the 1936 Winter Olympic Games were held. We stayed there at a Zimmer Frei, and we enjoyed watching the milking cows wander through town in the late afternoon with their cowbells ringing. They returned unattended to their milking barn from a day of grazing on the mountain pastures.

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Cows Returning to The Barn−Garmisch

Swiss Alps

We took the Romantic Road and visited the mad King Ludwig’s Castles, Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. We drove to Munich and visited the Nazi death camp, Dachau, northwest of Munich.

From there, we headed for Lorcsh where the Hoffmann’s lived. Along the way we stayed at a Zimmer Frei in the country. I remember the shower was metered. You had to insert a coin to get a few minutes of water, and it Dachau Death Camp was not very warm.

We stayed a few days with Jürgen and Hanna Lou Hoffmann. One evening before flying back to the states, Stephanie informed her mother that she and Jennifer were going to take the bus to Mannheim to meet some friends and would be back before midnight. This alarmed Mary since we wouldn’t allow Jennifer to go out unsupervised that late at night. Hanna Lou told her Grandmother Alexander's 90th MEA & Kids−Germany not to worry.

They would be ok. That didn’t stop us from worrying, but it was for naught.

We left the kids to stay with the Hoffmann’s for several weeks. Jennifer was really changed as a result of that visit. She could see a major difference in the maturity level between the German kids her age and her friends in Edmond. That experience really matured her, and it made her more serious about school and life.

The next summer, Jürgen came to Minneapolis on a business trip, and Hanna Lou came with him. Mary, the kids, and I went to Minneapolis to see them. The Steldt’s joined us on a camping outing and canoe trip down the St. Croix River. We didn’t do much other traveling that year, except we drove to Moberly, Missouri to celebrate my Grandmother Alexander’s 90th birthday. We also spent several days over Christmas at a Condo on the beach in Alabama’s Red Neck Riviera.

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In 1989, Jennifer graduated from High School and was working the midnight shift at MPI in the clean room building disk drives. Brian was working at Taco Bell, about a five-­‐minute walk form our home. Since both Condo on the Gulf−Christmas kids were working, we didn’t do much traveling that year.

About the only thing we did was rent a houseboat on Lake Eufaula for an extended weekend.

In the summer of 1990, Dad decided he wanted to take a 1989 Graduating HS-­‐Jennifer rafting trip down the Houseboat on Lake Eufala Colorado River. Mom and Dad drove to Edmond.

Since river rafting wasn’t Mary’s idea of a good time, Mom stayed with Mary, and Dad and I drove to Grand Junction, CO, where we met Doris and Bob. The float started at Moab, UT, and ended in Lake Powell near Page. It was the Cataract Canyon Float, which was about 100 river miles long, and it went through beautiful scenery and Class III-­‐V white water. The float lasted four days and three nights. The float operator provided everything needed for the trip, tents, sleeping bags, food, etc., everything White Water Colorado River Float except beverages. There were three rafts that accommodated about ten passengers plus the raft pilots, who also prepared our food. At the conclusion of the trip, we flew back to Moab. Dad paid for our rafting trip. That was a very memorable experience.

That Christmas, we took the kids and enjoyed it in San Antonio.

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Oklahoma City−Small Disk Division (SDD) The SDD products were mostly based on 14 inch rigid disk media. A few models had 8 inch platters.

Except for large mainframe systems, the industry was on the cusp of transitioning to 5¼ inch technology.

SDD had one 5¼ inch product in development called the Wren. The Wren had 36 MB of unformatted storage capacity. SDD named its products after birds. The 14” products were called the Hawk and the Falcon. The 8” products were called the Finch and the Lark.

I reported to the SDD Vice President, Bruce Doberteen. At that time, Bruce was nearing retirement and would be replaced a year later by Dallas DeGrote. I was Director of the BMO, which was later renamed Product Line Management. I basically had the same functions reporting to me that reported to me in the LDD BMO with the addition of Product Planning.

SDD had approximately 2300 employees consisting of manufacturing, engineering, marketing, business office, accounting and personnel. General Electric set up the operation in Oklahoma City (OKC) in the 1960’s to develop and manufacture computer equipment. The operation was staffed by personnel relocated from other GE facilities, primarily in New York. GE made a strategic decision to exit the computer market and sold the operation to Honeywell September 1970. Additional personnel were transferred from Honeywell’s Massachusets facilities to Oklahoma City.

Control Data and Honeywell formed a Joint Venture in 1975. It was named Magnetic Peripherals Inc. CDC had 70% ownership and managemnent control. Honeywell and an affiliated company in France, Honeywell Bull, had the balance of the ownership. Each party to the JV contributed their resources used in the manufacture of disk drives, and agreed to buy the products manufactured by MPI at basically fully loaded costs plus a small profit. Soon after the JV was set up, NCR entered into an agreement to buy its requirements for disk drives from MPI under similar pricing as CDC and Honeywell. In addition, NCR contributed the disk drive products it manufactured in Hawthorn, California. Those products were transferred to MPI’s facility in Oklahoma City along with a few key technical personnel.

A limited number of personnel had been transferred to OKC by CDC. I was one of the few. I could sense not everyone was overjoyed with my arrival, especially those in the BMO who had aspired to being promoted to the BMO Director’s position. Outsiders were somewhat mistrusted and I would have to earn their respect and trust.

Tony Maggio was the General manager of SDD Engineering, one of the best engineering teams that I encountered in my career. The innovations they developed were copied throughout the industry. When I arrived in OKC, The development of SDD’s first 5¼” disk drive, called the Wren, was nearing completion, with shipment of early production scheduled in the fourth quarter of 1983. Sales of SDD’s other disk drives had flattened and it was imperative that the Wren, a 30 Megabyte (MB) drive have a smooth launch as the other physically larger drives procduced by SDD were targeted at minicomputer systems and couldn’t be used in the emerging PC market.

The Wren’s robust design proved to be far superior to competitive 5¼” drives in terms of performance and reliability. This was especially true for customers who integrated drives in PC’s. Most of the drives sold in 148

the PC market were manufactured by our competitors who were based on low end band stepper actuater technology with less storage capacity of 10 to 20 MB. The Wren used voice coil actuater technology, which was not only faser, but less prone to addressing errors. Even though the Wren price was considerably higher than band stepper products, it became widely used in higher end PC’s. Demand soared and the factory became production limited. I was given the unenviable task of allocating drives to our customers. Availability of the Wren was constraining their sales. I was under constant pressure to increase their share of our poduction at the expense of other customers. I did my best to be as fair as possible.

One of the customers was Core International in Boca Raton, Florida who had developed a storage subsytem for IBM’s PC. Hal Prewitt was the founder and he had done a great job in marketing that to the IBM End Users. IBM had severe reliability and performance issues with the band stepper based disk drive they were integrating in the IBM PC. With the Wren, Hal was eating IBM’s lunch. He was very creative in his marketing, and launched a tradein program that targeted IBM’s disk drive problems. Hal offered to buy back the IBM’s disk drive for about 20% of the inflated price he was selling the Wren System for. He took out a full page ad in several trade publications that Core would take the tradeins and put them on a ship. At the end of the program, he advertised he would sink the ship off the coast of Florida and create an artificial reef.

Hal had a hard time keeping up with demand. He was already a self made millionaire and was getting richer by the day with the Wren. When it went on allocation he tried his best to get me to increase his shipments. I refused. Hal wouldn’t accept no for an answer. He flew his airplane to Oklahoma City and insisted on meeting me. I took Hal into The Executive Conference Room and tried to pursuade him he was getting his fair share, but he wouldn’t have any of that. The more I reasoned with Hal the madder he got.

Hal was getting very loud and started shouting at me and banging his fists on the table. He was a lot bigger than I was and I was concerned he might get violent. He finally calmed down and acknowledged he would live with the allocation I gave him. WHEW!!

Over the years, I have had brief encounters with Hal. He invited me to a weekend fishing trip abord his seagoing boat, the Megabyte. Hal was a world class fisherman, the receipient of many 1st prize trophies in major fishing derbies throughout the world. We didn’t catch any fish that day and I embarassed myself by fouling his fishing reel with a rats nest. He later sold his business to Sony and resumed his interest in racing cars. He became a professional level driver in selected International and North American Endurance road race events. I learned Hal had bought bought a vacation home from Mitt Romney in Park City, UT. He bought the home in 2009 for about $5 Million, close to the asking price. Hal supported Romney in his Presidential bid and posted an article about him that was downloaded over 100 thousand times. He knew first hand about Romney from his experience in buying the house and how Romney and his family moved their possessions without the help of movers. Hal is an interesting character and there are numerous pieces on the web about him.

The Cricket While I was Director of the Minneapolis LDD BMO, a new product platform had been defined by John Morrison, a confidant of Periperal Prducts Company President, Tom Kamp. John was long on concept and gradiose ideas, but short on implementation. He had convinced Kamp that his concept would would have 149

a major impact on the industry, and had put together a “prototype”, actually a crude mock up that was dubbed the Cricket. It was a downsized 5¼” disk drive into a 3½” Form Factor, a real laboratory curosity at the time. The Cricket was met with a lot of skepticism by the senior engineering managers of MPI and a decision was made about the time I transferred to Oklahoma to assign product responsibility to the SDD in OKC. One of my priorities was to evaluate the feasibility of Crickett. Joe Donnely, one of my senior product managers, was assigned that task.

Oklahoma City’s SDD was resource limited and a separate subsidary, Rigidyne was set up in Chatsworth, California to develop and manufacture a family of 3½” disk drives. Cricket was renamed Swift and, in parallel to the Swift development, a company in Scotland, Rodime, developed its own 3½” drive. Rodime patented the 3½” form factor. What they lacked in product success, they made up for by suing everone that used this form factor, which was almost every manufactrer of disk drives for PC applications. Rodime ultimately got out of the disk drive business and concentrated on suing the rest of the industry for patent infrigement. Henry Hodde, who took over my role in New Business Ventures, left CDC and became the point man for Rodime in those lawsuits. Henry contacted me several years after I had left CDC/Seagate and wanted me to be one of his expert witneses. I respectfully declined.

SDD implemented the 3½” form factor in 1990 with a 480 MB drive and the Wren’s 5¼” form factor soon became history.

Off Shore Manufacturing Site Search The low end of the PC market was extremly price sensitive. The cost structure of the Wren prohibited CDC from competing in significant procurements. I did an analysis based on classical engineering economics breakeven methods and determined that a radical price reduction would enable the Wren to capture sufficient market share to surpass break even and generate substantial profitability. I floated this idea with the SDD staff and was essentially told that I didn’t know what I was talking about. Their mind set was focused on gross profit margins. Bill Miller had just transferred to Oklahoma City to take over the VP job from Dallas DeGrote. He was open minded and told me to build a detailed case with customer names and sales volumes based on reduced pricing.

At that time, the Wren II’s most current aggressive price was around $750 and I needed it to go to $450.

Major customers were polled to determine what price was needed to get their high volume business and the associated quantites they would buy. I made the presentation to the SDD staff and showed the volumes and corresponding incremental profits. Except for Bill Miller there wasn’t any entusiasm for this strategy. Bill challenged the staff and no one could refute my analysis. He concluded the meeting by telling me to go get the business. From that day on, I was on the SDD Controllers list. I had invaded his kingdom.

The grumbling and sniping soon evaporated as the orders roled in. Manufacturing had to reconfigure the work schedule to employ a 3/4 shift arrangement that had 4 work forces, alternating between 3 and 4 days of 2 12-­‐hour shifts. The Oklahoma City Operation was transformed into a high volume manufacturing facility.

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It soon became apparent the industry was riding a decling cost/price curve and manufacturing cost reductions had to become a way of life. One of my jobs was to negotiate pricing with our major customers. I dreaded getting the monthly call from Terry Marsh, purchasing manager for Dell Computer.

He would call me before he placed his next order to ask me what new lower price he should put on the PO. No matter what I said, I knew it wasn’t going to be low enough. I hated those phone calls. He had second sources and would not give me the order if I didn’t come close to the competiton. SDD could not afford to lose one of those orders.

Many of our competitors were moving their factories off shore to Asia. A task force was formed to evaluate options for off shore manufacturing. Jim Askins was assigned to evaluate European locations and I was assigned to evaluate Asian locations.

Japan, South Korea and Singapore were the logical candidates. I started with Japan. High volume watch manufacturers were targeted as potential partners, and I visited a number of them, including Citizen and Seiko, and toured their facilities. Ricoh emerged as an interested party and visited Oklahoma City for discussions. We provided them with a complete set of manufacturing documents to provide a quote.

Interesting was the approach they wanted to take. Ricoh proposed manufacturing an exact, or as they called it a “dead” copy, using parts from SDD’s sources. They would then develop their own Japanese sources for parts and substitue them in the manufacture of the Wren. Finally they would implement cost reductions based on Ricoh designs. I was concerned this approach would result in loss of design control and would be perceived negatively by our main customers. Once a major customer designed in a disk drive, it was difficult to change as they insisted on approving any design or material changes. I didn’t beleve Ricoh’s approach would work.

In South Korea I met with Executives at Samsung and Gold Star, later named LG. Gold Star seemed the most interested in pursuing a manufacturing relationship, and I visited a number of their facilities.

I was concerned about Korean labor unions. CDC had a printed circuit board manufactring facility in Korea that had a workers strike several years previously. The workers held the CDC expatriate executives hostage until their demands were met.

Korean Countryside Festivities That could be fatal to a high-­‐volume manufacturing facility. On the plus side, the Korean work force was highly productive and wages were significantly lower than the other regions under consideration.

Singapore seemed to have the best approach to attract foreign companies. They offered a variety of financial incentives and had attracted a number of other US disk-­‐drive manufacturers.

Singapore Scene

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The supply chain was well established and it seemed that production could be kicked off and rapidly ramped with minimum risk. The downside was the cost and availability of direct manufacturing labor.

Singapore’s success in attracting foreign manufacturers had created a labor shortage. Another plus, was CDC would be able to set up the manufacturing without the involvment of a third party.

As part of the site selection process, a contingent of approximately ten Corporate Executives went to Japan and Korea to meet directly with the prospective partners and see their facilities first hand. Gordon Brown, now president of Peripheral Products Co, led the entourage.

We stayed at the New Otani Hotel in busy downtown Tokyo. I remember looking out my bedroom window late one night. The entire street had been dug up, and the utilities were being replaced by dozens of workers. I thought that was going to create a huge traffic problem in the morning. When I looked at in the morning, everything had been restored and you couldn’t tell that any construction had taken place.

The next night, the construction resumed again. This was typical of the Japanese. My first visit to Japan was in 1967, and I have visited it many times since. I always marveled that I would find one aspect of the country that made a giant leap forward. One time, it seemed to me that the Japanese had surpassed the Swiss in terms of cleanliness of public facilities. This time it was minimizing disruption to the public in major public works construction, something we Americans could learn from.

One evening, the entourage went to dinner at a restaurant near the New Otani. They served a hugh variety of seafood. We were seated on a bar facing a hugh grill surrounded by four or five chefs and a large table with the seafood laid out on beds of crushed ice. All you had to do was point at what you wanted to eat and one of the chefs would pick it up, cook it on the grill and serve it to you. At some point in the dinner, a little red fish caught my eye and I pointed to it. All of the chefs let out a whoop and started chattering. I knew right away that I had made a mistake but couldn’t figure out what it was until the bill came. Gordon Brown was collecting the checks and using his calculator to add the total. That little red fish cost $82. Luckily for me, it was part of the dinner on CDC. We visited Richo’s facilities in Northern Japan. At the conclusion of the visit, one of the Japanese executives from another firm hosted a dinner at his home. Almost everone who attended the dinner contracted an intestinal bug of some sort, which caused diarriah and vomiting. I didn’t attend as I spent the weekend touring Kyoto and didn’t have any problems,… not yet.

The entourage then went to Korea to meet with Gold Star (later renamed LG) and Samsung. The President of Gold Star hosted the visit and flew the entourage to its state-­‐of-­‐the-­‐art semiconductor facility South of Seoul in Gold Star’s corporate helicopter. During the flight, I became ill and was concerned I might throw up. We toured the facility and had lunch there, which I didn’t partake of. Gold Star’s president tried to convince me to take a train back to Seoul as he didn’t want me barfing in his helicopter.

I had ridden in trains in Korea with CDC sales reps who knew how to get around and knew I wouldn’t be able to navigate the connections and would surely get lost. I endured the return flight to Seoul without indicent. I managed to shake the bug before we left Korea. The watchword became “Happiness is a dry fart”.

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Upon return from the trip, Jim Askins and I made our recommendations for off-­‐shore manufacturing .

The European locations were rejected due to cost and regulatory matters. Singapore was selected on the basis that it was the easiest location to set up a facility and CDC wouldn’t be at a cost disadvantage since most of the competitors were there.

In Search of a Low End Product The PC market was undergoing explosive growth. New companies were springing up to satisfy demand.

Compaq Computer and Dell Computer emerged and became significant Wren custommers. Compaq worked with SDD Engineering and Western Digital to define a simplified disk drive interface known as the Integrated Device Interface (IDE). The chips were manufactured by WD and integrated into the Wren.

Compaq had exclusive rights to this interface based on the initial implementation, but not subsequent versions. When the Wren II Half Height product was developed, the IDE interface became standard and was offered to the general market place in the late-­‐1985 early-­‐1986 time frame. Compaq’s success with the IDE based Wren was the envy of the market and customers were clamoring for the Wren II HH. CDC’s Dell Computer sales rep arranged fot a meeting with Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computer to make a technical presentation in Round Rock, TX where Dell was headquartered. Larry Forrest, an Applications Engineer, and I met with Michael and his staff. Michael was the only one who asked any questions. His staff seemed clueless. The Wren II HH became a hot product at Dell and many of the other companies manufacturing PC’s.

Despite the popularity of the Wren, we were unable to cappture the higher volume low end business opportunites due to the relatively higher cost of the Wren. A decision was made to explore the possibility of licensing a design from one of the forty or so low-­‐end competitors in the industry. Larry Forrest and I were tasked for this. Over the next several months we visited about eight or so competitors, Including Seagate. In addition to being an applications engineer, Larry Forrest was also in charge of competitive analysis. He obtained evaluation samples from the many companies we visited and put them through demanding testing. In the end, they all failed to meet Larry’s rigorous testing, and SDD’s hard-­‐core engineering culture couldn’t bring itself to recommend any of the candidates. I was sympathetic to their position.

Subsequent generations of Wren disk drives contained industry-­‐leading innovations (straight arm actuator, environmental controls, intelligent interface, Zone Bit Recording, etc.) that not only increased capacity but improved reliability and performance. What really frustrated SDD marketing and engineering was our inability to obtain pricing according to the higher value we were providing. An innovation called Zone Bit Recording (ZBR) was implemented on the 180 MB Wren III platform with some software and minor circuit changes. It increased data transfer and storage capacity by 30% with no impact to product cost and was marketed as the Wren IV, a 320 MB drive with an intelligent SCSI interface.

Unbelievably, there was a lot of resistance by the sales force and customers to pay a premium for Wren IV’s much improved capacity and performance. Competitors planted a lot of doubt about this new ZBR capability. Customers started to question the technology and it became essential for the FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) to be dispelled. I teamed up with Al Cuccio who managed the engineers who had developed many of the innovations, and put together a technical presentation for our key customers. We went on lengthy road trips and made presentations to our customers’ engineers who were key to the 153

procurement decisions. Gradually, the market accepted ZBR and the other innovations. It wasn’t long before most of them became industry standard.

Bruce Doberteen retired in 1984 and Dallas DeGrote, a CDC executive from Minneapolis replaced him. I knew Dallas from my days as a System Manager at the Arden Hills facility. He was a manager overseeing the production of Cyber Systems and I coordinated the manufacture of my customer’s systems with him.

From the outset, Dallas was not well received by SDD Executive Management staff. His management style was dictatorial and did not foster teamwork. His decisions seemed off the wall and he didn’t adequately involve his management. It was not long before Bill Miller, an up-­‐and-­‐coming executive, replaced Dallas.

Bill didn’t have any manufacturing or operational experience, but was a quick study and knew how to ask the right questions. He was a welcome replacement.

One of the key functions I had was to develop the monthly Executive Build Schedule that detailed the production schedule for each of SDD’s products. This required the Account Managers to project each customer’s product delivery for booked and forecasted orders. I spent a lot of time with the schedulers who did the detailed work and the accounts managers who provided the customer forecast to make the EBS as accurate as I could. The EBS was then presented to the SDD staff. It was a major focus since it basically drove the factory and defined the financials. The EBS impacted virtually every organization within SDD. I had dotted line responsibility for the UK factory, which was manufacturing the 14” Hawk drive for European customers. As we were phasing the Hawk out of production in OKC, Mike Cooke, the UK BMO manager, visited OKC to coordinate end-­‐of-­‐life production activity in Europe. Mike had dinner at my house and we caught up on old times. His wife had knitted a cozy for our bathroom to hold a roll of toilet paper. He presented it to Mary with much fanfare.

Accounts Management had very capable employees. It seemed there wasn’t anything I asked of them that wasn’t enthusiastically pursued and professionally completed. One of the AM assistants, Connie Hert, had worked as a secretary before she became an AM assistant. She was extremely competent, had a great way with customers and was actually fulfilling all of the duties of an AM. Her manager wanted to promote her. Since she didn’t have a college degree, it was going to require a deviation to have her be promoted to an exempt position. I supported the promotion, but soon found out the Director of Personnel, Lowell Yandell, was strongly opposed to it. I knew it would be mission impossible if I had to rely on Lowell. I discussed this with Bruce Doberteen and he agreed it was the right thing to do. When I told Lowell about Bruce’s support, I knew I was on his list. Connie was promoted to Account Manager.

While SDD was in a growth mode with the Wren, other organizations within MPI were not doing so well and belt tightening was in order. SDD was not immune. I was called on to contribute cost savings and lay off some employees. In the process, I had to reassign some people to the program management function.

Gene Milligan was responsible for administering product planning and representing SDD on some of the industry ANSI committees. He was very influential in defining industry standards on several of the emerging disk drive interfaces and protocols, SCSI and ESDI. Reassigning Gene was not a popular move on my part. It upset a number people from other companies in the industry as well as some CDC Corporate 154

Staff. I was soon given some relief on headcount reduction and Gene was able to resume his former duties.

SDD Marketing Product Marketing was located at SDD, but was a separate function and reported to OEM Sales management in Minneapolis. The organization wasn’t well respected by SDD management and wasn’t really accountable for anything. As part of a company-­‐wide reorganization, I was assigned to take over SDD’s marketing, a lateral move. Wayne Simmons replaced me and had all of the BMO functions plus Product Marketing reporting to him. Wayne was transferred from Dallas as the SW Sales Manager for CDC’s OEM Sales to Oklahoma City. Wayne was a highly successful sales manager, but lacked any business management or operations experience.

Bill Miller also decided to change the manufacturing Executive and promoted Bob Maeser as the General Manager. Bob had worked for me in Minneapolis in the LDD BMO. I promoted him to be the BMO operations manager and he did a great job. He relocated to Oklahoma City.

I moved my office from executive row to the Product Marketing Department, now simply called Marketing, a less restrictive name. SDD Marketing was now responsible for coordinating new product rollouts, including generation of press releases, data sheets and brochures, sales training, trade show coordination and staffing, and sales support.

My immediate task was to recruit more capable personnel for Marketing and to find a home for the Product Marketing folks. Over the next several months I was able to transfer them to Accounts Management and to recruit some top-­‐notch employees, Joe Heinen, a Product Specialist, and Mike Greene and Danny Hill from manufacturing.

In addition, I was given the green light to conduct an outside search for marketing talent within the industry. Mike Fitzpatrick, an Engineering Manager from Prime Computer and Gary Gentry from Rigidyne, CDC’s subsidiary in California, were recruited.

Almost all of the new Marketing guys went on to have highly successful careers they might not have experienced without working in SDD Marketing. Several years later Joe Heinen, Danny Hill, and Mike Greene were offered jobs in OEM sales. Joe became the CDC Sales Exec for Compaq Computer.

Ultimately, he had a quota of $1 Billion. Danny Hill became the CDC Sales Exec for Dell Computer, and Mike Greene became a key IBM Sales Exec for IBM’s Distribution Accounts. Gary Gentry went on to become a senior vice president of strategic marketing and planning at Seagate. Mike Fitzpatrick became a leading industry expert on disk drive interface standards. What a great marketing team. They contributed greatly to the success of the Wren Disk Drive Product Line. In 1986 Wren revenue was at the $200 Million mark and had grown to $700 Million in 1990.

The Floppy Disk Drive Division was suffering from the severe competition of lower-­‐cost off-­‐shore manufacturing from a variety of competitors and was sold in June 1986 to Shugartt, a California firm that focused on the Floppy Disk Drive market. Many of the FDD employees were great performers and efforts were made to find them homes within SDD. I inherited Dick Weathers and Shawn Hook.

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Pursuing Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award SDD decided to pursue the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award, which had just been enacted by Congress in 1987. Each of SDD’s major functions had to contribute time and effort to this, not a small effort. I assigned Shawn Hook to it for marketing’s contribution. In addition, there was a lot of training required in the latest manufacturing quality methodologies. I conducted one of a number of seminars.

SDD did not win the award, but was one of three runners up throughout the US. In recognition for the award, CDC hosted a weekend at Grand Lake of The Cherokees in Oklahoma for the members of the team and their wives. I happened to be on a business trip then and couldn’t attend. Instead, Mary and I were given an all expense paid weekend trip to San Antonio. It was very enjoyable and we stayed at the Hilton on the River Walk.

Bob Maeser was to be responsible for the off shore manufacturing facility in Singapore and was in need of hiring a plant manager. He asked me for a recommendation, and I told him Dick Weathers should be considered. Bob talked to him about the job, but Dick couldn’t seem to make up his mind. A new candidate surfaced, Mike Cannon, and was hired. Mike set up and operated the Singapore facility. A year later he left for a new opportunity and was replaced by Bernie Carballo. Bernie had been in a key position at the Floppy Disk Division. When that was shut down, he left the company for a new opportunity.

Columbia University In 1987 I was sent to a one-­‐week Marketing Management Seminar in New York that was conducted by Columbia University. It was held at the Arden House of the Harrison Campus in upstate New York. There were about thirty or so Executives from companies throughout the US in attendance. It was a total immersion experience that started with breakfast at 7 AM and ended late at night, breaking only for meals. If I hadn’t had the benefit of the MBA program, it would have been more valuable as much of the seminar material overlapped the MBA program I had taken.

Marketing Programs One of Oklahoma’s best golf courses, Oak Tree National, hosted the 1988 PGA Championship. SDD was one of several Oklahoma businesses that were solicited to host the event. Marketing coordinated the event and 20 or so of out top customers were invited to attend and received free passes to the event. We used the occasion to showcase the factory and had a number of top executives from Minneapolis participate. We leveraged the occasion to advertise our sponsorship in several of the trade journals. It was a great PR opportunity.

COMDEX was the Computer Industries top trade show, held annually in the fall in Las Vegas. Over 100,000 attended the event and CDC had a specially designed showroom on the main floor of the Hilton Convention Center plus a private suite, the technology suite, at Bally’s Hotel on the strip. Newly announced products were shown in the showroom at the convention center. Key customers, by invitation only, were provided chauffeured limo service to visit the technology suite where they were wined and dined and let in on the lasted technology under development.

Each Divisions’ Marketing Directors and key engineers staffed the technology suite. It was a four-­‐day ordeal with very little time to oneself. I didn’t enjoy gambling, but I usually brought $20 to blow. Most of the time I didn’t have time to lose it. On one occasion, I was at the airport waiting for the flight and 156

decided to blow my $20. I bought some $1 tokens. On the second pull of the one-­‐arm bandit, I hit the jackpot. Six pulls later, I hit another jackpot. Some of the engineers from SDD saw this and told me to stop. I agreed. That was a lot of quarters to carry around. I calculated that if I stuck to the $20 rule, I could gamble 20 years and still be ahead. Fortunately, I find gambling to be rather boring and am not prone to losing much money.

During the Presidential Campaign of 1988, George H. W. Bush made a campaign stop in Oklahoma City and paid a visit to CDC’s disk drive factory. The Secret Service performed a rigorous advance screening to ensure that the facility was safe. Bush’s visit lasted less than 30 minutes, but the lost work time amounted to more than four hours as movement within the facility was highly restricted. I saw Bush arrive but didn’t meet him.

I remember a business trip I was on when Ronald Reagan retaliated against Libya for Khadafy’s involvement in the Berlin Discotheque bombing. It was on our wedding anniversary, April 15, 1986, and code-­‐named Operation El Dorado Canyon. A bombing campaign was carried out resulting in a number of Libyan casualties, including a member of Khadafy’s family. One US plane was shot down killing two airmen.

I continued my efforts to recruit Marketing personnel and interviewed a candidate from Seagate, Joel Stead. Joel was in his mid-­‐to late-­‐20s and had an impressive résumé. At Seagate he oversaw a logistics function. It was obvious he was on a fast track there. His wife, Michele, was an Account Manager for Seagate and interviewed as well. They were hired and relocated to Oklahoma City. This was a welcome change, as most candidates from California wouldn’t consider Oklahoma for a job. The only candidates who would previously had lived in or had roots in Oklahoma. Joel went on to have a successful career and became a Senior VP at Seagate.

One of the perks that came with being Director of Marketing was participating in events that were located in desirable venues. Sales meetings, appreciation events hosted by SDD for customers, or by customers for the vendors. CDC hosted a sales meeting in Vail one year, and yes, there was time for skiing. In 1987 the sales meeting was held in Colorado Springs at the Broadmoor Hotel. The theme of the meeting was “In It To Win It” and compared the disk drive market to Formula 1 Grand Prix racing. A video was created for that purpose and I starred as the pitchman for the Wren disk drive. My favorite line was “We can’t build them fast enough.“ One year I attended a vendor appreciation event that Arrow Electronics, a major distributor held in New York City. They had a cocktail party and dinner on a yacht that cruised past the World Trade Center and the Statute of Liberty. Another time I attended a customer appreciation event hosted by the NE regional sales organization and spent three days cruising on board a vintage sailing ship-­‐-­‐ originally a treasury ship that ran down smugglers-­‐-­‐with some of the key customers. Tough duty.

CDC was looking for ways to strengthen its finances and selling its disk drive business was under consideration. Bill Miller was transferred back to Headquarters in Minneapolis to get involved in this endeavor and Bob Maeser became the VP of SDD. Wayne Simmons left SDD for another company and I reported to Bob, a role reversal.

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SDD established a Depot Repair Facility in Oklahoma City to repair customer warranty returns. Jim Askins was its manager. Bob Maeser had an issue with Jim and wanted him to make some changes. Jim could get bull headed at times and told Maeser he would resign first. Maeser told him he accepted his resignation and told Jim to clean out his office. Jim tried to backtrack but Maeser wouldn’t let him. Jim later sued the company and was able to extract some sort of settlement. Jim went on to establish a business, Cherokee Data. Years later, I joined Cherokee as its President.

In preparation for selling the disk drive business, Bill Miller rebranded the Disk Drive Operation and renamed it Imprimis, which is Latin and means in the first place. As part of the makeover, Bill reorganized the marketing function and had it report into a headquarters VP. Dominic Imanti was recruited from the industry to lead the effort. It soon became apparent he was not suited for the position, and Carla Kennedy was promoted as his replacement. She was my counterpart in the Minneapolis Disk Drive Division. There was rivalry between the two organizations, and Carla decided to even the score a bit at year end when she attempted to hijack bonuses to be paid to the SDD marketing folks, me included, and give them to her people. Fortunately she wasn’t able to pull that off.

Seagate’s Acquisition of CDC’s Disk Drive Business Ultimately, Seagate became the most promising buyer prospect. It was the undisputed market leader in terms of market share, but the ups and downs of the PC market was a serious concern. Imprimis was more diversified in the markets it served and would provide a level of stability to Seagate. The PC market served by Imprimis was for high-­‐end PC’s, workstations, minicomputers, and mainframes, while Seagate served the lower-­‐performance PC commodity market.

Seagate offered $450 Million for Imprimis. It benefited by almost doubling its revenue and gaining access to the market for higher-­‐capacity drives used in mainframes. Seagate also benefited from acquiring Imprimis’s key read-­‐write head component technology and reputation for quality. The combination resulted in nearly doubling Seagate’s revenue to $2.4 Billion and increasing its market share to 43%.

At its peak, the disk drive industry had about 200 companies worldwide. By 2012, that number had been reduced to three, Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba, with Seagate and Western Digital having roughly 85% combined share of the $33 billion market. Seagate’s acquisition of CDC’s Disk Drive subsidiary Imprimis was just the first significant step in industry consolidation, as is illustrated below.

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Disk Drive Industry Consolidation

Before the acquisition could be closed, Seagate and its investment bankers had to conduct due diligence. I was identified as the coordinator for Oklahoma City. The due-­‐diligence team visited Oklahoma City for presentations from the various organizational functions and a plant tour. During the presentation, much was made of the technical capability in the engineering and manufacturing areas. One of the presenters told them how many PhD’s were employed. During the plant tour, they were shown the class 100 clean room where the critical head disk assembly was assembled. The workers were all hourly employees and were wearing bunny suits that kept the environment super clean. One of the bankers asked if they were PhD’s. That was funny.

After the deal was closed and Seagate took over, I had the task of rationalizing the product model numbers. Seagate’s philosophy was that the only thing a salesman had to know about the product was to understand the model number structure. It encoded the form factor, the number of disk platters, the capacity and the interface. That worked quite well in their market.

I realized there was a great deal of training that would have to be done to get the Seagate sales reps up to speed on understanding the CDC products. My Seagate counterpart was Stacy Lund. She was located at 159

Seagate’s Headquarters in Scotts Valley, California. When I discussed cross training both sales forces on each other’s products, she couldn’t comprehend why it was necessary. The model number was the only thing they had to understand. That was the beginning of my demise.

The overall integration of the two organizations went well. Seagate flew in a large contingent of manufacturing and engineering executives for detailed presentations and discussions on how best to take advantage each companies strengths. The end result was great, a textbook example of a successful acquisition.

Tom Mitchell was the President of Seagate and not someone any employee crossed and kept his job. His reputation preceded him and great care was taken by the CDC folks to not offend him. I remember one of the early encounters with Terrible Tom. One of the product line managers, Don Kelly, was making a Power Point presentation to him. The room was packed with people. Tom asked him a question and Don told him he would cover that on the next slide. Tom said, “When I ask a question, I expect it to be answered!!” Don said “Yes Sir” and flipped to the next chart. That set the tone for all future encounters with Terrible Tom. A lot of stories surfaced about Tom. On one occasion, he wasn’t getting the results he expected from one of his employees. The story was that Tom went into this fellow’s office, jumped on top of his desk and started yelling at him. Tom was a supply officer in the Marine Corp. Maybe that explains it. Job security was going to be vastly different under Seagate.

Seagate decided cross training the sales forces was a good idea. Separate training was held for each of the major sales organization. The domestic sales force training was held in Minneapolis. The marketing organizations for each of the major product groups conducted sales training. John Repp was the vice president of sales for CDC’s Western Region and a celebration was planned for his 50th birthday. Terrible Tom asked him if he was really 50 years old. Repp proudly said he was. Terrible Tom replied he hoped he wouldn’t look that bad when he turned 50.

That was typical of Tom. The European training was conducted in Marseille, France. Seagate spent lavishly on all aspects of the training meetings. A full day of entertainment was dedicated to an event at a drivers training facility. Go-­‐Cart Racing, Formula 1 Racecar and hazardous driving training were provided. I lost control of my racecar and spun it around facing the wrong direction on the track. Luckily, only one racecar was allowed on the track at a time. I CFA in Formula 1−Marsseille, France did better with the hazardous driving training. I successfully executed the maneuver of going at high speed and spinning the car 180 degrees around, just like in the movies. That was fun.

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Bali, Indonesia was the site of the Pacific-­‐Asian sales training. It was held at a luxury resort and included a lot of extracurricular activities. I remember going for a walk in the city and was amazed at the glaring looks of disapproval displayed by the locals. Indonesia is predominately Muslim and their demeanor reminded me of what I experienced in Iran. The CDC company driver in Tehran was a devout Muslim and he made no effort to conceal his distaste for Americans. He seemed hostile towards me and that was the same feeling I had in Bali. The employees in the resort area were quite friendly and tolerant of the guests.

The Middle Eastern sales training was held in Crete.

Seagate Sales Training−Bali, Indonesia

I did a lot of International travel with Seagate and visited Singapore where most of the manufacturing was located. Larry Forrest had transferred there as a manufacturing engineer. He showed me around Singapore and we visited the World War II Museum on Sentosa Island. It was first class. I remember following a party of around 10 elderly Japanese men who were enthusiastically chattering about the many exhibits. They must have been WW II Vets. When we came to the exhibit, which depicted Japans surrender aboard the Missouri battleship, the group fell silent, bowed their head and promptly moved on.

Amazing.

Another interesting visit was to Taipei, Republic of China. Seagate had a number of sales reps there and they took me to dinner in Snake Alley. The restaurant served live seafood. You could go to one of the many aquariums and pick out your meal, which would be netted and prepared in the kitchen. After dinner we strolled through Snake Alley and bargained with some of the vendors for knock off Rolex watches. I bought several for around $5 to $10 each. Unexpectedly, they were fairly high quality and were still functioning some 25 years later.

I received a lot of compliments form many of the Seagate sales reps on the training I conducted. They appreciated its technical nature and the explanation of benefits available in the design of the CDC drives.

There were a number of complaints from some of the Seagate sales reps criticizing the technical nature of my presentations, as they didn’t understand why they should have to know that level of detail. I realized those sales reps were going to have a rough time selling the CDC products, which required a more sophisticated, technical sales presentation than they were comfortable with. The difference in training 161

between the Seagate approach and the CDC training sparked a lot of rivalry between the associated marketing organizations.

Julie Still was Seagate’s Director of Corporate Communications and had worked with me on a number of press releases. I remember Julie contacting me at home on my birthday in June 1990. Her boss was Al Shugartt, CEO and chairman of the board at Seagate. The quarterly earnings were to be released soon, and they didn’t measure up to Wall Street’s expectations. Al was looking for good news to offset the bad press Seagate would get from the poor earnings. He identified a product under development at OKC that I had marketing responsibility for and wanted to announce as part of the earnings press release. The product was the ST1480N/A, the first high-­‐capacity 3½” disk drive developed by OKC. It was to be announced as part of the marketing hype preceding fall COMDEX in October. I ended up working my birthday on generating the specs and other material for Al’s press release.

At the time of the acquisition I was working with Novell Corporation, the leading network company, to get the Wren Drives certified by Novell to be plug and play with Novell’s software, Netware. The disk drive was the critical component in the network, and Novell was very demanding of the reliability and performance of the disk drive. If the Wren was certified by Novell, it could be advertised as “Netware Ready” and gain a lot of prestige in the market.

Novell put the Wren through vigorous testing and it finally passed. The Wren was authorized for the Netware Ready signature to be encoded on the drive’s magnetic media, a first in the industry. I had an advertisement created that showed a picture of two laboratory coats hanging side by side with Seagate’s logo on one and Novell’s logo on the other. The ad caption read “Partnership in Netware Ready Storage”.

As soon as the ad appeared in the trade press, I got a call from Stacy Lund demanding that the Seagate drives be part of the advertisement. She didn’t appreciate it when I told her Seagate Novell wouldn’t approve drives due to their stringent requirements. That was a declaration of war.

Eventually, I lost the war. Stacy was located at Seagate’s headquarters and had the ear of executive management there. In early February 1991, I was scheduled to go to Apple’s semiannual trade show in Boston. I was to travel over the weekend, but my boss, Bernie Carballo, told me to have Mike Fitzpatrick go in my stead since he wanted to meet with me that Monday. We met in my office and Lowell Yandell, Director of Personnel, joined the meeting. Bernie told me I was terminated immediately. My salary and medical benefits would continue for several months as long as I didn’t protest the firing. Bernie offered no reason for the termination except I was not compatible with Seagate; 25 years combined CDC/Seagate experience just got flushed.

Bernie told me I could use him as a reference in seeking new employment. I believed him, as I didn’t think he was behind the firing. I was escorted out of the building and told to come back next Saturday to clean my office out of personal effects. I was somewhat in a state of shock driving home, but quickly made up my mind to use this as an opportunity to seek new career opportunities. I do remember listening to the radio on the way home to Rush Limbaugh, who was discussing Operation Desert Storm, the war against Iraqi Dictator Sadaam Hussein. As soon as I got home, I sat down at my computer and started working on my résumé. I remember Brian coming home from school, surprised that I was home. I explained I had just 162

been fired and was working on finding another job. Brian said he didn’t understand why because I was such a good worker.

Mary had just started working as a part-­‐time employee in January for the Oklahoma State House of Representatives in the Engrossing and Enrolling Department. I waited until she got home to give her the news. I cleaned out my desk that Saturday and was grateful I could take all of the business cards that I had acquired over the years with me. That turned out to be worth a lot as I later leveraged them in job searches and consulting.

Since I was escorted out, I didn’t have the opportunity to say goodbye to any of the employees that I worked with. I later learned Bernie held a meeting with the marketing organization I managed and told everyone I had resigned to pursue other opportunities. Some of my employees contacted me to offer regrets and assistance. Gene Milligan had a lot of industry relationships through his work on ANSI Committees that defined Disk Drive Interface Standards, and was helpful in providing me with their contact information. I received a handwritten sympathy card from Julie Still. She expressed surprise I was no longer with Seagate. Julie was Seagate’s Director of Corporate Communications and had worked with me on a number of press releases. As time went on, I received offers from other non-­‐CDC-­‐Seagate executives to use them as references in my job search. The word got out, and I started receiving phone calls.

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International Data Corporation Within a week, I received a call from Dave Valente of IDC. Dave was the senior industry analyst who covered the computer storage industry. I was one of his key industry contacts and participated in many of the teleconferences that IDC chaired in their effort to measure the size of the disk drive market, various manufacturers share of the market and to obtain a forecast of storage device shipments. Dave had just received a contract to do an industry-­‐wide study to attempt to understand what impact the emerging market of multimedia would have on the storage market. I was to work under the direction of Crawford DelPret, Dave’s senior assistant.

At the time I didn’t know who the client was but it turned out to be IBM. They had provided IDC with a list of detailed questions to survey various industry participants. IDC didn’t really have a lot of contacts outside of the disk and tape drive manufacturing industry. I had a number of contacts throughout the Control Data and Seagate customer base they wanted to survey. IDC was to pay me on a per contact basis. I believe it was $125 per contact. At the completion of the contract, I had earned $4000 for a little over a weeks worth of work.

The IDC experience gave me a lot of confidence that there would be life after Control Data and Seagate.

Crawford later told me they had no clue as to how they would have been able to do the survey without my help and contacts.

In Search of a New Career 1991−1995 The next opportunity I encountered was through Dean Bowman. Dean was a senior vice president with Control Data and headed various functions including Disk Drive operations and technology development organizations in the area of head and media components for disk drives. He retired when Seagate acquired Control Data’s disk drive operation. Digital Equipment hired Dean as a consultant to advise them in the development of thin-­‐film-­‐head technology. DEC was also evaluating whether to enter the OEM disk drive business. Dean was constantly being asked questions of a marketing nature and told DEC they needed an expert in the OEM disk drive market. Dean was a good friend of Tony Maggio and learned that Seagate had recently terminated me. Dean recommended me as a consultant to DEC. I received a call from Peter Franklin, one of the shakers and movers at DEC. He wanted to set up a meeting in Oklahoma City with his boss, Jack Sharp, and Dean Bowman. We met at a hotel conference room and shortly thereafter Peter hired me and gave me an assignment. I had no idea what I should charge DEC, so I discussed this with Dean and learned they were paying him $125 an hour plus expenses.

That sounded too good to be true, but I decided I was worth it and proposed the same fee structure.

My assignment was to evaluate DEC’c strategy for the OEM Disk Drive market and to determine the viability of their product plan. I made numerous trips to Shrewsbury Massachusetts, interviewing DEC’s engineers, technologists and marketing folks. I concluded that DEC basically had the technology and engineering know-­‐how, but that their initial product design was somewhat lacking. I wrote a white paper 164

explaining this and describing what their challenges were going to be, concluding that DEC had the wherewithal to successfully enter the OEM market.

Jack Sharp and Peter Franklin reviewed the paper and scheduled a meeting with Dean Bowman and myself to present the paper to the vice president in charge of DEC’s disk drive development and marketing organization, Charlie Christ. Charlie adopted our recommendation. Afterwards, I had the distinct impression that Charlie had already made up his mind to go forward, but really wanted an outside expert to endorse his plans.

In the meantime, I continued to pursue full-­‐time employment opportunities. I was contacted by a headhunter, who was retained to fill a key position at Quantum Corporation. I took a trip to Silicon Valley to meet with the headhunter. Part of the process involved taking detailed personality and psychological tests. Afterwards, I was invited back to interview Michael Brown, VP of Quantum’s high-­‐performance disk drive organization. The organization was fairly new and was struggling to make a market presence.

Quantum was searching for an executive to lead the organization. I had dinner with Michael at a nearby restaurant the evening I arrived. I thought the meeting went well.

The next morning I had interviews with senior Quantum vice president’s including the president at Quantum’s headquarters in Milpitas, California. They had been briefed about my background and were familiar with my resume. The president told me he was expecting Michael to make me an offer. I returned home expecting that I would soon receive an offer.

Within a few days, Michael called me and gave me encouragement, but explained that he wanted me to interview the key employees in the organization they were hiring me for before a final decision could be made. Again, I made a trip and interviewed two of the top managers. Immediately, I felt that they were uneasy with me. After I returned to Oklahoma, Michael called and informed me that I did not pass the interview with the employees. He told me they didn’t believe I could add any value to the organization.

Michael was quick to add, that he wanted me to return to discuss doing product planning consulting for Quantum. I explain my consulting relationship with DEC and that I would not be able to do any detailed planning for Quantum that would be in conflict with my DEC consulting. However, I could evaluate their product roadmap. He agreed, and was willing to pay me at the same rate as DEC. Again, I visited Quantum and met with their product planner. He had seen my résumé and asked me why on earth Seagate had fired me, as he had never seen a more pristine résumé.

The information Quantum provided concerning their roadmap was astonishingly vague and limited in information. I had a hunch that the consulting arrangement was more about hard company politics than genuine need. It seemed to me that corporate management wanted me hired, but Michael Brown did not. The consulting job was Michael’s way of saving face with his management. Sometime later, I met Liz Baird, who had been hired by DEC as a MarCom consultant. Previously, she was a senior PR executive at Quantum. When she learned that Michael did not give me an offer, she explained that I did not have the right credentials. Michael was loath to hire anyone of consequence that did not have a degree from Stanford. Mystery solved.

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I wrote a paper outlining my assessment of Quantum’s roadmap and called for a meeting to present it. I was told that a meeting would have to wait. I don’t remember why, but it was at least a month away. In the meantime, I had been pursuing employment in southern California with Emulex in Costa Mesa.

Emulex manufactured storage and networking equipment for the DEC End User Storage market. I had also been in discussion with DEC for employment in a position with the OEM group I was consulting for.

Prior to accepting the offer from Emulex I was asked to call Charlie Christ and determine if DEC could make me an acceptable offer. They couldn’t and I accepted the Emulex offer.

Emulex The position was Director of Storage Products and I had three product line managers reporting to me. I reported to Ron Browning, Director of Product Line Management. During the interview process, the President, Bob Stephens led me to believe that Ron’s career at Emulex was tenuous. The product line I was to manage was running out of gas and Ron did not have any new ideas.

As part of the job offer, I received a large signing bonus and was given generous temporary housing benefits. Emulex maintained two condos at an upscale apartment complex in Fountain Valley, about a five-­‐minute commute to Emulex. The complex included swimming pools and membership to a gymnasium. I stayed rent-­‐free there and was allowed to periodically take expense-­‐paid trips to Oklahoma until I found permanent housing and relocated to California. Mary and Brian visited me, and we went house hunting. We had put our home in Edmond up for sale, but the market was very slow and we didn’t receive any offers. Real estate was quite expensive in Southern California, but not nearly as expensive as in Silicon Valley.

Shortly after I started at Emulex, my nephew, Bob Allard, move to the area. He had a job with a computer store chain and lived in an apartment near the beach. Every other week or so Bob would visit me for dinner. At times we would play racquetball at the Gym, which I also used every morning and would sometimes play racquetball with someone form Emulex during lunch hour. It was nice to have Bob for company.

The condo I stayed in had two bedrooms. At times Emulex would put visitors up in the spare bedroom. I remember a representative from Underwriters Laboratory staying there. He had another guy with him and they arrived quite late in the evening. I woke up to a peculiar odor. I had never smelled marijuana smoke before, but realized that must’ve been it. The next day I complained to Bill Caldwell, the VP in charge of Storage Products. That was the last visit to the condo by any outsider while I was there.

I usually went to work at 7 AM, and one morning I experience my first earthquake. I was the only person around my office area and thought that a large truck and passed by the building and hit a pothole, creating the shock. Then I realized I was in California and it must’ve been an earthquake. It didn’t produce much damage, but it did make the news.

One of the first things I did when I started was to meet with various key people and try to understand the product line. I found out that it was very difficult to tie financials to the individual products. In addition, there was such a vast array of products that it was almost impossible to grasp how they all fit into the grand scheme of things.

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As time went on, it became apparent that Emulex would have to undergo extensive restructuring in order to be viable. A task force was formed to explore alternatives. The director of product management for the networking products and I were assigned to the task force. She was also a recent hire and had a lot of ideas to take the company in the direction of networking equipment. Unfortunately I didn’t believe the DEC plug-­‐compatible market for storage equipment was viable as DEC’s equipment interfaces were proprietary and protected with patents. Emulex was already being sued by DEC for patent infringement.

It was not clear how I would fit into a restructured Emulex.

Ron Browning and I took a business trip to Colorado just prior to the Labor Day weekend. I extended the trip to go home and spend the weekend with the family. Mary had just had an appointment with her doctor. He suspected that she had breast cancer. She was scheduled to undergo a biopsy the following week. It turned out only one of her breasts was cancerous. She had a mastectomy to remove the malignant breast. We were fortunate that I had continuous insurance coverage since leaving Seagate. As part of the Seagate termination agreement, I was provided four months of pay with benefits, which included Medical Insurance. That bridged us until I went to work with Emulex, which then coved me under their self-­‐insurance medical policy. The coverage extended for an additional two months past employment termination. Mary had been working as a part-­‐time “Session” employee for the OK House of Representatives and was hired full time just prior to my coverage running out. She was immediately eligible for full benefits. Without that we would have had some enormous medical bills to pay.

I missed several weeks of work, during which the task force wrapped up its work. Soon after I return to work the Networking Product Line Director visited my office and informed me that she was in charge and that I was fired. She also terminated Ron Browning and the people who reported to me. Bill Caldwell was the vice president over the Storage Product Group and had not been informed of what she was doing. He understood the situation concerning Mary’s cancer and went to bat for me. I received a generous severance package plus an additional two weeks pay in lieu of advance notice.

Fortunately I was able to attend the Fall Comdex Show in Las Vegas with Ron Browning before I left Emulex. I knew Peter Franklin would be at Comdex to work the trade show for DEC. I called Peter and explained what had happened. His response was great, “Do you want to do some more consulting for me?” I asked him how soon I could start. He said, “Right after Comdex”.

Getting fired from Emulex was a blessing in disguise. Soon afterwards, Emulex laid off 150 people and nine months later they sold the storage products to Systems Industries, a competitor. I was very fortunate that I hadn’t sold my home in Edmond and moved to California.

As a footnote, I was unable to get a meeting with Quantum to present my assessment of their product road map. They asked me to mail it and submit my invoice, which they paid promptly.

Consulting for Digital Equipment (DEC) I rejoined DEC is a consultant in early November 1991, under the same terms and conditions as before. In addition, Peter agreed to pay all the expenses for a part-­‐time secretary/ administrative support person. I hired a freelance individual, Cindy Shilling. Among her skills were doing Power Point presentations, which I constantly generated. She was also skilled in finding the best deals for airfares and hotel reservations.

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In the five or so months I had been gone, DEC had completed development of their first OEM disc drive, a 1 MB 3½ inch drive. It had just been announced at Comdex and DEC was struggling to keep up with questions from interested prospective customers. Very few of the DEC OEM sales people had ever gone through a total sales cycle. Peter Franklin asked me for recommendations to hire experienced sales people from the competition. I knew a great many of ex-­‐CDC/Seagate salesmen who Seagate had fired as part of the CDC/Seagate organizational consolidation. I only recommended people that I knew were star performers. It wasn’t long before DEC had a robust sales organization.

With new sales people there was a need to provide detailed product training. Cindy and I generated a series of PowerPoint presentations. We set up a video studio in my home office, including bright lamps, an overhead projector and screen. Cindy applied my makeup and operated the 9 mm video camera while I gave the presentations. Copies of the training videos were distributed to each of the sales people.

Peter did not have a lot of confidence in various DEC corporate functions in the area of tradeshow management, distribution sales, and marketing vommunications (MarCom). He hired outside consultants instead. I recommended that he talk to Ron Ward whom I knew at CDC where he managed tradeshows.

Peter hired Ron and two other consultants, David Kitano and Liz Baird. David had worked for Quantum in distribution sales management and Liz had worked for Applied Materials and Quantum in MarCom. The four of us basically ran DEC’s OEM disk marketing organization.

There was so much to do to get the OEM Business kickstarted that I could virtually work and bill as many hours as I wanted. The other consultants were more narrowly focused and did not generate as much billing. My normal routine was to leave Oklahoma City Sunday night and return Thursday night.

The drive to the Boston airport from work took a lot of getting used to. Boston drivers cut you no slack.

They have absolutely no sense of courtesy. The airport in Boston is on an island, accessible through a two-­‐ lane tunnel. It is fed by six lanes of very heavy traffic, which choked down to two lanes in the span of several blocks. I found that the only way to navigate this mess was to stare straight ahead and avoid eye contact. If you had a quarter-­‐inch advantage on the adjacent driver, you never surrendered it. I became quite skilled at bullying my way into the tunnel. On one trip Mary was with me and she couldn’t believe how rude I was in navigating the entrance to the airport tunnel.

Another thing I found quite peculiar in Boston was how they dealt with bad weather. I remember listening to the daily weather forecast on the way to work. If there was the slightest chance of snow, they immediately started announcing school closings.

I racked up a lot up frequent flyer miles on American Airlines. It was standard practice for me to receive a first class upgrade when I checked in at the OKC airport. I found out that I was in the top 10 fliers on American Airlines in OKC. Most of my 3,000,000 miles in my account were generated for DEC related travel. At the 1,000,000-­‐mile level, I became a permanent platinum member of American Airlines AAdvantage program with all of the associated benefits. Mary and I have really enjoyed using those frequent flier miles. I also racked up over 700,000 points staying at the Marriott Hotel near DEC’s facility.

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There were a couple of the flights I made that were real hair-­‐raisers. On one of the flights I had departed Minneapolis and was headed to New York. All of a sudden the aircraft shuttered and some of the passengers near the wing saw that part of the wing covering was missing. The Captain was able to stabilize the plane and radioed the Detroit airport to obtain permission for an emergency landing.

Fortunately, the landing went smoothly and we were able to transfer to another plane en route from Portland to New York.

Another time, I was on an American Airlines flight that had just taken off from Dallas when the Captain announced over the intercom that there was a component failure and he was unable to determine if the front landing wheel had retracted. The flight attendants instructed the passengers to prepare for an emergency landing. We had to take off our glasses, shoes, and remove any sharp writing instruments. Just prior to landing, we had to tighten our seatbelts and put our heads over our legs. The Captain circled the airport for quite some time in order to burn off fuel. The landing was smooth and safe. All of the passengers were really relieved. American immediately offered all of the passenger’s seats on the next available flight. I don’t believe half accepted offer. I heard comments from some of them that there wasn’t any way they would get on another flight. I did and it was okay.

It became apparent to me that the engineering teams were unaccustomed to following the dictates of the marketplace. DEC had a long history of product innovation based on engineering creativity. In a sense this spawned an arrogance and “Ivory Tower” mentality. They had great engineering and software resources, but lacked detailed knowledge of what customers wanted and what the competition planned to provide.

Accordingly, the development teams did not get proper direction. I proposed sitting up a product planning committee patterned along the lines that CDC/Seagate used. Jack Sharp was the chairman and each of the three development team managers and the VP of technology formed the core of the committee. I assumed the role of planning committee secretary and was responsible for scheduling the meetings, providing the agenda and generating the minutes and action items. Dean Bowman was also a key member as well as Peter Franklin.

I was the primary source of competitive information. One of the earliest controversies centered on how many discs should be in the disk drive. The industry standard was 8 disks with embedded servo. DEC engineering teams argued for 7 discs with dedicated servo. They didn’t appreciate that customers would demand industry-­‐standard, as seven discs would be unique and difficult to second source. After that battle was won, it was easier to convince the engineering managers they had to comply with customer requirements. The product planning meetings were held monthly in DEC’s Shrewsbury facility.

DEC had another design team in Colorado Springs that did development of smaller 2 ½” form factor drives for laptop computing. As they didn’t participate in the Shrewsbury meetings, I visited Colorado Springs periodically to assess their strategies and plans.

One of the great surprises I encountered was the advanced nature of DEC R&D in the area of disc drive components, mainly advanced MR heads. If DEC could successfully establish a solid market presence, the R&D would give them a significant competitive advantage. Another significant capability was in their firmware engineers. Initially, I thought this would be a major problem. It turned out to be a competitive advantage as the firmware developers quickly adapted to the diverse needs of the customers.

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I soon discovered another major obstacle that hindered quality decision-­‐making. DEC’s culture fostered decision by committee. No one wanted to go forward unless there was consensus. It was easy for a good idea or plan to be killed than it was to get agreement to go forward. It seemed that anyone could veto an idea and it would die in committee. My status as an outside consultant greatly facilitated committee decisions, as there was a reluctance to go against the outside expert. A lot of petty internal dissent was overcome. I wasn’t very popular with the naysayers.

One of my pet peeves was the seemingly disinterest or lack of responsiveness by the customer account support people. I remember harassing one of them that was ignoring repeated phone calls from an acquaintance of mine, Jim Askins. Jim had established a relationship with DEC to resell disk drives from customers who had evaluated them. The drives were fully functional but could no longer be sold as new.

Jim told me of his difficulty in getting John Ford to return his calls. I gently reminded John on several occasions to call Jim. He never did. My frustration finally got the better me and I read John the riot act.

Finally, John acquiesced and got in touch with Jim.

I worked very closely with Liz Baird who was the consultant handling MarCom. Liz had great taste and knew no boundaries on spending money to achieve the desired results. I cringed at her extravagance and wondered when the money would run out. Nevertheless she did a great job establishing a high-­‐end leadership Image for DEC’s OEM Storage unit.

DEC’s Focus at Comdex was on the technology suite, which could only be visited by invitation. Key customers were driven to the suite in a stretch limo where they were exposed to the confidential business plans and product roadmaps. They had access to senior engineers and technologists from DEC. I spent most of my time in the suite giving customer presentations. Liz had sent out advanced invitations for an after-­‐hours party. It was held on the estate that used to belong to Liberace. The facility was massive, and you couldn’t turn around without running into a waiter with Hors d'oeuvres or cocktails. There must have been a dozen mimes and actors representing various famous people. I believe there were 200 to 300 guests in attendance. What a blowout!

Ron Ward, DEC’s consultant to manage tradeshows was able to secure last-­‐minute space at the trade show in Hanover, Germany, which is held on the fairgrounds there. It is the largest industrial Products tradeshow in the world with over 6500 exhibitors and more than 250,000 visitors. Room accommodations are very difficult to get especially last-­‐minute reservations. Ron Ward and I attended the show. The nearest accommodation was in Wolfsburg where Volkswagen had its headquarters and was about a 60-­‐ minute drive from Hanover. Wolfsburg was near East Germany. I was intrigued by the claim that Wolfsburg was the spy Capital of the world during the Cold War. There were more spies per capita from around the world in Wolfsburg than anywhere else.

Ron and I had to leave early so that we’d be able to find a parking spot. It never seemed to fail that we would encounter a sudden snowstorm, which would pop up due to the inclement North Sea weather. I doubt if DEC obtained any new customers or business at the Hanover show.

Peter’s marketing budget was getting a little tight and he couldn’t get approval to attend any shows in Asia. I went instead and attended the Taipei tradeshow in Taiwan. DEC did not have a tradeshow booth 170

there. I stayed in a large hotel suite near the tradeshow. It had a large sitting area and a private bedroom area. I encountered quite a few Asian companies that were prospective customers for DEC’s OEM disc products and invited their representatives to the hotel for presentations and discussions.

Peter also had me attend A European trade show in Paris. I was asked to be a presenter at the show. I decided that one of the interesting differentiators DEC’s disc drives had was its sophisticated error correction codes and algorithm’s. I prepared a 35mm slide presentation on that topic, which I called “The Chain of Data Integrity”.

At the tail end of the trip I visited Munch to conduct sales training and customer visits. George Eifler was working there for DEC’s System sales Taipei Scene

force. We had a good time reminiscing about our travels together and enjoyed the wonderful German beer.

As the next disk drive model development was nearing completion, Liz undertook the task to brand DEC’s product line. She hired a company to focus group test various brand names. As I recall, there were two or three new models slated for introduction and a theme was selected based on celestial bodies. One drive was named Allegra and another Capella. The focus testing, which was quite expensive, indicated these names would be widely accepted. When they were announced to the field sales, Capella got some interesting reactions. The Italians were offended as Capella in Italian translates to a toilet. Oh well!!

Liz orchestrated the product launch and announcements. She set up a series of domestic and international press tours to publicize the new introductions. Liz, John Ford, and I were tasked to conduct the meetings.

We had press meetings in Boston and Silicon Valley. The international meetings were timed to coincide with Robert Palmer’s visit to Tokyo. Palmer had just succeeded Ken Olsen, DEC”S founder and a legend in the industry, as DEC’s new CEO. The Japanese trip was to introduce Palmer to the key Japanese customer population. DEC’s primary product platform was the mini computer, which was rapidly being obsoleted by PCs and workstations. DEC’s earnings were deteriorating and Olsen was forced to resign. It was ironic that Olsen had famously predicted in 1977 “There is no reason that anyone would want a computer in their home.”

Japan was the first stop on the international tour. We would have the press meeting on the coat tails of Palmers introduction meeting to the Who’s Who of DEC’s Japanese customers. It was an amazing sight. A long line of Japanese executive’s formed to meet Robert Palmer. Each one would approach him, business card in hand, and bow and present Palmer his business card. That was a very long ordeal.

The next stop was in Hong Kong. After the press meeting there, John Ford offered to buy Liz and I dinner and told Liz to pick the restaurant. Big mistake!! I don’t remember the name of the restaurant, but it was very elegant and expensive. After the meal, John was feeling his oats and ordered Brandy and a cigar.

When the bill came, John took a look at it and asked Liz how much it was in dollars. It was almost $400 for the three of us. John turned pale and said that Peter would never approve it if he included it on his 171

expense report. I paid for it, as I didn’t want John to have to pay for it out of his pocket. I knew Peter would approve it on my invoice. John breathed a sigh of relief.

Mary’s brother and sister-­‐in-­‐law, Bill in LuAnn Allard, lived in Sudbury, about 30 minutes from my hotel.

Every three or four weeks I would visit them for dinner. It was great to have a home-­‐cooked meal and their company. Occasionally, I would bring the groceries and do the cooking. I believe I introduced them to Raclette. We had many great political discussions.

In the summer of 1994, Bill and LuAnn’s daughter, Theresa, married David Gilbert. Mary joined me on my weekly travels to Boston and we attended the wedding. It was very well done and we enjoyed it immensely.

One of the things I missed was a regular workout routine. I had suspended my membership in the Athletic Club in Oklahoma when I started consulting with DEC. The Marriott I stayed in had a small gym and a swimming pool that I used several times a week. Occasionally I played racquetball on Saturdays with Jim Askins at the YMCA in downtown Oklahoma City.

With DEC’s primary market in decline, the handwriting was on the wall that restructuring was in order.

Their storage unit was a prime candidate to sell and generate badly needed cash. Early in 1994 Quantum Corp soon emerged as a candidate to buy the business.

Quantum had been unsuccessful in establishing a presence in the high performance OEM disc drive market and viewed DEC’s OEM disc drive business as an attractive alternative to their in-­‐house program.

This was the same program that Quantum had previously interviewed me to manage, but didn’t get. I was quite surprised to learn that Bob Maeser was the Quantum executive in charge of their high-­‐performance program. This is the same Bob Maser who worked for me, and then I worked for him at CDC/Seagate.

Equally surprising, was that the Chairman of the Board and CEO of Quantum turned out to be Bill Miller whom I had previously worked for at CDC. Both Bill and Bob had departed Seagate and had key positions at Quantum.

Getting fired from Seagate was the best thing that could have happened to me. I thoroughly enjoyed the experiences that resulted and the people I met. In addition, I managed to make a great deal of money and was very successful in many of the investments I made. The income from DEC was substantial and I was able to set up a Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) Plan. Even though I had to hire an actuary to administer it, it was worth it, as I was able to tax defer a huge share of my consulting income.

Quantum’s acquisition of DEC’s Storage business was completed in October 1994. My consulting activity gradually tailed off and came to a complete halt in early 1995. Later that year, Miller and Maeser left Quantum in an organizational shake up. The acquisition did not work out. Michael Brown became the chairman of the board and CEO of Quantum. In early 1998 Compaq Computer acquired what was left of DEC. Maxtor acquired Quantum in 2000, and Hewlett Packard acquired Compaq in 2002. Control Data made a decision to exit the computer manufacturing business and completed divesture of those operations in 1992. What remained was divided into Control Data Systems and Ceridian, Information Services Co. Syntegra acquired Control Data Systems in 1999. Ceridian was publicly traded on the NYSE, 172

but was delisted in 2007 when it was acquired for $2.3 Billion. Industry consolidation marches on and is a fact of life.

IRS Audit In 1996 I received a letter from the IRS that my 1993 return had been selected for auditing. I contacted Jack, my CPA, and he told me not to worry. He had previously worked for the IRS as an auditor and would take care of everything. I was not to talk to the IRS nor allow them in my office. He contacted the IRS and learned that the agent who would do the audit was a new hire. He speculated I had been selected for audit because I always had detailed, well-­‐documented tax returns. He thought the audit was going to be a training exercise for the new hire and they wanted an easy audit to break in the new hire.

Jack accommodated the audit in his office. The auditor quickly ran into problems doing the audit and did not have any experienced IRS people to help her out. Jack ended up coaching her on how to conduct the audit. He was spending a lot of time on that and finally complained to the agent’s supervisor. Their encounter rapidly turning into a weight lifting contest. The supervisor became determined to find someway to assess a penalty on me. Needless to say, this easy audit became very time-­‐consuming as they searched and searched for discrepancies. Finally, they discovered an error. Jack had failed to adjust some of my travel expenses to exclude customer meals I paid for. The net tax underpayment amounted to several hundred dollars, with penalties came to around $500. Jacks time spent on the audit was over thousand dollars, which he discounted 50%.

It’s a good thing the IRS didn’t do back audits, as I’m sure that they would’ve discovered the same errors in 1991 and 1992 tax returns. That was not to be my last encounter with the IRS.

Cherokee Data 1995−1999 After it became apparent that Quantum would not require my consulting services, I was pondering what I would pursue next. In the meantime there were a lot of things that I had been postponing and needed to do. I started working on some home improvement and fix up projects around the house. Jim Askins contacted me and asked if I would be interested in joining the company he founded, Cherokee Data.

Cherokee was established in the mid-­‐1980s and had lined up a number of disk drive manufacturers to obtain their surplus and excess out-­‐of-­‐production inventory. Cherokee Data wholesaled this equipment into the secondary market.

OKC Murrah Building Bombing−First Terrorist Attack on American Soil Wednesday, April 19, 1995, I was sitting in my office in Cherokee Data at 1219 North Classen Boulevard in OKC. I had started work there as president of the company on Monday, a few days earlier. Just a little past 9 AM, I heard an explosion. It sounded familiar to me, but I I rationalized it must have been a sonic boom. Almost instantly, the receptionist in the front of the building screamed. I knew then it wasn’t a sonic boom, and I went outside to see what was going on. I saw a large cloud of white smoke rising above the horizon. The St. Anthony Hospital was about three blocks from where I was, and I assumed the white cloud was steam from an explosion of a hospital boiler. That assumption was quickly proven wrong as one of our employees, Theresa, was called within a few minutes and was told that a large explosion had occurred at the Murrah Building. Theresa had been trained in Disaster First Aid, and she was needed 173

there. Within ten minutes or so, she was picked up and taken to help the injured. Cherokee Data was three quarters of a mile from the bomb blast.

News reports started coming in, and we learned bits and pieces of what had happened. Theresa came back to work after a few hours. She told us she couldn’t handle the sight of all of the blood, dead, wounded, and body parts that were all over the place. After I learned that a bomb had gone off, I knew why it sounded so familiar. It sounded very much like the detonation I heard when I was working on board the Vandenberg tracking a Soviet missile that impacted near our ship. The Soviets had rigged the reentry vehicle to detonate and be destroyed upon impact to prevent the USA from recovering it.

I left work early to go to the Blood Institure in Edmond. When I got there, the line was so long I wouldn’t be able to donate before the Institute would have to close for the day. I pleaded with the workers there that they should take my blood as it was the universal type O Negative. That didn’t make any difference and I left.

It wasn’t long before the conspirancy theorists began speculating on who was behind the bombing. It didn’t help that President Clinton even blamed it on the right-­‐wing radio talk show hosts and right-­‐wingers in general. Many people were quick to link it to the Branch Davidion masacarre carried out under Attorney General Janet Reno’s watch as the bombing occurred on the anniversary of that tragedy.

The morning after the bombing, I went to my barber for a haircut. His shop was In the Hilton Inn West and was where the FBI Agents investigating the bombing site stayed. Bob Thompson was my barber, and he told me that he overheard an FBI Agent talking on his cell phone who said the bombing was not what it appeared to be. I’ve often wondered what that really meant. I believe there is more to be learned about the total story. Years later, I became aware of video that had been retrieved from a survellience camera, which captured McVeigh parking the truck that contained the explosives. McVeigh got out of the truck and walked away. Another individual also exited the truck from the passenger side. That video was never presented as evidence in the trial even though it was alluded to in various reports. In 2013, someone attempted to obtain the video under the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI claimed that it couldn’t be found. Imagine that.

McVeigh and Terry Nichols built the bomb with fertilizer and diesel fuel. The bomb weighed about 7000 pounds and was placed in a yellow Ryder rental truck. McVeigh set the bomb to be detonated and took off in a getaway car that was stashed near the Murrah Building. He was apprehended while driving North of Oklahoma City by an Oklahoma State Trooper that stopped him because he didn’t have a license plate on his car. McVeigh and Nichols were tried for the crime and convicted. McVeigh was given the death penalty and executed. Nichols was given life imprisonment.

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The damage was horrific, 168 lives were taken, including 19 children under the age of 6, more than 680 people were injured, and 324 buildings within a 16-­‐block radius of the blast were damaged or destroyed. The bomb was estimated to have caused at least $652 million worth of damage. Extensive and extended efforts were made to locate any survivors of the explosion. Exhaustive rescue efforts were undertaken by local, state, federal, and worldwide agencies in the wake of the bombing, and substantial donations were received from across the country. The Murrah Building Front Blast Damage Federal Emergency Management Agency activated eleven of its Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces, consisting of 665 rescue workers who assisted in rescue and recovery operations. Rescue efforts were made around the clock for several weeks. The immediate response by the many local Oklahoma rescue, disaster support, and other community organizations was highly effective and undoubtly saved a number of lives. It became known as the Oklahoma Standard and has served as a model nationwide.

A chain link security fence was erected around the perimeter of the site.

People from all over the US and the world visited the site and left their personal messages and tokens of sorrow and grief.

These were collected on a regular basis, and were stored for historical reference. Over the following years, I took a number of out of town people who were visiting Cherokee Data to the bombing site. It took me a long time after the bombing to keep from tearing up when I visited the site.

An international contest was held to determine what should be built for a Memorial. The design that was used was selected by the Memorial Committee from 624 submissions. It was created by three Oklahoma City Architects. The Memorial is part of the National US Park Service, but it is managed by a nonprofit foundation. I attended the Memorial dedication, which was held on the anniversary of the bombing in 2000. President Clinton gave the dedication speech. The Memorial has become a major tourist destination.

Tokens of Grief & Sorrow

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Operating Cherokee Data Jim had grown the business to the $2 Million level and employed five people. He was spending a lot of time traveling and wanted me to help expand the business and take some to his travel pressure off. I joined the company as President on April 15th, 1995. Since I had a lot of contacts within the computer storage business, I started discussions with a number of companies that Jim was a stranger to. Exabyte was a major manufacturer of magnetic tape drives in Boulder, CO, and became my first deal to handle their excess inventory. We did a lot of business with Exabyte and became friends with a number of their executives. Both Jim and the president of Exabyte, Bill Marnier, were fanatical fans for their respective alma maters. We attended a lot of OU Sooner/CU Buff games.

Over the years, I met with a number of other companies, Storage Tek, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Maxtor, Western Digital, Sony, Quantum, Siemens (in Germany), etc., and managed to establish relationships with a number of them. The deals I did usually involved having inventory consigned to Cherokee Data. When anything was sold, the owning company was paid and Cherokee collected a commission. As a consequence of these deals, it soon became necessary for Cherokee to acquire warehousing space. A separate building near Cherokee was rented, and a warehouse manager was hired.

When I joined Cherokee Data all of its computer equipment was hopelessly out of date, based on the 10-­‐ year-­‐old Intel 286 processor, and in need of replacement. Jim referred to this as state of the art computers… not. In addition, inventory management was a manual paper process and unreliable at that.

Jim didn’t really understand computers or technology, and it became a major sales job for me to convince him to upgrade the technology and scrap the old. I justified the upgrade on the need for Cherokee to implement an online-­‐networked customized inventory control and pricing system to keep track of the multitude of inventory from our disparate suppliers. In conjunction with other Cherokee personnel, I developed a specification for the new inventory system and hired a contract programmer to implement it.

In addition, a web site was created. Cherokee was going to join the 21st Century if I was going to have my way, and it did.

Sales grew, and Cherokee hired additional sales personnel, an accounting manager, and other support personnel. One of the first people I hired was Carol Li. She had just graduated from Oklahoma University with an MBA and was from the Peoples Republic of China. She wanted to remain in the US, and we had to secure a green card for her. Several months after Carol started work, she came into my office and asked if she could have Friday afternoon off. Since she hadn’t accrued any vacation time, I asked her why. She told me that Steve, her boy friend from China who was attending OU to earn his Masters in Accounting, and her wanted to get married. They planned to get married at the courthouse Friday afternoon and use the weekend for a honeymoon. Of course I let her have the time off.

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Carol Li & Steve Wu's Wedding Celebration

Cherokee employees and I hosted a wedding reception a week or so later at my home. We had a big cake, baked by one of our neighbors, and served a meal. Carol and Steve were really grateful, as were their parents in China. We have kept in touch ever since. They relocated to Dallas, and we sometimes have lunch with them when we return from visiting my daughter in Austin. Carol and her husband later became US Citizens. They have two daughters.

I spent a lot of time traveling, following up with our suppliers and meeting computer equipment manufacturers to obtain additional sources of supply. I frequently visited some companies in Boulder, CO, and remember doing so soon after Jon Benet Ramsey, a six-­‐year-­‐old American child beauty pageant queen, was murdered in her home over Christmas in 1996. Her body was found hours later after she went missing.

Jon Benet’s parents were well-­‐known, wealthy citizens of Boulder. The worldwide press went into frenzy and descended on Boulder to cover the story. I usually stayed at the Hotel Boulderado, a historic hotel in a popular area. The Boulderado had a large bar that was a favorite watering hole and where the media camped out. On a number of occasions, I was asked if I was part of the media. The media made a circus out of the coverage, speculating about and defaming Jon Benet’s parents, in their attempts to link the murder to them. The killer has yet to be identified some 17 years or so later.

Jim bought a vacation home in Lake Tahoe and we used it in conjunction with our business trips to California. It was a nice place with an enclosed hot tub and fully furnished. At times we entertained prospective customers or suppliers there. One time I took Mary with me to visit some suppliers in Silicon Valley. I had a meeting with IBM’s organization that was responsible for developing and manufacturing disk drives, and met with Mike Cannon who headed it up. Mike was the executive who set up and ran CDC’s first offshore manufacturing facility in Singapore. After the meeting, Mary and I drove to Lake Tahoe and spent a night at Jim’s place. Before returning home, we drove to Yosemite National Park and took that in. I remember being stopped by a Nevada Highway Patroltrooper and getting a speeding ticket on the way there.

El Capitan−Yosemite As the company expanded, it outgrew the original location, which was in the back of a building owned by Jim’s brother, JB Askins. He owned one of the largest Bail Bondsmen businesses in Oklahoma City. The location was ideal for that, near the county jail and in a poor part of the city. Jim bought half of the building, which was unoccupied and remodeled it.

We moved into the new digs and upgraded our work environment. One of the unpleasant features of the location was the tendency of homeless people or vagrants to walk in unannounced looking for a bathroom to use or a donation. There was this bag lady who would come in when no one was near the front door. I don’t think she ever changed clothes or took a bath. Her smell made your eyes water.

In the fall of 1997 Mary accompanied me on a business trip to Boulder, CO. It overlapped a weekend and we took advantage of the time to see the sights in the area and to visit Rocky Mountain National Park. We didn’t go very deep in the Park due to road conditions and time restraints. We drove to Georgetown and 177

spent Saturday night there. We had dinner and watched an OU football game at the restaurant. I had Elk steak and, it was delicious.

In 1998, sales had doubled from when I joined Cherokee Data and were beginning to level off. The prospect for new suppliers was dim. Most of the major prospects had been worked and it was becoming increasingly difficult to generate new sources of supply. In 1999, I was contemplating leaving Cherokee Data when we became aware of a business opportunity. There was a company in California who was developing a web site who other companies like Cherokee could post their inventory on and sell it. The web site business would receive a commission on the sales. Jim and I checked it out and we thought it was a viable concept. We entered into discussions with the company and decided to buy it.

The concept we pursued involved setting up a separate company to operate the web site. It would be located in some available space owned by Jim next to Cherokee Data’s office. The deal was negotiated, and the development of the web site was completed. I put together the organizational concept and identified personnel to staff it.

While we were evaluating buying the company, I told Jim that I wanted to have ownership in the new entity and offered to buy a significant piece of it, but wanted to have decision control over financial matters. Jim more or less agreed, but as time got closer to closing, I sensed he might back out of that.

Since Jim treated Cherokee Data as his own personal bank account, I didn’t want him to have unilateral control over the finances either. I empathically told Jim that I would not continue with Cherokee or the new company if he had financial control over the new company. He didn’t acknowledge what he would do.

I found out at closing that he was the self-­‐appointed financial controller of the company and I had no ownership in it. I then submitted my resignation with 30 days notice. He asked me to hire the personnel and procure the computer systems prior to my departure, which I did.

I later had occasion to hire one of the people who went to work in the new company. I learned that the whole concept fell apart as Jim was clueless about what to do and gave no direction to the employees. All of the new employees left shortly after my departure. His greed got the best of him. He thought the new company was going to be a gold mine and didn’t want to share it with me. He didn’t realize what was required to make it successful.

Real Estate−I Could Have Been Swindled Mary and I considered Portland, Oregon as a place that we might retire in. We really enjoyed the area when we lived there soon after we were married while I was working for RCA International Service Company on board the Vandenberg. The ship was undergoing repairs and equipment upgrades. All of the employees were living on shore. Mary joined me and we spent a lot of time exploring the Northwest, and really liked the area. Over the years, I had monitored real estate values in Portland and was becoming concerned that the prices would become prohibitive. We decided we should buy a lot that we could build on when we decided to retire.

In 1990 we visited Portland and searched the area for a lot to buy. Our realtor found a nice heavily wooded lot that backed up to a nature preserve, which we bought for about $42,000. As time passed, we 178

determined that retirement in Portland was not going to happen since we would be too far away from Jennifer and Brian, complicating our seeing them. Over the years we had received enquiries from various people who were searching for a lot to build on. Good building lots were scarce and expensive due to the restrictions on land development who the Oregon government had enacted over the years since we bought the lot. One of the enquires came in the form of a post card from Todd Teal from Seattle in 2001. He said he was looking for a lot in the Portland area and wanted me to contact him if I was interested is selling the lot. He said he wasn’t a realtor, and he didn’t want to deal with a realtor. If I had it listed with a realtor, he wasn’t interested. I filed the post card for future consideration In 2004, Mary and I undertook a major remodel of our home in Edmond. We decided then who we wouldn’t be retiring in Oregon and should sell the lot there. I contacted all of the people who had expressed interest in the past in buying the lot, including Todd Teal. He responded that he was interested and sent me a purchase agreement in the mail with a price of $140,000 for the lot. I carefully examined the agreement and it seemed to be legitimate. One of my friends was a realtor, and I had him review it.

He is a very meticulous person, and thought it covered everything. I signed the purchase agreement on June 25, 2004 and sent it to Todd.

Several weeks later, I hadn’t received the escrow payment that was specified in the purchase agreement.

I sent him an email asking when the escrow would be opened and when it would be paid. He replied that he takes his time when buying land, that I would get it and not to worry. That prompted me to reread the agreement. I couldn’t believe what it said. The agreement stated that the escrow payment would be made after the property had been surveyed. There was no date specifing when that had to happen. It was open ended. I started researching Todd Teal on the internet. He seemed to be an elusive fellow, with multiple addresses that had phone numbers with area codes, which didn’t match the zip code.

I received an email from a relator in Portland requesting that I grant permission to put a For Sale sign on the lot that I was selling to Todd. I checked the MLS in Portland and found that it was listed for $209,000.

I contacted the Oregon Realtors Association and discussed the situation with them. They didn’t have jurisdiction over this situation and recommended that I contact an attorney. I asked for a recommendation and they gave me two names.

When I talked to the attorney, he told me that if there is no money paid there is no enforceable agreement. I sent an email to Todd and copied the realtor on it demanding that he either pay the escrow or the agreement would be voided within two weeks. I also instructed the realtor to cease any efforts to sell the lot, or else. I promptly received a reply from the realtor that the listing had been deleted and they would not attempt to sell the lot. Todd sent me an email that he had put a cloud on my title, and I could not remove it without the approval of a Judge, which could take over four years. He said that he knew his way around the courthouse and had won a similar case with the Mississippi Supreme Court. Fighting him would only delay things, up to four years, and cost me around $50,000.

I ignored that and started efforts to sell the lot on my own. I contacted the people that had previously indicated an interest in buying the lot. One couple was very interested and I offered the lot at the price Todd said he would pay. They were eager to buy the lot, but wanted to do some due diligence on it to determine what their home would cost if it were built on my lot. Their builder determined that about 179

every state agency in Oregon would have to approve the building permit. The state EPA required soil tests, the game and fishery agency would have to approve the permit as the lot was near a creek, and every tree that would have to be removed would have to be accounted for and replaced with trees within the watershed that had the equivalent diameter of the trees that were removed. That was extreme environmentalism run amuck. It’s no wonder that land prices were so high. The couple that wanted to buy the lot told me that it was not possible to do the deal.

I was really discouraged, and thought I would never sell the lot. Out of the blue, I received a post card from a realtor that specialized in the sale of land only. I contacted him and he seemed legitimate. I entered into a listing agreement. I thought the lot would have to be priced at the $140,000 level or lower.

He agreed to that until he found out the lot had been listed for $209,000 as a result of Todd Teal attempting to sell it. He thought that we had to offer it for sale at that level. I told him that would be ok, but didn’t believe we would get any interest in it. We could always go down in price. He listed the lot on a Friday, and by Monday he called me and told me that he had two offers, one at $200,000, and one at $209,000. He told me to reject the first offer and accept the second, which I did. When the buyer found out about all of the approvals he would have to obtain in order to build on the lot, he wanted me to pay for them. I wanted no part of that, and I told the realtor to counteroffer the lot at $200,000 with the buyer being responsible for obtaining the approvals. Deal done and lot paid for. Whew!!

In February, 2005, I received a letter from Todd Teal with a postmark from Ft. Meyers, Florida. Todd used a return address on all of his correspondence to me from Seattle, but all of the correspondence in 2004 had been postmarked Ft. Meyers. Todd wrote me that since he had my lot under contract for more than two years, and he had not been able to buy it from me, he would release the contract if I sent him a copy of it. Hurricane Charley had done considerable damage to Ft. Meyers in August, 2004. I believe that Todd must have incurred a lot of damage and lost his records. He was trying to get the contract from me so that he could pursue selling the lot. What poetic justice!! I didn’t respond, and I haven’t heard from him since.

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Family Matters Sports & Activities In Oklahoma, sports were stressed more than in Minnesota. Brian opted to play soccer and Jennifer took up gymnastics. Brian lost his interest when he suffered a broken collarbone. Jennifer became accomplished in gymnastics and pursued it until high school. They both took up Karate under the instruction of Master Poo. He and his sons produced a number of top Black Belts.

Brian lost interest in karate at some point and formed a Heavy Metal Band with some of his buddies. They named it “The Art Of Butchery” and he was the lead singer. The band booked a number of local performances as well as some gigs in St. Louis and Texas. I had no idea that he was doing performances until he mentioned it and told us his band was playing in down town Edmond one Saturday night. Mary and I were out with friends and decided to stop in and check it out. We entered the place he was performing. It was crowded. Brian was on stage and saw us. He announced to everyone that he wanted to introduce his parents. “Who is that Boy?” we wondered. This can’t be our shy son. We were shocked to find out how outgoing he was, Jennifer stuck with karate and became a Black Belt, winning a number of competitions in high school and college. She got to the point that she considered trying out tor the US Olympic team, but couldn’t make time for it nor afford the travel expense to do the tryouts in Florida.

Financial Advice When we moved to Oklahoma, we noticed a major difference between life in North Oaks and Edmond.

The kids, especially girls, were much more fashion conscious in Edmond. In North Oaks, fashionable clothing was not considered a status symbol. In Edmond it was, and of course, much more expensive than my budget alowed. I solved this problem by asking Jennifer how much she thought she would need to buy her own clothes. I don’t remember the amount, but I agreed to give her that as a monthly allowance.

Amazingly, she lived within her budget and actually saved money. Of course she didn’t buy expensive fashionable clothes.

I told both kids that I would help them with college by paying either room and board, or tuition and books.

Both Jennifer and Brian had after school and summer jobs so they could earn enough for college. I felt strongly that they would be more committed to college if they had skin in the game.

I always did my best to instill frugality in them and stressed the importance of paying off credit cards in full and avoiding interest charges. The important lesson wasn’t how much you earned, but how much you saved. Both Jennifer and Brian have heeded my advice and become competent in managing their financial affairs.

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College Jennifer In her senior year, Jennifer was dead set on going to Oklahoma University in Norman. I wasn’t against that and wanted her to make the decision on where to go, but I knew she hadn’t seriously considered any alternatives and insisted that she put Oklahoma Sate University in Stillwater on the list. She thought it would be a waste of time because OU was where she was going. Reluctantly she agreed to interview both schools, OU first. The interview confirmed her decision and she didn’t want to interview OSU. I insisted and we took her to Stillwater. At OU the students conducting the interview kept Mary and me involved in the discussion, not OSU. The students there asked Mary and I why we were hanging around and suggested we go for a walk. When we returned, Jennifer proudly announced that OSU was her choice. Privately, I was pleased with that, as OU seemed to be a bit to Preppy for my taste. The kids at OSU were more down to earth.

Jennifer majored in Accounting. I paid for her room and board. She later switched from Accounting to a dual major in Political Science and Russian Language. She made good grades while working part time and graduated with the dual major in four years. For graduation, we gave her a six-­‐week trip to St. Petersburg, Russia to study Russian and travel.

Upon returning to OK, Jennifer applied for Grad school at OSU and was rejected. Talk about mad. The admissions folks apparently wanted out of state students more than they did OK residents. She immediately applied elsewhere and was accepted for the MBA program at Texas A&M in Austin, a grad program considerably higher in ranking than OSU. That cost her a semester of time, as she wanted to start in the fall.

Jennifer graduated the MBA Program in the summer of 1995. Her first job was with a small management consulting company in Dallas.

Jennifer's MBA Graduation With Parents−1995

Brian Brian pursued Computer Graphics Design at Oklahoma City Community College where he had a scholarship. He elected to have me pay for tuition and books and also got his room and board free as he lived with us and commuted to OCCC. It was a two year Associates Degree Program. When he graduated we sent him to Santa Monica, CA to attend a two-­‐month school conducted by Silicon Studios, a subsidiary of Silicon Graphics, the premier company that had the leading technology in workstations Hollywood used for computer animation.

Brian's HS Graduation With Parents−1992

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I thought he would try to find a position in California, but he didn’t care for the culture there and wanted no part of it. He returned to Oklahoma and soon moved to Austin, TX where Jennifer was living. He bounced around a bit and worked his way into a graphics arts position with a children’s book publisher.

He wanted to buy a house, but soon found out that Austin real estate was prohibitvely expensive.

One day we were talking to Jennifer and she asked what we thought about Brian moving back to live with us. That was the first time we heard that. A week later, Brian showed up driving a U-­‐Haul Truck with his car in tow. Great, I thought. Where are we going to store his stuff? He told us he only planned on staying a week. He had interviews lined up and would find an apartment soon. WHEW!!

A week later he had a job as director of art with the Oklahoma Press Association and was moving into an apartment. Several years later, he bought his first house and went to work for the University of Central Oklahoma’s University Public Relations Department as a graphic artist. Not long later, he got a dog, Eric, a fat lazy beagle. We all loved Eric. Now, “Where is the Wife?” we kept asking ourselves.

2012−Brian's BS Graduation With MEA

The computer graphics degree program at UCO is one of the top 10 in the US. Brian started evening classes and, in 2012, earned his bachelor’s degree tuition free, which is a perk for UCO employees. Brian has proven to be a capable graphic artist and has won multiple state and national awards for his work in a variety of forms. He has designed several rings for Mary using stones that I acquired in my visits to Brazil, Amsterdam, and elsewhere. Mary gets a lot of compliments on them.

Sunset Years My Mom and Dad retired in 1977. One of their highlights was the celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary in August 1988. They rented a hall in Cuba, Missouri, had a band and served food. It was well attended by friends and family and really nice.

They managed to take a major trip or two every year, including two trips to Europe. In 1994 Mom became disoriented on a trip to Canada and the Western US. They had to cut it short. Dad was concerned about what would happen to Mom if for some reason he became incapacitated during a trip. They stopped taking long trips.

Doris and I had been trying to get Dad to write his life story and he finally agreed when we convinced him that he could record it and I would have it typed up. Doris and I edited it and prompted him to include events that he had overlooked. It was quite a project, and we are grateful he was able to complete it. I think we got him to start it in 1997. He told us that he wished he had started it earlier as he probably would have remembered more to put in it.

Mom’s memory and awareness continued to deteriorate over the years. She required a lot of attention from Dad. In May 2000, Dad experienced some rectal bleeding, necessitating an ambulance ride to St. Louis for medical attention. Mom was soon moved into a nursing home in Sullivan. Dad put the home on 183

the market and it sold in August to three women from St. Louis.

Later that month, Dad held an auction and sold all of the household items. His John Deere Tractor and 12 Gauge Remington Shotgun were big draws. The tractor sold for nearly $7500. Doris, Bob and I were there to help out and move Dad into a condo on Dad's Auction Fig Street in Sullivan that he had just bought. It had two bedrooms and was very nice.

Dad’s dog was a Cockapoo named Boy. He moved in with Dad and had to settle for taking walks on a leash.

Dad's Condo

Later that fall, Dad learned of an opening in a nursing home in Gerald, a small farming town about 25 miles from Sullivan. It had just established an Alzheimer’s unit with six rooms and offered better care. Dad moved Mom to it and visited her about three times a week. The staff there loved Mom. She was so cheerful. Dad learned he was one of seven or eight people out of the 53 patients who paid for all of the care. The rest had their care mostly paid by the government. Dad was very proud of that.

In January 2002, Dad suffered a stroke while he was alone in his condo. It had occurred hours before he was discovered and not soon enough to administer anticoagulant drugs to minimize the brain damage. He would not ever be able to take care of himself. Doris and I had him moved to the nursing home in Gerald where Mom was.

Doris and I made separate visits once or twice a month to see Mom and Dad. She lived in Peculiar, near Kansas City, and it was quite a trip to make that frequently for both of us. Both parents recognized us, but they really didn’t have much presence of mind. Doris had taken Boy to care for at her home. We put Dad’s condo up for sale and it sold almost immediately.

Mom passed away June 4, 2002 and Dad soon after on October 22, 2002. Mom and Dad were cremated and their remains placed in a small box that Dad had built for their casket. It had velvet lining and was very nicely done.

Crow Cemetery−Seminary District

Over Thanksgiving weekend, we held a memorial service in the Sullivan Masonic Lodge. It was well attended by many relatives and friends of theirs. I distributed a CD-­‐ROM of Dad’s Bio to relatives and donated a CD-­‐ROM plus a hard copy to both the Masonic Lodge and the Sullivan Public Library.

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We had a graveyard service at the Crow Cemetery in the Seminary District. Immediate family members participated and we placed the little casket in the grave that had been dug on the family plot that Mom and Dad had bought for themselves, and their children and spouses.

Jennifer’s Family Jennifer met her husband to be, Mike Kuvlesky, while attending Texas A&M. He was also studying for his MBA. They were friends and didn’t date at that time. After Jennifer & Mikes Wedding With Parents−1998 graduation he moved to Austin to work for Motorola as a program manager. Jennifer moved to Dallas where she worked for Cardinal Consulting. They started dating and Jennifer sought employment in Austin. She was hired by the Austin Public Transportation organization as a financial analyst.

They became engaged and were married on September 12,1998.

Jennifer’s Wedding Gown was the orginal gown worn by her mother with minor redesign. They bought a house and settled in with Mike’s German Shepard, Mindy. IBM hired Jennifer as a financial analyst. She later became a product manager there.

Their daughter, Samantha Dorthy (aka Sammi Dot by her Uncle Brian), was born on February 12, 2001. Life was good for them.

Baby Samantha in Nursery With MEA When Jennifer became pregnant with Samantha, Brian undertook a project to paint the nursery-­‐to-­‐be with cartoon animal characters, elephants, giraffes, birds, etc. It was an elaborate display, covering four walls and the ceiling. I don’t know how many hours it took him, but the project lasted several months. It was finished before Samantha’s birth I was fixing our breakfast early Sunday November 11, 2001, when the phone rang. It was Mike’s mother.

She had just talked to Jennifer. Mike, Jennifer and Samantha had taken a long weekend trip to Florida to visit a friend of Jennifer. They were flying back to Austin and about to make a connection in Atlanta on Baby Samantha With Parents Delta Air. Mike had gotten up to use the rest room before landing. He was gone longer than Jennifer thought was normal. She asked a flight attendant to check on him. They couldn’t get Mike to respond and forced the door open. He couldn’t be revived. As soon as they landed, Jennifer called Eileen to let her know Mike was dead.

Delta intervened, and we soon had a phone call from them advising us that they would delay departure of a flight from OKC to ATL if we could be there within an hour. We dropped everything and packed as fast as possible. We arrived at the gate in the nick of time. Delta had put Jennifer and baby Samantha in a 185

hotel (Sheraton I think) on the airport. They reserved rooms for us and Mike’s Mom and Dad, Eileen and Bill, as well. During the next two days an autopsy was performed and confirmed that Mike died of a heart attack. His remains were cremated.

As I recall, we flew to Austin to help prepare for Mike’s service. Brian drove our car down and brought some clothes for Mary and I. The service was packed with the many friends and family members of Mike and Jennifer. Family and friends told a lot of stories about Mike. He was quite a character.

Just before Mike passed, he had visited friends, gone to reunions in Minnesota where he met many of Jennifer’s relatives. During that trip, Jennifer visited her Great Aunt Lucille Allard to introduce her to Baby Samantha (Lucille was born October 15, 1903, and died at the ripe old age of 100 May 26, 2004). Mike also visited the 9/11 New York Towers destruction site. Jennifer was fortunate to have Mindy. She was a constant companion and protector of the girls.

Aunt Lucille With Baby Samantha

IBM was very accommodating. They allowed her to work part time at her home until she was ready to return full time. Afterwards, they allowed her to work from home so she could take care of Baby Samantha. She was required to go to the office infrequently for key meetings. Her responsibilities with IBM grew and she was required to take periodic trips. Jennifer’s mother-­‐in-­‐law, Eileen, was supportive and provided baby-­‐sitting for Samantha. At times, this couldn’t be arranged, or Jennifer’s trip was too long to rely 100% on Eileen. My schedule was flexible and I filled in the gaps. I would either drive or fly to Austin. Samantha and I are both quite stubborn and she found it difficult to accept my rules. Before she could have any friends over or watch TV, she had to complete her homework. She didn’t much care for my discipline and we had a lot of arguments. I remember one episode. I had just enforced one of my rules and she was really upset. Mary called me to see how things were going and I explained the situation.

Sammi asked to speak to “G Ma”. She told G Ma she wanted me put in Jail and locked up for good.

Somehow she has grown up and is now a mature responsible teenage girl. She was very proud of being accepted to the McCallum Fine Arts Academy as a major in Visual Arts at the high school she will attend.

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Family Travel In 1993 Mary’s breast cancer recurred, this time in the other breast. Once again she underwent a mastectomy. Fortunately, she recovered quickly even though she had to endure a series of radiation and chemotherapy treatments. I decided then that life was to short to postpone your desires until retirement.

Travel has always been our passion and we decided we would make it a point to take a major trip every year if at all possible. Luckily, Mary usually keeps detailed accounts of our major trips. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to describe them in any sort of detail.

1993 Inside Passage of Alaska−August 19th to 30th We started out in Vancouver British Columbia, seeing the sights there and setting sail on the Coasta Riviera for the inside passage to Alaska. The Coasta Riviera was a cruise ship owned by an Italian firm. She was a relatively small ship, accommodating about 800 passengers, small enough to get into narrow inlets that the big cruise ships couldn’t navigate.

The weather was wonderful and the scenery unbelievably beautiful. Ports of call included Sitka, Juneau, Ketchikan, and Skagway. We took the narrow gauge railroad in Skagway to the pass used by the prospectors to enter the St Michaels-­‐Sitka Klondike goldfields. In Juneau, we took a helicopter ride and landed on the Mendenhall glacier. That evening we attended a Salmon bake… delicious. In Ketchikan, we went

Mendenhall Glacier

Ketchikan

canoeing and visited the town, which was famous for its red light district in the Gold Rush days. In Sitka, we went on a motorboat excursion and saw a lot of sea animals and birds. Sitka was established by the Russians and has a lot of historical significance, which we enjoyed learning about.

Butchard Gardens

Formal Shipboard Dining

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When we arrived back in Vancouver we went to see the musical Phantom of the Opera. We then traveled by ferry to Vancouver Island and stayed at a B&B there for several nights. Our Host recommended a nearby restaurant that served locally grown food as well as fish caught in the area. It was a gourmet restaurant in Sooke Harbor and served one of the best meals we’ve ever had. We visited the Butchart Gardens and Victoria, enjoying high tea at a local hotel.

Albuquerque Hot Air Balooon Festival

Vancouver Is. B&B Albuquerque Hot Air Balloon Festival That Fall Mary and I drove to Albuquerque, New Mexico and visited Ed and Ann O’Leary. They were good friends of ours in Edmond and had several years previously transferred to Albuquerque where Ed was the president of a bank. We stayed with them during the hot air balloon festival, which is world famous. There were hundreds, if not a thousand, of balloons.

Ed was quite the collector of Southwestern art and active in sponsoring art events. He invited us to an art auction. It was a silent action and I bid on several items. I was the lucky winner of a bronze sculpture by Glenna Goodacre. She was the sculptor for the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, and the piece was a limited edition of a nurse’s head. It was signed and was #22 of 200. We really enjoyed our stay and appreciated the O’Leary’s hospitality.

1994 Australia−November 20th to December 9th In November Mary and I traveled to Australia for about 3 weeks. We started in Sydney, visited the beautiful Opera House, took a cruise on the Sydney Harbor, and visited the wine country in the Blue Mountains. We enjoyed Aussie cuisine, kangaroo steak, crocodile, imu, native fish, etc. Kangaroo tastes much like beefsteak, except somewhat sweet. The problem is, if you eat to much it makes you a bit jumpy. From Sydney we flew to Alice Springs and explored the Outback.

We visited Kings Sydney Opera House From Sydney Harbor Canyon and Ayers Rock. I climbed the Rock by myself, as Mary did not have the stamina. Her lungs had been damaged during the radiation she received during her ordeal with cancer. She lacked the capacity to undergo CFA Climbing Ayres Rock

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strenuous physical activity. Ayers Rock is a spiritual place to the Aborigines and has since been placed off limits. No one is now allowed to climb it.

We then flew to Cairns, Queensland. We stayed in Port Douglas and toured the Tablelands and Daintree Rainforest. The highlight of the trip was a cruise down the Great Barrier Reef on a small scuba diving ship.

We sailed from Cairns with about 50 passengers. Half were from Switzerland and the rest were Americans, English and Irish. The Swiss were quite elderly and not interested in scuba or snorkeling.

The cruise was four days and three nights. We followed the GBR, scuba dived, and snorkeled during the first two days. Fortunately I had taken scuba instructions and became certified several months before the trip. Mary only snorkeled and took a picture with her disposable waterproof camera while I was scuba diving. She told me what great pictures of fish she got. When I examined the camera I found that she had only taken one picture. She was snapping away, but was not manually advancing the film. Oh well!!

The third day we sailed to a private CFA Getting Ready to Scuba Dive Island. We encountered rough seas and were confined to our cabins. It was so rough that none of the Swiss passengers showed up for dinner. We had a good time on the island, eating and dancing. At least Mary enjoyed dancing. She has happy feet when she hears the music.

The next day we arrived in Port Douglas.

Before we flew back to Cairns we exchanged contact information with some of the passengers we bonded with, especially Eric and Barbara Mayne from Northern Ireland. Eric and Barb were world travelers. They worked as civil servants and had six weeks of paid vacation annually. They insisted we visit

Great Barrier Reef Cruise Ship

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them if we traveled to Ireland. Even though the IRA had signed a cease-­‐fire in August, I wasn’t keen on that as I was leery that it wouldn’t hold and didn’t want to get caught up in violence between the Irish Republic Army and the Brits.

1995 Ireland−June 20th to July 8th As it turned out the IRA cease-­‐fire held and we determined that visiting Northern Ireland would be safe.

We flew to Dublin June 20,, 1995. One of the things we looked forward to was to escape coverage by the media of the OJ Simpson trial. It was nonstop and we were sick and tired of it. OJ had been arrested over a year previously for the double murder of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman. I remember watching his arrest unfold on TV in Los Angeles at the American Airlines Admiral Club waiting for my flight to Oklahoma. It was June 17, 1994 and the TV was showing OJ being driven in a white Ford Bronco by his friend. A fleet of black-­‐and-­‐white police cars was chasing the Bronco, trying to catch and arrest him. There was a man with his little boy watching the TV also. The little boy said “Poor OJ, what’s going to happen to him”. I felt OJ was guilty and told the little boy he’s going to go to jail. His dad was not happy with me. After all, OJ was an iconic sports figure and revered by many. Since the Irish media did not cover the OJ trial we quickly forgot about it. Of course, when we got back to the states it was still dragging on. The trial lasted until October, and OJ was found not guilty.

Upon arriving at the Dublin airport we picked up a rental car and drove to a B&B that we had reserved.

One of my rules is to drive as little as possible on the day of arrival in a country that drives on the wrong side of the road. I need time to adjust my driving accordingly and don’t want to be driving until I’m rested up and can focus my mind on driving in the left lane. We checked in at the B&B and took a nap. That’s another rule I have. When flying internationally, I try to take a two or three hour nap, get up and eat dinner when the locals normally do, and stay up until local bedtime. This helps me adjust to the new time zone and minimize my jetlag.

We took a bus to downtown Dublin and saw some of the local attractions, had dinner and returned to the B&B. The next morning we had breakfast and headed for Northern Ireland, taking the coastal roads. We drove directly to Barbara and Eric’s home in Bangor. They showed us around Bangor. Their home overlooked the ocean and was a short walk to the local Yacht club that Eric belonged to. We had dinner there. The next day we started our journey with them to MEA R elaxing on The Giants Causeway explore Northern Ireland. I drove the rental car with Barbara, and Eric drove his car with Mary.

We started in Belfast and saw a number of sites there, including the prison that held IRA prisoners. It was well guarded and surrounded by thick walls topped with concertina barbwire. It really looked secure. From there we headed to the coast and took in the Giants Causeway.

From that vantage point you could see Scotland in the distance. We then visited Londonderry (Derry) and took a drive through the country to Einniskellen where Eric and Barb had a motorboat on Lough Erne.

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Eric prepared the boat and cleaned out all of the spiders that had taken residence there. He gently picked each spider up and carefully set it free on the dock. I was lucky that I wasn’t helping him, as I’m sure I would’ve killed his precious spiders and ended our friendship then and there. We motored out to an Island with a large castle on it. It had a working garden on it, accompanied by a local guide who explained the various fruits, vegetables and herbs that were grown there, similar to those grown by the original inhabitants.

We stayed in a nice B&B in Einniskellen. Mary and I went shopping for a cooler to keep snacks and beverages in. We stopped in quite a few stores asking if they had a cooler for sale. No one seemed to know what we were talking about. Finally, we were able to find somebody who understood what we were trying to buy. It was in a Woolworth drugstore, and they called it a cold box. We bought it and still have it to this day.

Before we set out on our own, Eric and Barb went over our itinerary. They pointed out a lot of places for us to visit that were off the beaten track. Our itinerary was completely revamped. We left them and headed for Bleek, a small-­‐town that manufactures Bleek China, which is what we got as wedding presents and have collected ever sense. We toured the Bleek factory and learned our pattern was out of production and considered an antique. A dinner plate would cost $70. WOW!!

Next, we drove to Sligo, our first stop in the quest for Mary’s Irish ancestor’s genealogy records. But no luck there. Of course we could hire somebody to do the research. Enough of that.

Driving on the country roads we discovered a lot of minor roadwork being done. We noticed that caution signs warning drivers of “Loose Chippings”. We couldn’t figure out what was going on, but started noticing loose chat or small amounts of gravel on the road, which turned out to be what the Irish called chippings. It seemed that the smaller amount of chippings, the more signs would be posted. It was not unusual to see more than six signs posted. We saw these warnings all over Ireland. Irish humor!!

Throughout Ireland many of the roads were not very good. Sheep, cows, tractors, bicycles and pedestrians have right-­‐of-­‐way. Those roads Sheep Have The Right of Way were mostly single lane or very narrow. We were constantly pulling over to yield to the local traffic.

Our next stop was Clifden, a small town on the coast. We stayed at a B&B there and ate dinner at Mitchell’s restaurant. I had Lamb Stew, one of the best meals ever. The next day we drove to Rassaveel to catch a ferry to the Aran island, Inishmore. We parked our car and boarded the ferry for a two to three hour ride to Kilronan, the largest town on the island. Our B&B was in the country and we took a local bus 191

CFA on Aran Is Beach

to it. The bus served as transportation for the natives as well as providing taxi service, delivering groceries, merchandise and mail. It had a trailer attached to it. The driver made frequent stops along the way and explained that he delivered everything to the inhabitants throughout the Island, including the kitchen sink. At the next stop, he got out and extracted a kitchen sink from the trailer and left it by the mailbox. What a set up. Although English was spoken by nearly everyone, Galic was more commonly used and all of the street signs were only in Galic.

The next day we toured the historic Fort Dun Aengus, high on a Cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. We returned to the mainland on the ferry and picked up our car. We then followed the coastline to Galway for lunch and a little shopping. We resumed our travels along the coast towards the spectacular Cliffs of Moher.

That night we stayed in a B&B in Banratty near Shannon. In the morning, we headed for the Dingle Peninsula via Limerick, passing through Adare, a cute little village of thatched roof cottages. We wished we had stayed there instead of Banratty. We arrived in Dingle and took the circular Slea Head Drive. We were very disappointed as this drive is very scenic, but there was too much cloud cover to see anything.

We ended back in Dingle and had lunch in a pub. We were low on ice and I asked the bartender for some.

He generously gave us half a bag full and apologized that he couldn’t give me more because he was running out of ice due to the hot weather. By our standards it was not hot at all, but to the Irish it was suffocating hot, and even they were using ice. I offered to pay him, but he wouldn’t let me. After all, ice is just water.

We then followed the coastline to Killarney, a cute little town, and then to Glengariff on Bantry Bay where we booked a B&B for three nights. The next day we drove the Ring of Keary and the following day the Ring of Beare where we saw the beehive huts that the early inhabitants lived in. The third day we took the ferry from Glengariff to beautiful Garnish Island in the Bay. It was loaded with lots of Azaleas as large as trees and in full-­‐bloom. We also visited a well-­‐landscaped Italian Garden.

We returned to Glengariff on the ferry and headed to Bantry to circumnavigate the peninsula. We drove to Sheep’s Head at the end of the peninsula and returned via the Goats road. Before leaving Bantry, we bought some wine and made a call to London for reservations to see Sunset Boulevard. We ate dinner in Bantry at a wonderful restaurant called O’Connor’s. I had Mussels cooked four different ways with four different sauces. That meal was perhaps better than the Lamb Stew I had in Clifden at Mitchell’s.

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We returned to Glengariff and stopped at a pub for our first Irish coffee. It was quite early and the pub was nearly vacant. We sat on a wide bench, having our Irish coffee when three local little old ladies arrived and sat down next to us on the bench. They totally ignored us and gradually moved us to the end of the bench. It was a good thing there was an armrest at the end to keep us from falling on the floor. It was obvious that we had invaded their territory. Lesson learned. Don’t mess with little old Irish women.

In the morning we continued our journey and headed for Kinsale and Waterford for another attempt to discover genealogy records, but again no luck. We toured the Waterford factory where the Crystal we were given for wedding presents was made. As we learned during the Bleek factory tour, any product with a defect was destroyed, so much for seconds.

Our next stop was Blarney Castle where I kissed the Blarney Stone.

Mary passed on that. We proceeded to the Rock of Cashel and then to Kildare where we visited some very beautiful Japanese Gardens. We encountered some light rain there, the first of our trip. We stayed our last night in a B&B near Dublin and caught an early flight to London the next morning.

Blarney Castle

Generally, we try to spend one or two days in London whenever we have a convenient connection. I don’t remember where I got the recommendation for our lodging, but it was not situated well nor was it to our liking. We hadn’t even checked in when the fire alarm went off. As I recall it was a false alarm. After we checked in, we went shopping. When we returned to the hotel and were relaxing in our room, the fire alarm went off again. Another false alarm. That evening we went to the theater district and saw Sunset Boulevard. The next day we flew back to Oklahoma. It was a great trip. We loved the Irish as well as the country. It is on our list to revisit.

1996 New Zealand−November 22nd to December 9th We flew from Oklahoma City to Auckland on Friday arriving Sunday November 24th at 6 AM. We picked up our rental car and headed for the hotel, which was near the airport. Check-­‐in time was several hours later and we drove around a bit. We visited the winery and bought some wine, as that is the only place that sells wine on Sunday. We went walking on the Quay and watched fishermen net White Bait Fish, a little fish that is a national delicacy. The weather was very windy, and we learned you could experience four seasons in one day in Auckland.

The next morning we headed north towards Wellsford and visited a small museum that featured life in the 1800s. The roads are quite good but restricted to two lanes in the country, and, of course you drive on the left side. You only find motorways near the larger cities. We traveled to Paihia on the east side, which is the jumping-­‐off point to tour the Bay of Islands. We decided to pass on this, as it was a four to five hour 193

excursion. Instead, we took a ferry to Russell, the original capital of New Zealand. We ate lunch there and returned to Paihia. We next headed for Whangarei and then South to find a place to stay. We ended up in Orewa, a very pretty little town 40 miles north of Auckland.

On Tuesday, the next morning, we headed south to Thames on the Coromandel Peninsula. We took highway 25 north to Tapu and followed the Tapu River on a gravel road, an unbelievably beautiful drive.

We continued to Rapacera Falls Park, where we enjoyed Azaleas and other beautiful flowers everywhere.

We then took a side trip to the hot water beach on the East Coast. A lot of people bring shovels and dig holes in the sand. Hot water rises up, they take a spa and then cool off in the ocean.

We just took pictures and then headed south to Rotorua, which is an area of hot thermal springs and smells like rotten eggs. We found a hotel there and did some laundry.

The next day we hooked up with a tour group and spent the day learning about the indigenous Maori people’s culture and traditions and visiting Wellington Botanical Gardens the areas attractions. We then drove to Napier and spent the night. We left early in the morning and drove the coast road to Wellington. There we visited the Botanical Gardens, the Art Museum, and the National Museum, which is fantastic, and spent the night.

The next morning we got up early to go to the ferry terminal to cross Cook Straight to the South Island.

We arrived at Pickton and rented a car from Hertz. We drove to Nelson where we spent the night. We had dinner at the Boat Shed, a small restaurant on the water with 15 tables. The kitchen was very tiny, and they had seven people cooking and waiting on customers. The food was great and very different. We found that the smaller restaurants in New Zealand were very experimental. By the way, tipping is not expected in New Zealand.

In the morning we headed south along the rugged west coast. As we had gotten used to Countrside Near Arrowton getting lost, this was no exception. New Zealand is very stingy with their use of road signs and don’t mark tourist attractions prominently. They just use tiny signs that are very difficult to find. We found that the New Zealanders are also very economical when it comes to bridges in the mountains. Both cars and trains are confined to one lane. Whoever gets there first has the right-­‐of-­‐way. Vehicles from the other direction must wait their turn. Along the way we found a seal colony, which was not on the map. We then continued to Greymouth and had lunch. We 194

continued and stopped at Shantytown, a reproduction of an old gold-­‐mining town that was wiped out by an earthquake. While we were there, we took a train ride on a train powered by an old steam engine that was imported from England.

We then headed for Joseph Glacier where we spent the night. We intended to take a helicopter ride to the glacier, but the bad weather prevailed. Instead we headed south to Fox Glacier and took a helicopter ride there. It was great, and we landed on a snowfield above the glacier. It was very sunny and bright. I thought I was going to be blinded. We then drove to the town where we would stay and found a motel.

The area was very pretty, and the town was on a large lake surrounded by mountains.

In the morning we drove to Queenstown, a very pretty but touristy place in the mountains, and proceeded to a farm that provided B&B, a farm stay. It was a working farm operated by a man and wife, and five sheep dogs. The wife, Florence, took care of B&B guests as well as all of the housekeeping. Her husband, John, took care of all of the livestock.

They had 5000 sheep, 250 deer, and 200 head of cattle. They had two children who were attending college and were not living at home. They had no employees, but relied on neighbors to help them during peak activity periods, as they did for their neighbors.

Upon arrival, Florence served us tea and chocolate muffins. After tea, we were given baby bottles of milk and taken to a pen to feed several NZ Sheep at Farm Stay orphaned lambs. John came in and told us to hop in his truck. We were going to help round up sheep and separate the ewes from the lambs, as it was time to wean the babies from their mothers. We worked in concert with the dogs, running back and forth to keep the sheep moving towards the fenced-­‐in pen where they would be kept overnight and separated in the morning. That was really hard work. Mary and I were covered in sheep dung. We worked until about 9:30 that evening and then headed for the house for dinner. Our host’s son and girlfriend had returned from college to help out with the lambing and joined us for dinner. We had a huge meal of steak, potatoes, vegetables and dessert. We were relieved to go to bed, but all night long we heard baaaaa, baaaaa, baaaaa.

The next morning we left and took a boat ride across Lake Manapouri in the Fjorland National Park and onto a bus for a trip to the Manapouri PowerStation, the largest hydro station in New Zealand. It generates enough power for 600,000 Kiwi homes and is 580 feet underground. We took an elevator to the bottom and toured the plant, then boaded the bus for Doubtful Sound. We drove through Wilmot Pass and to a small ship on Doubtful Sound, which was beautiful but very misty and dark. It had rained the night before, and waterfalls were everywhere. We cruised through the sound and saw a number of 195

dolphins that followed the ship. We made it to the Tasman Sea and circled a small island before returning to port. Doubtful Sound ranks second in popularity to Milford Sound, which we later planned to visit. Unfortunately, the pass leading to Milford Sound was impassable due to a heavy snowfall.

On the way back to the farm, we stopped at Helen’s Waterfall, named after the first woman to make the trek through this area. We arrived at Manapouri Hydro Power Station the farm a little after 5 p.m., afraid we would be pressed into service again. We went outside to the pen and watched John and his help vaccinate the lambs. We had to wait until the lambs were separated and vaccinated before dinner was served.

Florence had prepared a stuffed roast from a young teenage lamb, served with mint sauce, potatoes and gravy, coleslaw salad, cauliflower with cheese and peas, and carrot cake with whipped cream for dessert.

The Lamb was sensationally delicious.

John was an incredible man. He woke up every morning and was working by 5 AM seven days a week. He worked all day until dinner at around 8 or 9 PM. With all that hard work, he ate prodigious amounts of food. The amazing thing to me was his knowledge of world affairs. There wasn’t a topic that came up that he couldn’t discuss with detailed knowledge.

The next day we left the farm and headed for Dunedin on the east coast. In Dunedin we visited the Botanical Lake Te Anau−Largest Lake on South Is Gardens and drove to Lamach Castle on the Peninsula.

The castle had beautiful woodcarvings and Italian plaster ceilings. The next attraction we saw were the albatrosses, which have a 9-­‐foot wingspan and weigh about 15 pounds. We left there and headed for a tour of the endangered penguin colony where we went through tunnels with camouflaged roofs. We could see the nests. Little huts had been built to serve as nests for the Penguins. They took right to them.

That night we stayed in Dunedin.

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In the morning we headed for Mount Cook. When we got there it was raining, but we decided to take the 45-­‐minute drive up it. We drove along Lake Pukati, which had an eerie glowing turquois color. It was beautiful. We then drove to Tepako and found a hotel to stay in. We ate in a restaurant that had and incredible view of the mountains. We were awe struck with the views of Mount Cook, which seemed to change every hour or so. We even saw a double Rainbow.

In the morning Mount Cook was socked in so we headed for Christchurch. We arrived there around noon and found a hotel near downtown. We took a walk to the Town Square and to the cathedral where we found “The Wizard” expounding. He has been The Wizard standing on a soapbox for 28 years, talking about politics, etc. His topic today was how women control men. He used to be on his own, but now the city pays him.

We visited the Botanical Gardens. The Rose Garden and Tropical Plant areas were gorgeous. That evening we went to the cathedral and saw the service with the choirboys. It was beautiful. We had dinner and returned to the hotel to pack our luggage since we were departing for Brisbane, Australia in the morning.

The next morning we visited a museum, where we found out that New Zealand has a native bird called snipe.

We then left for the airport. The flight was about three hours and we arrived in Brisbane around 3 PM. We drove to our hotel and were immediately accosted by two drunken Aussies who told us to move the car or expect to be pissed on by a drunk coming out of the bar. They then proceeded to direct us to another parking space. So much for our high-­‐ class hotel.

The next day we drove through Brisbane and to the Sunshine Coast north of the city. We stopped at the famous Looking Glass Mountains. We then continued on the Sunshine Coast, but encountered heavy rains and returned to our hotel.

The Gold Coast The next day was our last of the trip.

We headed down the Gold Coast and did some sightseeing before we went to the airport. We stopped on the beach and found that we had it to ourselves, a private beach. With the exception of the plane being overweight, and cargo being unloaded, the return flights to the US were uneventful.

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We had a very nice trip and New Zealand is one of our favorite places that we have traveled to. We hope to return one day.

1996 Liz Bairds Wedding Mary and I were invited to Liz’s wedding to Jim Cuny. It was a very formal affair and held in San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel, one of the top hotels in the Bay Area. The wedding was in the penthouse and was used in the 1996 movie thriller “The Rock” that starred Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. The scene involving the penthouse was the explosion of a rocket launched from Alcatraz to the CFA & MEA at Liz's Wedding−Fairmont Hotel penthouse. Anyway, Liz did not spare any expense on her wedding. It was lavish and enjoyable. We took the occasion to visit the Breslauers who had bought an apartment in a high rise near by. We caught up on old times from our Slovenia travels together.

1996 New England Leaf Peeping Mary and I visited Bill and Lu to go “leaf peeping”. We traveled through Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont for three days. We had planned this trip well in advance to make sure that we would hit the window of peak color and have lodging reservations as they become very scarce then. The fall color was at its peak and we spent two nights in Bar Harbor at a B&B. Cadillac Mountain is the furthest point east that you can see the sun rise in the US. It Fall in New England was a 30-­‐minute drive to the top from our B&B and we arrived in time to see the sun come up. I have missed seeing great fall foliage since we moved to Oklahoma where the leaves generally go from green to dull brown. This trip made up for that.

1997 African Safari−Kenya & Tanzania-­‐September 3rd to 20th We flew American Airlines to London where we were to connect on British Airways to Nairobi. We landed around noon and took a cab to a hotel that we reserved for a short day stay, as our connection was 10 hours later. We took a short three-­‐hour nap and then headed for the airport. After clearing customs in Nairobi, we met our tour operator, United Touring Company (UTC), and headed for our hotel.

UTC arranged for everything involved in the safari that included Nairobi and Tanzania, transportation, guides, hotels, and food. Our first day was at the Windsor golf and country club, on a coffee plantation about 40 miles from Nairobi. We rode there with another American couple from the San Francisco area, Bill and Nancy Barnard.

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We relaxed for the rest of the day and in the morning UTC Took us on a day tour of Nairobi. Our guide gave us a lot of information about Kenya. He told us about the 42 different tribes and how they all speak different dialects. He told us how the Maasai men must give the bride’s family a dowry of cows, usually six. The divorce rate is quite low as both parents and grandparents must agree to the marriage. He asked us to take notice of workers along the road doing simple jobs. There is no welfare. Everyone must earn a salary, and social security is taken out. The workers get their share when they are 55 years old.

In Nairobi we went to the National Museum and learned more about the different tribes. We then toured the Rail Museum and saw the train the movie “Ghost in the Darkness” was based on. It starred Michael Douglas and was about building the railroad from Nairobi to the coast. A man was sleeping in a train car, and a lion came in, dragged the man out and killed him. It took three days to track the lion down and kill him. Our next stop was Karen Von Blixen’s House, which is now a museum. She was the author of “Out of Africa” and the house was used in filming the movie. After that, we headed for the giraffe center where we saw giraffes and a fat warthog.

That evening we had dinner at the hotel. I had Gazelle, and it was excellent. We met a couple that had just completed the same type of safari we were going to take. They told us how rough the roads were and that we needed to have a cushion to sit on. They had bought one and offered to sell it to me for $15. I bought it, and it was worth every penny.

We got up early in the morning to start our safari. We left our suitcase at the hotel for safekeeping and to pick up when we returned from Tanzania. Mary sent a postcard to Father Muboro at the Mission to let him know we would be visiting him. His Mission had a sponsoring relationship with St. Monica’s in Edmond that Mary was a member of. Father Taylor from St. Monica had spent time at the Mission and wanted Mary to visit it and give Father Muboro a check to help pay for the construction of a clinic for his church in Kenya.

We boarded the bus with the Barnards and three single women from Canada. We headed for Tarangire Park, Tanzania and had to clear border control on both the Kenyan and the Tanzanian side. Mary was offended when a border officer called her “Mama”. That happened the night before by a waiter. Mary thought they were being rude. Apparently men address women over 21 as Mama. As we entered Tanzania, we had a clear view of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa.

We got to Tarangire Park around 3 PM where we saw many wildebeests, elephants, gazelle, zebra and impalas. We reached the Tarangire Lodge around 7:30 PM where we had a four-­‐course meal with a choice of four entrées. So far, the food has been very good. I had trouble with my camcorder and was working on that until the generator was shut off. The generators come on at 5 AM. We went to bed with mosquito netting over us.

In the morning we took off and soon had great luck right after we left the lodge. We saw gazelle and zebras, but our highlight was finding two young lions. They walked right towards us and played like they were fighting. The roads were full of people walking to various villages to trade or work. Most were dressed in the Maasai fashion with red checked clothing and shawl’s. The children were herding cattle and goats and the women were carrying large bundles on their heads.

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We soon got on an awful ungraded gravel and rock road. We could barely do 20 mph and we had to hang on for dear life. We were really happy to have the “whoopi” cushion. Mary and I took turns using it.

Besides the rough roads, we had to put up with nonstop gray and red dust. It got into everything and I had a great deal of trouble with my camcorder. As I recall, these were typical roads for Tanzania, especially in the hinterlands.

We drove through the Ngorongoro area and could see the Great Rift Valley with the Salt Lake. We could also look down into the crater where we will visit later in the week. We ascended a steep climb to the Gibbs farm that overlooked the valley and had lunch there. We then headed back to the Serengeti and towards our lodge to spend the night. Along the way, we saw many gazelle, impala, zebra, giraffes, little velvet monkeys, and a large group of baboons. They obligingly put on a fight for us. We were told to be very careful with our cameras as the baboons loved to steal them.

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A Sample of Animals We Saw

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The best time to see animals in the Serengeti is early in the morning or late in the afternoon. We were up and out at 8 AM and again at 3:30 PM. Besides the animals we had previously seen, we saw buffalo, reedbuck, serval cat, secretary bird, guinea hens, topi, vultures, hyena, ostrich, yellow-­‐billed storks, and cheetahs. One of the great sites we saw was a flock of guienas that were shrieking a warning. All of a sudden a gazelle started running and we could see a serval cat chasing it. Later, we saw mama lion stalking a gazelle. She had separated one from the herd, and two of her teen cubs were coming from another direction. We thought we would see a kill. However, the teens got bored and sat down, Hunting 101. The gazelles didn’t much enjoy this exercise. En route to the lodge we found two cheetahs hunting, but they were too far away to take pictures. We also saw three little dik-­‐diks, small deer-­‐like animals with large eyes.

Up and out by 8 AM. Our quest was to find a leopard, as we hadn’t seen one yet. We saw some lions and headed for a watering hole where we had seen some hippos the day before. The hippos were challenging each other, and we all took a lot of pictures. We then headed for the park entrance and saw many beautiful birds. We had lunch at the Olduvai Gorge and enjoyed the beautiful view. This is where the 75-­‐ million year old prehistoric Homo Habilis was discovered in 1960 by Mary and Louis Leaky.

After the Gorge, we headed for a Maasai Village. The admission was $10. They performed a native dance for us and invited us into their huts made of wood and straw with dirt floors. They have room for two or three cots and a fire area surrounded by rocks. We bought some souvenirs, a beaded elders stick, a gourd used for snuff and an ebony carving. We then headed for the Ngorongoro Lodge.

Our room overlooked Ngorongoro Crater and the view was beautiful. It had a sunroom and we promptly did laundry, as we wanted to take advantage of the sunlight and dry our clothes. We had dinner, and when we returned to our room we found hot water bottles at the foot of our bed. The heat and generator are turned off at midnight and the temperature drops below 50°.

Masai Boy

We left the lodge at 8 AM and headed to the crater. The Lodge is 2,300 meters from the crater, which is 265 square kilometers. We drove to the Salt Lake and saw hundreds of wildebeest, zebra and the ever-­‐present gazelle. Interspersed were elephants, buffaloes, lions, rhinos, hippos, flamingos and cranes. We drove among the animals taking pictures. The animals in the crater are basically trapped there as the steep sides of the crater or a natural barrier and keep them from leaving.

That evening we had a great meal we were talking to Alan and Sue, a couple from Australia, and mentioned that we would be staying at the Julius Cesar hotel in London. Allen looked at us cautiously and said that he was sure they had fixed it up by now. That made us a bit nervous. When we told them that 202

we were going to see CATS, Sue went crazy. She loved the musical and said she sat in the second row and felt she was part of the performance. She sang “Calico Cats” all the way back to her room.

The next morning I spent some time talking to a waiter from the restaurant. He told me that the Lodge help makes five dollars a month, plus room and board and whatever they make in tips. We tip well, but will now do better. Most of the Lodges we have stayed at are owned by East Indians and offer no vacation or benefits.

On our way back to the Windsor Lodge, we stopped in Arusha and had lunch. Here we saw a herd of camel. We learned they were being raised for food.

We left the Windsor Lodge at 8 AM and headed for Larsen’s Tented Camp. The roads were fine until about 50 miles from camp, where they became very rough and dusty, just like Tanzania. At camp the tents are large and on platforms with a deck in front that faces the river. It had two twin beds and a full bath.

The dining room is open with linen tablecloths. We were really roughing it. We left for our game drive at 4 PM and saw some Impalas and greater kudu, which are only seen here. It is a large animal with a hump on its back. We next saw a gerenuk (giraffe gazelle), which looks like a gazelle with a longneck. We saw an oryx, which looks like a waterbuck with long straight horns, and we saw quite a few other animals before returning to camp.

We went to eat about 8 PM and spotted a genet in a tree. It is a spotted black-­‐and-­‐white cat with a long striped tail. There are two and camp pets. We had a delicious meal.

The next morning we started our game drive at 6:30 AM. I had to use flashlights to take a shower, as the lights didn’t come on soon enough for me. The first thing we saw were guinea hens and then three cheetahs. The next thing we saw was a leopard on a log. This was our first. Now we have seen all of the big five: lion, leopard, buffalo, rhino and elephant. We saw some oryx and two male lions eating a waterbuck.

That evening we asked David, our driver, if he would take us to the mission. He said he wouldn’t as he had talked to other drivers and they told him it was too far. I showed him a map and told him I would pay $20. All of a sudden we can go.

Our next destination was Outspan. We arrived there at noon and then departed for the Mission, arriving in time for lunch. We visited the construction site, which is to have two stories of the five finished in two years. As we left the Mission some children ran along the car yelling “White”, “White”. It is very rare for white people to be out of normal tourist areas.

Mission Under Construction

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After arriving at Outspan, we soon departed for Treetops. The original Treetops was burned in 1953 during the Mau Mau Rebellion after Queen Elizabeth stayed there. Our room was very small. It had two twin beds and a small table. It overlooked two ponds that attracted animals at night.

We had dinner at 8 PM and watched a herd of 200 buffalo come to the watering hole. Next came twelve elephants, big and small. One big slob sloshed through the mud eating everything Treetops in sight. Another shooed the only Rhino away as well as all of the bush babies, which look like rats with whitetails.

The next morning we headed for Lake Nakuru and the million flamingos. It is pink as far as the eye can see. We then headed for Lake Naviasha. Along the way we stopped and bought several Batiks and observed swirling water on one side of the equator and then the other. Yes, one side swirls in opposite direction to the one on the other side of the equator. After dinner we went outside and found a couple looking up at a lunar eclipse. I went inside the restaurant and told the diners about it. The restaurant emptied, scaring the waiters to death.

The next morning we left early for the Maasai Mara. When we arrived, I checked on the balloon ride I had scheduled early on and found we were not even booked. We did some laundry and went out at 4 PM for a game drive. We saw about two dozen elephants with little ones and a large pride of lions.

Ballon Ride Over The Serengeti The migration is here and there are thousands of wildebeest and zebra everywhere. When we got back to camp, I checked with the balloon guy and found someone had canceled and I could get their spot.

While I was taking the balloon ride, Mary went on a game drive. The balloon ride was spectacular, and I saw a lot of wildebeest, zebra and other 204

animals. Four to six million animals make the migration each year. This is the only mass migration path left in the world as man-­‐made objects have obstructed all of the others. At the conclusion of the balloon ride, a champagne breakfast was served. What a way to end the safari.

We arrived in London the next morning and took a train to Victoria station and the underground to our hotel, the Julius Caesar. It was a fleabag. The room was very tiny, the bath was no bigger than a closet, and the worst part was plaster falling off the ceiling. We took a nap until noon and then headed to Hyde Park and Kensington Palace. The Palace was closed because of Princes Diana’s death. She had died in a car crash August 31st, four days before we departed for Africa. The fence and sidewalk surrounding the palace was filled with flowers and declarations of tribute. We went shopping in Harrods and had dinner at an Italian restaurant.

We went to the theater to see “CATS. It was great and we were in the second row, third seat from the main cat entrance. We leave at noon tomorrow.

We stayed in touch with Ron and Nancy Barnard and visited them in Walnut Creek, CA in February 1998 for about three days. They showed us the wine country and the sights in San Francisco.

1998 East Europe−June 11th to 28th We arrived in Berlin about 4 PM. This was my first trip to East Germany, and I was looking forward to seeing how this part of Germany had fared under Communism and how the reconstruction was proceeding since the fall of the Berlin Wall November 9, 1989. We had booked a room, and the landlady had emailed us detailed instructions on what public transportation to take to our hotel. We found the bus we were to take to the train connection and got on. We couldn’t figure out how to pay. People got on and off without paying so we just rode the bus to the train stop. We asked a lady at the information booth where we could buy the train ticket. She told us we could buy it on the train so we hopped on.

A lady came through and asked for tickets. We tried to buy them from her, but she didn’t speak English.

She made us get off at the next stop and told us we were being fined 60 DM each. We tried to explain our situation but couldn’t get her to understand. She just kept saying 60 DM. Finally, a man who spoke English came over and asked what is going on. We explained our situation, and he asked to see our airline tickets. He shooed the woman away and took us to the vending machine to buy our tickets. We made our way to the hotel. What a way to start our trip!!

The next day we explored Berlin. Unlike West Germany, not that many people in East Germany are fluent in English. As we walked around, the thing that immediately struck us was most of the buildings were heavily defaced with graffiti and in very poor condition. Except for the elegant shopping area, Kurfursdendamm, the buildings were old, dull and drab, typical of what I expected after being subjected to over 40 years of communist domination.

We bought an all-­‐day-­‐on-­‐&-­‐off tour, good until 6 PM. We visited Alexanderplatz, the Old Library, Humboldt University, the Forum, and Bebelplatz square where the Nazis organized the book burnings in 1939. Many of the sites were under renovation and in some cases were construction sites. The most interesting attraction we visited was Check Point Charlie. The wall had been torn down, and the only thing left was a sign and the guard tower. We visited the museum, which has been financed by donations. The 205

exhibits portrayed the many creative ways the East Germans came up with to escape communism. A small car was shown with part of the interior removed where someone hid until they had safely passed the East German guards and entered West Germany and into the hands of US Guards. It brought back memories of Lothar Mork who had escaped East Germany and made his way to America. He worked in the Oklahoma City operation when I was there and made a presentation about his escape to a meeting of the employees club. Life in Communist East Germany was horrible, and a lot of people would do just about anything to escape it. . We toured the Brandenburg Gate where Ronald Reagan gave his famous speech “Tear Down this Wall, Mr. Gorbachev” on June 12, 1987. We also saw the Reichstag and St. Hedwig’s Cathedral, Brandenburg−Gate-­‐Berlin which had been heavily damaged in WW II. We toured the Charlottenberg Palace, but didn’t get much out of it, as English signage wasn’t available. The Palace Gardens were beautiful.

The next day, we bought train tickets for Prague. It was about a five-­‐hour journey. After some difficulty, we found our Hotel, the King George. It was located on an alley and within minutes of the old town square. Our room was on the second floor, no A/C, above the bar/disco, and it overlooked the alley that connected to the town square. It’s a wonder we got any sleep there as the bar/disco played on until midnight and the drunks started staggering home after that. The alley was noisy until after 2 AM. BUT IT WAS A GREAT LOCATION!!

We showered and went out to explore the old town square. It was surrounded by a lot of nice shops, especially for Czech-­‐made crystal, and there were a lot of street vendors in the square.

Town Square−Prague

The next day we took a half-­‐day bus tour and attended a concert in the evening. The city offered a wide choice of musical performances to enjoy at very reasonable prices nearly every day. Mary and I were also impressed with the beauty and architecture of the city. What a contrast to East Germany’s Berlin. Despite being under the boot of communism, the citizens of Prague managed to preserve and maintain its grand old buildings and infrastructure.

Our last day in Prague was spent touring the Jewish Ghetto. It dated back to the 13th Century when all of the Jewish inhabitants were ordered to move into this area. Over the centuries Jews from all over Europe 206

were expelled from Moravia, Germany, Austria and Spain and relocated to Prague where they had to live in the Ghetto. It was unbelievably crowded.

Between 1893 and 1913 most homes in the Ghetto were flattened and the layout of many of the streets revised. Fortunately, most of the significant historical buildings were saved from destruction. They remain as monuments to the history of the Jews in Prague. Even though the Nazis murdered 77,000 Jews in Prague, the historical buildings survived. Adolf Hitler decided to preserve the Ghetto as a “Museum of an Extinct Race”. I was amazed to learn that discrimination of Jews in Europe dated so far back and was that severe.

The Jewish cemetery had tombstones dating from the 10th century. It was interesting that some of the graves had people buried up to 12 deep. The Synagogue has a fascinating history of the Jewish religion. It was presented in English, German, French and Czech.

The next morning we went to the airport, picked up a rental auto and headed for Český Krumlov, a small city in the South Bohemian Region and where Český Krumlov Castle is located. We had reservation near the town square there. After much trouble, we found our hotel, checked in and went to the town square to watch a ceremony of sorts being performed. At dinner we had mixed grill, a first for Mary and way to much food.

We toured the castle in the morning and then headed for Česke Budejovice, famous for being the home of the original Budweiser Bier, dating back to the 13th century. We had lunch there and headed for Telč, a fairytale-­‐like little town. Its square looks like it is something out of the stories of Hans Christian Andersen. We watched “Marriage of Figaro” there and found our lodging in another town nearby.

Nazi Death Camp−Auschwitz

We drove to Krakow, Poland the next day, stopping along the way to visit the Nazi concentration and death camp for Jews at Auschwitz. It is largely intact as the Russians ran the Nazi’s out before they could destroy the place. We visited all of the blocks and saw the various stages of life in the camp, as well as how the Nazi’s harvested the corpse after they were gassed, and before they were cremated. The presentation was conducted as a matter of fact, not in a sensational or shocking way, but it was horrible. Lest we forget mans inhumanity to Auschwitz

man, everyone should experience Auschwitz or a similar camp, especially the holocaust deniers.

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After Auschwitz, we visited Birkenau, 3 km away. This was a much larger camp with many more crematoriums. Jews shipped here were immediately killed unless they were used for slave labor. This place was practically destroyed by the Germans as they left.

We stayed at a nice hotel in Krakow near City center. Unlike Warsaw, which was totally destroyed by the Nazis in WW II, Krakow escaped heavy destruction. It is a pretty well preserved city. The next day we visited Wewel, home of the Polish Kings and the main cathedral where they are buried. The tour took three hours. Language is a problem here as little English is spoken and the Polish hate Germans. Our limited Deutsch was of no use.

Tomorrow we head for Slovakia.

We ended up taking a wrong turn on our way out of Krakow and mistakenly circled the city, costing us an extra hour. We headed for the border and the Tatra Mountains, a beautiful drive.

We stopped to find a hotel room in a small town and ended up at the Sports Hotel, which had a bar. The owner, who was also the bartender, didn’t Slovakian Countryside speak English and I couldn’t find anyone that I could talk to abut getting a room. I tried to communicate with my limited Deutsch but didn’t get very far. Finally a customer in the bar understood what I wanted, barely, and tried to help the bartender understand. We were going nowhere fast until it occurred to him that his son spoke English. He called him and put me on the line.

We went back and forth. The bartender’s wife owned the hotel and was out of touch for a while.

Apparently the bartender didn’t interfere in his wife’s business. She finally showed up, and we booked the room. It cost $15 and included an ensuite bathroom.

That evening we walked to the town square and had a really good dinner, including wine that cost $8 for both of us. The next morning we left for Hungary. We encountered a long line of trucks at the border waiting to pass through Slovakia’s border control. When we crossed into Hungary we encountered another long line waiting to get through Hungary’s border control. We then learned that Slovakians and Hungarians don’t much care for each other and make it difficult on the other. We then drove through the Carpathian Mountains on our way to Eger, a pretty little village, where we spent the night. We stayed at the Senator Haz, a 300-­‐year-­‐old hotel on the Dobo Square.

We checked in and then took a long walk to the wine area down in the valley. That evening we went looking for Goulash. It was different than we expected. In Hungary it is a soup with meat, potatoes and carrots. When we returned to our hotel we found a musical performance in the Square. We had eis (ice cream) and a nightcap. Mary ventured into a church and took a picture. She was promptly reprimanded, as that was not allowed. Some churches allow it, but not many.

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After our breakfast of fruit, eggs, bread, cold meat and yogurt we drove through the Great Hungarian Plain to Lake Balaton, the largest lake in Central Europe, and stayed in Balatonfured at the Hotel Blaha. This is a tourist area. Many Germans come here for the Spa and medical care. The next day we headed for Budapest.

View of Pest Side of Budapest From Our Hotel

We stayed in a hotel near the Danube on the Buda side. We spent the rest of the day sight seeing and did some shopping on the Pest side. The next day we did more sightseeing. I took Mary to see the Hilton Hotel that I stayed at on a business trip back in the late 1970s. I wanted to show her pockmarks from bullets fired during the 1956 Hungarian revolution. They were still there. That afternoon, I headed for the Gellert hotel for a massage. It was my birthday, and I had heard that Hungarian masseuses are the best. I wanted to treat myself to that. I was disappointed to discover that the Masseuse was Asian. She gave me a great massage, not that I have had any massages to compare it to.

Our taxi picked us up at 6:45 AM and we took a plane to London. We took the Underground to Glouster Square where our hotel was just down the street. After settling in, we had lunch and shopped at Harrods.

We then took the tube to Leicester Square to find the theater where we would see the musical Les Miserables that evening. We also found the Half-­‐Priced Tickets place, as we wanted to try for discounted tickets for a “Chicago” performance the next evening. We wanted to find a nearby restaurant so that we’d have plenty of time to eat and be on time for the musical. I went into an Italian restaurant to see if we needed reservations. The guy at the bar didn’t speak English. We were so happy to be in an English-­‐ 209

speaking country and this fellow only spoke Italian. We had great seats at the theater, eight rows from the stage. We enjoyed the performance, and Mary couldn’t believe how great the actors were.

The next day we took a train to Windsor Castle, arriving in time to see the changing of the guards. We saw St. Georges Chapel and the elaborate State Apartments. We then queued up for a half hour to see Queen Mary’s dollhouse. What a waste of time.

Back to London and Piccadilly Square. We tried for tickets at Half-­‐Price Tickets for “Chicago,” but they were sold out, so we headed for the theater to pay full price, but it was sold out. We ended up at the Garrick Theater and bought tickets to “An Inspector is Calling.” We went to the early performance. We thought the play was very strange, although everyone else seemed to think it was marvelous. We got out of the theater at 7 PM and walked to a nearby restaurant that had been listed in Bon Appetite affordable.

Dinner and wine came to $83. The food was good, but not $83 good.

The next morning we took a train to Gatwick Airport. We cleared security and went to check in at American Airlines counter. We discovered we were not in the computer despite having confirmed our flight in Budapest. Fortunately we were able to work it out and made the flight.

1999 Scotland and England-­‐September−1st-­‐20th Our flight was canceled in OKC. American Airlines gave us a hotel voucher, and we stayed at the Sheraton Airport. We were one day behind schedule and it took a lot of phone calls to adjust our schedules. We arrived in Glasgow and contacted our B&B to make sure we had a room. We did and took a bus to the train station and caught a train to Giffnick where our B&B was, a 20-­‐minute commute. We checked in and went back downtown to St. George Square and had some ice cream.

That evening we met Kristy and her friend Andrew for dinner. Cherokee Data was close to buying an Internet company and would need someone to handle its sales in Europe. Kristy did sales for Exabyte and had just been laid off. She was a candidate and I wanted to interview her.

In the morning we went back to St. George Square and took the on-­‐again, off-­‐again bus. We saw Glasgow Cathedral, University of Glasgow, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, and the Transportation Museum, finishing the west side of the tour.

After lunch, we did the east side. We saw the Merchant City, a huge flea market that had very used jeans and all kinds of junk for sale. We went to Glasgow Green and toured the “Homes for the Future,” over-­‐ priced and under-­‐sized apartments, with no storage and small rooms. From there we visited the Modern Museum and then headed back to our B&B. Glasgow was interesting and undergoing a renovation of sorts, especially along the river area near downtown. It was an old industrial city. Many of the older buildings had recently been steamed clean, but you could see many that were black with soot.

We took a taxi the next morning to the airport and picked up a rental auto. We first headed for the Grey Mares Tail, a waterfall high up in the moors, which are quite high mountainlike hills. The roads were narrow, about 1½ car wide. We hit a pothole 3 miles east of the waterfalls and had a flat on the left rear 210

side. Boy, was it ever a challenge to figure out how the jack worked, and then how to get the lugs off.

Persistent paid off and we put the doughnut spare on and went to the falls.

From there we headed to St. Mary’s Loch. It was a large pretty lake, but there was too much fog to take any pictures. We stopped in Kelso and found a Tyre Center. $160 later we had a new tire and on our way again. What a rip off.

We had planned on seeing some sites in Edinburgh, but it was now rush hour and we wanted to find a place to stay someplace east of there. We crossed the Firth of Forth, which is the estuary, or firth, of Scotland's River Forth, where it flows into the North Sea. We ended up in Dunfermline, the ancient capital of Scotland. We found a reasonably priced hotel in the old part of town. It was hundreds of years old and had a full kitchen that served great meals.

We had a typical Scottish breakfast, a full meal with eggs, bacon, Scottish pudding, mushrooms, toast, juice and coffee. The Hotel Manager/Waitress told us we could park in the library lot next door, which is a free park, and take a taxi to the train station to catch the train for Edinburgh. She also told us the weather was to be “lovely”, no need to bring a jacket or umbrella. Luckily we brought an umbrella, but no jacket.

We took a hop-­‐on-­‐off bus tour that was located near the train station. It was a self-­‐ guided tour with tape and earphones. We saw the Scottish Crown Jewels, History of the Edinburgh Castle Kings, Memorial to Fallen Soldiers and the Botanical Gardens. We had lunch and then saw the Japanese Rock Garden. It was raining on again, off again, and we were thankful we brought the umbrella. We then went back to the train station and took the train back to Dunfermline.

Dumfermline Abbey

We went back to our hotel and found a nasty sticker on our car saying we should not be parking in a free space all day. We then walked around and explored Dunfermline. There was a Castle and an old Abbey behind our Hotel. A tunnel connects the Abbey to our hotel. Our hotel is supposed to be haunted by the ghost of Margaret, Queen of Scotland. She lived in a guesthouse near the Abbey. We didn’t see her ghost. We learned Dunfermline is the birthplace of Andrew Carnegie. He was very poor and not allowed into a huge park near the town. After he made his millions, he bought the park and donated it to the 211

citizens of the town.

The next morning I noticed a large bulge in the left front tyre wall. We took it to a garage and had it replaced for $120, less than before, but still a rip off. We then headed for St. Andrews. I was expecting an immaculately groomed lush golf course, but found it to be second rate. I bought a golf shirt with the St. Andrews golf course crest on it. We headed north for Dundee.

We crossed the Firth of Fay at Dundee and continued up the coast all the way to Aberdeen, where we took the main road to Inverness. We found a B&B in Inverness. East Indians owned it and the rooms were very garish and crowded with ugly furniture. We were told at the tourist center that the price was 22 Pounds, but the owner told me 50 Pounds, which I immediately corrected. He said “Oh yeah, 22 Pounds”.

It was very rainy and cold in Inverness.

In the morning we proceed north on A835 to Ullapol, a quaint village at the end of the green road. It was very cold and windy with intermittent showers. Oklahoma’s wind is nothing compared to this place. The area was gorgeous, with lakes and mountains. We had lunch in Gairloch and then on to the Isle of Skye and the village of Portree where we wanted to look for Galic batiks. The batiks were too big and not like the ones we bought in Africa. We headed for Dunvegan Castle, but it was to late to see that as we had a two-­‐hour drive to Kyle, where we wanted to stay the night. Our B&B had a car park in the back. I dented the car trying to get it out the next morning. I also discovered a large scratch on the car. Mary thinks we will have to buy this car before this trip is over with.

We Proceeded out of Kyle on A87 to A82 and followed Loch Ness to Drumnadrochit where we headed to Beauly, a pretty little village with flowers everywhere. We stopped at Pilochry for lunch. We were pressed for time, as we are to meet Barbara and Eric Mayne at teatime. They sailed over from Northern Isreland in their sailboat and are going touring with us for a few days. We thought teatime is 4 PM and had two hours and 100 miles left to drive.

We drove to Dunfermline and over to Culross, a hilly little town with cobblestone streets two inches wider than a car on each side. Next we went to Stirling to view the castle there. We had reservations at the Ballock Farm. Luckily we found it and arrived at 6 PM, a little before Barbra and Eric.

The next day we drove to Loch Loman, Scotland’s largest lake, and then north to Glencoe where the Campbell’s slaughtered the McDonalds. The lady at the tourist desk told us that the hurricane that hit the US three weeks ago was responsible for the constant rain and winds we were encountering. We stayed the night in Oban. Throughout Scotland, rain was practically ever present. It amazed us that the Scots ignored it and we would see them strolling through the countryside like it was a beautiful sunny day.

Another memorable site we enjoyed seeing was a lonely Scot who drove to a remote hill top park, got out of his car and practiced playing the bagpipes.

Inveraray was our destination in the morning. The scenery was beautiful. We toured the old jail and a castle there. The jail had been turned into a wax museum of sorts, with wax figures of prisoners typical of the 1600s: men, women and children. It had a courtroom, and a trial typical of that era was conducted with real people.

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We then drove to Tarbert. It was a beautiful drive along the west coast of the loch. We took the ferry from Tarbert to Portavadie and drove north and then south to take a ferry to Bute Island where we spent the night. We saw a lot of beautiful scenery.

Next morning we headed back to the mainland for Irvine where we stopped at the Maritime Museum.

Unfortunately, it was under construction and wouldn’t be completed for another year. Barbara and Eric were hugely disappointed.

Before saying our goodbyes, Eric went over our plan to see the Lake District and made recommendations on the route to take there and where to stay. We saw them off at noon and headed for the Hadrian Wall via Lockerbie. The wall was about 4’ tall and built by Emperor Hadrian in AD 122 to separate the Romans from the Barbarians. It extended from coast to coast, 73 miles long.

From the Wall, we headed to the Lake District where Eric had recommended a place to stay in Ambleside, Bob & Anne Jeffrey’s B&B. We headed for Wrynose Pass in the morning. We took a narrow one-­‐lane road with opposing traffic and many hikers and sheep to Great Langdale. We drove on many switchbacks and went thru the very windy Wrynose Pass. We headed for Wasdale Head, a small village, for lunch and got there just before the kitchen closed. The village claims to be home of the highest mountain (Scafell Pike), deepest lake (Wastwater), smallest church and biggest liar in England. The liar established these claims. What a reputation. The waitress told us they had a helicopter rescue yesterday. She said that happens often.

There is a hikers’ cemetery there. Apparently many hikers aren’t prepared for the rugged terrain. After lunch we backtracked the way we came. That night we had reservations and a meal at the Queens Head in Troutbeck. Our Hosts made the reservations as we had asked them where the best lamb was served. It was wonderful.

Wm Wordworth Home, Royal Mount

On our way to York in the morning, we stopped a t William Wadsworth home, Royal Mount. The home is still used by the family when they are in the Lake District. In York, we took an on-­‐and-­‐off bus and visited the Minister, a huge cathedral that was started in 1291, the Castle Museum, and Clifford’s Tower, where Jews were killed in 1190. We then found a B&B a few blocks from the outer ring, checked in, and headed for a Pub.

We took off for Shakespeare Country in the morning, taking the M18 and M1 Motorways. It poured rain the whole drive until we arrived at Stratford-­‐on-­‐Avon. Everything except Anne Hathaway’s Cottage was within walking distance. We visited the Nash House, Shakespeare’s birthplace, and Hall’s Croft.

Shakespeare was a very wealthy man at 33.

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We headed south to find a B&B and ended up in Cirencester, about 90 miles NW of London, and the largest town in the Cotswold District. After breakfast the next morning, we visited Castle Combe, a beautiful litte village, and saw St. Andrew Church, the main attraction there. The Church had the oldest working clock n England.

It had no minute hand, as the field workers only had to know which hour it was.

Bath

We then headed for Bath and did an on-­‐off tour. Bath has beautiful Georgian Architecture. We saw the Queens Crescent, the Abbey, which was being refurbished, and the Spas, originally developed by the Romans in the 1st century. We then headed for Stonehenge. When I first visited the area around 1980, you could walk among the ruins. Now you pay to walk around the perimeter. Before returning to the B&B, we went to Winchester.

Stonehenge

In the morning our hostess went over our map and we plotted the little villages she pointed out. We headed out and drove north and east along no-­‐name roads, stopping along the way to see the various attractions. On our way to Lower Slaughter we came on a foxhunt with about 30 people dressed in their little fox hunt costumes and riding beautiful horses. We didn’t see the fox. Lower Slaughter was a beautiful town with large homes. This is a wealthy area.

We then headed for the Motorway and to Oxford. We stopped five miles out in a park-­‐and-­‐ride lot and took the bus in. We used an on-­‐off bus to see Oxford. We had lunch there and then headed for London where we dropped off our Avis rental auto at the airport. A bus took us to the underground station and we took the train to Gloucester Square, two blocks from our hotel. Our room is much nicer than we had during the previous two trips to London, but no AC. That would have added $100 to the room price.

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We checked in, cleaned up and headed to Liechester Square where we had dinner. We then went to the Adelphia Theater and saw the musical, “Chicago.” We really enjoyed it, but it was like an oven without any AC. We returned to the Hotel.

In the morning we went to the Tower of London and spent at least three hours there. We had lunch and headed for Westminster to see the world’s largest Ferris wheel. It was supposed to be up three weeks ago but still isn’t. We headed for Kensington High Street to find a restaurant for dinner. We then went to the hotel to pack for our flight tomorrow. Riding in the Tube was like taking a sauna. We got home the next day around 6 PM.

Tower of London

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Business Brokerage December 1999 I had just resigned from Cherokee Data and was contemplating my options when I saw a small ad in the Sunday newspaper placed by Business Brokers Network in Dallas. It briefly described the opportunity to become a BBN Affiliate. I responded, and the next week went to Dallas and interviewed the BBN staff. BBN Affiliates were trained in Business Brokerage and provided a lot of support in terms of well thought out documents that were key to being a successful Business Broker, listing agreements, confidentiality agreements, letters of intent, etc. For each business that was sold, BBN was paid a percentage of the Brokers commission. I signed on and went through the training program. By January, I was operational and my marketing program was kicked off. I creatively named my company CF Alexander & Associates.

Selling a business is a highly confidential matter. If confidentiality is breached, the business may suffer due to defection of customers, employees, and suppliers. Competitors could take advantage and sales could suffer. Once a business owner lists a business, utmost care must be taken to prevent the identity being made public. Prospective buyers are required to sign a confidentiality agreement and to document that they have the financial clout to do the deal.

Arriving at a price to offer the business for sale is a sophisticated process, involving many factors besides the sales and cash flow of the business. Many owners are shocked when they find out their business is worth considerably less than they perceive. Needless to say, a Business Broker kisses a lot of frogs before a saleable business is listed and a buyer closes the deal.

I was attracted to business brokerage for a variety of reasons. First, I wouldn’t be working for any one but the clients I served and wouldn’t require any employees. Second, I really enjoy negotiation and knew that the varied nature of the businesses and buyers I would deal with would present a never-­‐ending stream of challenges. And least, but not last, was the opportunity to meet people who had built a business and hear their stories of struggles, failures and successes. A Business Broker has a fiduciary responsibility to his clients similar to the attorney-­‐client relationship.

One of the more challenging businesses I represented was a wholesaler of construction material. At the time it was listed, two partners owned it. I had some nice buyer interest, but no offers. About six months later, one of the partners bought out the other. I was having a difficult time getting the remaining owner to provide updated financial information. After several months of no updates, I called him to find out what was the matter. I got his answering machine and could barely understand his faint weak voice.

There was the clanking of what sounded like dishes in the background. I assumed it had been recorded in a restaurant. Several days later, I heard from someone who knew the Owner. He told me that he had died several weeks ago. Apparently, the recording had been made in the hospital and he had died before I tried to call him.

I contacted the partner who had sold his share and I learned the Owner’s brother, Jim (not his real name) was operating the business and that he would be contacting me soon, which he did. Jim had a night shift job and was working the business during the day. He told me that he wanted me to continue efforts to sell the business, but couldn’t really close any deal until the estate matters allowed it. Jim told me that he was generating a lot more cash flow than his brother reported on the financials. It turned out that his 216

brother was an alcoholic and a serious gambler. Somehow a lot of the business sales didn’t get accounted for. Its income was greatly understated. Jim thought that he could show double the profit in six months than what had been reported the prior year.

I recommended that we wait on selling the business until we had those results. Besides, settling the estate was going to take about six months. In the meantime, I had the business valued for estate purposes. Then I had it valued again for sale, a different type of valuation. When the valuation came back it was double the amount of the original valuation. It would have been even higher if the true income had been reported in prior years.

I had a high net worth buyer chomping at the bit to buy the business as soon as it was relisted. He offered full price and the deal was accepted, subject to due diligence and verification of the financial basis behind the price. The buyer’s CPA couldn’t support the cash flow, but that wasn’t going to stop this buyer. He hired a forensic CPA to peel back all of the bank account information, credit card statements, various Casino accounts held by the Owner, etc. He concluded that cash flow supported the deal. Four months after the listing date, the deal closed and Jim’s brother’s estate and I were compensated.

At the outset, I used the BBN web site and a few others to list my businesses on. Later, Brian took on the task of putting a web site up for the business. Over the years, Brian has made a number of updates and enhancements. Originally, I advertised the web site in Sunday editions of the Tulsa World and The Oklahoman. At one point it was rated as the number one independent web site in Oklahoma for local Business Brokers. As time went on, newspaper advertising diminished in effectiveness and I discontinued it.

I recruited businesses to sell throughout the State of Oklahoma with a solicitation letter. That generated inquires in the far reaches of the state and I became acquainted with a lot of small towns that I didn’t know existed. I found some of the best country cooking there. All you had to do at lunchtime was drive down Main Street and find the Café that had a crowded parking lot. One of my favorites was the Rock Café in Stroud Oklahoma owned by Dawn Welch. I enjoyed the food there and looking at all of the knick-­‐ knacks decorating the walls. Dawn was/is an avid and vocal supporter of Historic Route 66.

The Rock was a destination for many Europeans that did the Route 66 tour from Chicago to Santa Monica.

The Rock burned down in 2008. Luckily, The Rock walls survived and many of the memorabilia were saved. Dawn practically rebuilt the Rock from scratch by herself and it was opened a little more than a year later. She took great care that the construction would not disqualify the Rock from remaining on the National Register of Historic Places. She was named Oklahoma Woman of the year in 2009. Dawn was the inspiration for the Blue Porsche character, Sally Carrera in the Pixar movie “Cars’, which had a Route 66 theme. Whenever I have a meeting in Tulsa, I try to time it so that I can have lunch at the Rock.

In 2004 I took courses in Machinery Appraisal and Brokerage to perform certified appraisals through the National Equipment and Business Brokerage Institute in Wichita, KS. Bank examiners audit compliance to ensure that a certified appraisal supports the value of bank loans for machinery and equipment. It seemed to me that this would be a profitable venture. NEBB had a long list of US and International brokers that they had certified. Monthly teleconferences were held to coach the newcomers and I could 217

see the value of the program as many on the call talked about the appraisals they were doing. I religiously followed their program and sent letters to every banker in Oklahoma. A year and a half and $4000 later, I had not received a single letter of engagement to do an appraisal, nor were any Business Brokerage leads generated. Apparently Oklahoma Bankers have other means to validate the value of Machinery and Equipment they finance. I dropped out of the program.

In 2007 I was solicited by Eugene Gottesman to become an affiliate of Gottesman Company, a Merger and Acquisition (M&A) firm headquartered in New York City. Gottesman had fifty plus affiliates scattered around the country and wanted me to be their point man in Oklahoma. I could continue as an independent business broker, but would have to be active in contacting Oklahoma companies that fit the profile of firms that had been identified as acquisition targets. These firms were considerably larger than ones that I targeted for business brokerage. If I were successful in generating a relationship with a company that resulted in a merger, I would share in the commissions that were generated. The Gottesman affiliates had a large number of contacts involved in M&A activity and were constantly getting leads to pursue. Gottesman held conference calls with all of the affiliates at least monthly to generate discussion on status and to tee up new lead targets. In addition they had an aggressive program to identify local companies that fit the target acquisition criteria. I spent a lot of time following up on these leads without any concrete results. After sitting through a year and a half of conference calls and seeing only one or two transactions come to fruition for the entire group of affiliates, I pondered why there was such a low success rate. I came to the conclusion that the commission structure was too onerous and deals couldn’t be consummated with such a heavy commission load. Gottesman was priced out to the market. The affiliates were willing to participate as association with an M&A firm was a plus that gave the affiliate credibility in their business brokerage activity. I sent Gene an email that I wouldn’t participate further. All in all, it was a beneficial education experience. I learned a lot about how larger deals were done, but I couldn’t justify the time expected to participate.

After I had closed DAI, a business reporter for the Journal Record contacted me. He did a regular article featuring various professionals and interviewed me for the Thursday iissue December 5, 2013. The Journal Record is the leading Business Inteligence newspaper in Oklahoma and the article is shown below.

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Remodeling our Home We undertook a major remodeling project in 2004. We had lived there for 21 years and decided to upgrade the entire house, new windows, new carpets, new paint, new wall paper, many of the light fixtures, just about everything. I acted as the contractor and hired subcontractors to do the various projects, and attempted to hire the best ones I could find. With a couple of exceptions, this worked well.

We started in January and thought we would have it completed by summer at the latest. Our first project was trimming the trees around the house and clearing the brush in the back all the way to the creek bed.

That took a crew of three two days. Fortunately the tree trimmer was able to secure a burning permit for the brush removal and burned it in the creek bed. I decided to upgrade our TV service and had cable installed with connections throughout the house.

The kitchen and utility floors were tile and had to go. The tile was removed with a jackhammer. In the process, we found out the packing sand under the concrete slab was depleted due to the flooding that we had incurred. A foundation repair service was hired and they discovered the garage floor had sunk several inches as well. The concrete slab in the garage and utility room was drilled with holes and injected with material. The slab was raised to its correct level. Remodeling is full of surprises, in this case $2000 worth.

The utility floor was replaced with new tile. Shortly after the new hardwood floors were installed, the old refrigerator’s icemaker failed and the kitchen floor was flooded. Another surprise. Fortunately we discovered this before permanent damage was done, although the repairs left their mark. The hardwood floors in the dining room escaped damage then. The kitchen counters were replaced with granite and appliances and sink replaced.

The master suite bathroom had a complete facelift with new wallpaper, tile floors, granite counters, lavatories, mirrors and light fixtures. The shower was enlarged and new tile and frameless shower doors installed.

Except for the tile floor being replaced in the utility room, the only item to be done was the installation of an ironing board that would be installed in the wall. The subcontractor I hired to do carpentry work asked me where I wanted it located. I showed him and before I could utter another word, the fool whipped out an electric keyhole saw and drove it through the wall. I restrained myself from any foul language, but told him he had just bought a wallpaper job for the guest powder room on the other side of the wall. I hadn’t intended to replace anything there, but now we would have new wallpaper gratis the fool. I called the company he worked for and told them what happened. They told me that was the last straw and he would be fired immediately. Apparently the fellow was a bull in a china shop. Other customers had complained. The company told me they wanted out of the contract and, if I agreed, would pay for the new wallpaper. I agreed.

The wallpaper subcontractor was one of the most meticulous craftsmen I know. He took great pride in his work and autographed it in an inconspicuous place, leaving it up to the homeowner to discover at some later time (We still haven’t found ours). We selected wallpaper for the powder room that looked like a library shelf of books. He suggested that he create a shelf recessed in the wall that we could but books in.

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It looks great. I selected mostly advanced mathematics and physics books from college. Somehow, no one seems interested. We now refer to the powder room as the “Library”.

The catalyst that drove our decision to remodel was the great view to the woods in the back. Our problem was that we couldn’t enjoy it in the heat of the summer or the cold of the winter. I designed a “sun room” and an extension of the redwood deck. The”fool” would have been the subcontractor to do this.

Fortunately, he was out of the picture.

I asked around for a reputable replacement and found one that I considered quite capable. The new sub had a full time job, but he had a helper and they made impressive progress in building the sunroom. The sub found out he couldn’t handle his full time job plus my project and another one that he had at the time I hired him. He convinced me that his helper was capable and could handle my project with minimal supervision. It soon became apparent the helper was not making the progress that he should have and I increased my scrutiny of him. Whenever I left for a business meeting, I would inform him I would be gone longer than I planned. I returned earlier one time and found the fellow asleep in his truck. I called the sub and complained. He told me he was losing money on the project and would tell the helper to pack up his tools and leave. I was on my own again.

Again, I asked around for a reputable sub contractor. This time, it would have to be an established company, no more moonlighters. I finally found one that could finish the job. They were exceptional and completed everything to my satisfaction. Except for the installation of a glass screen over the spa area, the remodel was complete. My neighbors Cypress Tree shed all of its foliage every fall, depositing in in my enclosed spa and rendering it useless until I cleaned it out. Short of killing the tree, installing a glass ceiling over the spa was my only option.

The remodel was complete. Instead of a 5-­‐month project, it turned into a 1 year, 4-­‐month project. We celebrated by throwing an open house party, complete with beer, wine and catered finger food. Lots of neighbors and friends showed up.

Our last project was a major redo of landscaping. Fortunately, this worked out much better than the sunroom. I had used the landscaping service before Our Home at 2521 Bent Trail Rd, Edmond, OK and outlined what I wanted them to do. The owner of the landscaping service delegated the work to one of his senior people. The fellow was enamored with what I wanted and really did an outstanding job. I was surprised that they had so many people (undocumented) working on my project. Finally the owner showed up one day and told me he had to see what was going on. The project was hopelessly over budget, but there wasn’t much left to complete the job. He told me that he would stand behind his estimate and completed it. With all of the landscaping we did, we were awarded “Yard of the Month” by the Home Owners Association, an annual event until it was discontinued.

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As part of the landscaping project, I had a pond-­‐less fountain built near Africa and one in view of the kitchen window. It is constructed of natural rocks piled on a grate over a large plastic container that holds water. One stone has a hole drilled through it where the water is pumped into it and over the top. The wrens really love that birdbath and are a lot of fun to watch as they wallow in the waterspout. I didn’t realize how territorial they are until I saw how them chase larger birds away from “their” bath.

Our Home's Resident Wildlife

We decorated the “sun room” in an African Theme and renamed it Africa. Besides, with all of the shade from the big trees, there wasn’t much sunlight in the room at all. We soon discovered what we had been missing, wildlife. Unbeknownst to us, there were a lot of animals and birds that we hadn’t seen much of that frequented the habitat in the back, especially the creek. Beside the usual squirrels, rabbits and birds, we found we had deer, possum, armadillos, skunks, raccoons, fox, and even a bobcat. We started having most of our meals in Africa and found that the critters frequently crossed our deck right in full view, day or night. We discovered that we had resident wrens, red-­‐shouldered hawks, crows, barred owls, hummingbirds, an occasional roadrunner and many different types of songbirds. In the spring when there was water in the creek, we would occasionally get a pair of mallard ducks. They even raised a brood of ducklings one year. We also have a flock of wild turkeys that occasionally visits us. Migratory birds are prevalent in the spring and fall.

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Pursuits and Travel At the time we moved to Oklahoma, there were more languages spoken here than in all of Europe, an amazing fact. Oklahoma was the place the federal government located many of the Indian Tribes with their diversity of languages and cultures. Over the years the number of native language speakers has declined and it is doubtful that this fact holds some thirty years later. Many of the languages have become extinct.

Unlike many areas of the US there are no federal Indian reservations in Oklahoma and not subject to obtrusive management and regulation by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Many of the tribes are well organized and have become economic powerhouses in Oklahoma, especially with the advent of legalized gambling on Indian property. The Oklahoma History Museum has an entire wing dedicated to Indian history and culture. It rivals the Smithsonian. Doris and Bob visited us in 2009 and toured it. Doris is really into Indian culture and was impressed.

The Red Earth Festival is an annual event with many tribes throughout the US competing in dances and exhibiting Native American Art. Another event we enjoyed was the Trail of Tears presentation by the Cherokee Tribe in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. It portrayed the forced march of the tribe from Georgia to Oklahoma and their settlement in eastern Oklahoma. There are no shortages of Indian Museums throughout Oklahoma. We visited the Chickasaw Cultural Center in Sulphur, Oklahoma, a modern center that has art by Chickasaw artists and portrays their way of life. In my role as a Business Broker, I frequently encounter business owners who are Native Americans. I am impressed with their entrepreneurial spirit, dedication and creativity.

Oklahoma has a lot of prominent venues to enjoy. At, or near the top of the list is the annual Arts Festival in April that attracts peer-­‐reviewed artists from across the US. It is ranked in the top ten nationwide. We attend it whenever possible. Memorial day weekend is when the Paseo Arts District in Oklahoma City holds an Art Festival, as does the City of Edmond in early May. In addition we enjoy taking out of town guests to the Oklahoma City Art Museum. Its glass sculpture works by Dale Chihuly are impressive and part of its on going exhibits. Construction is underway to convert a century old Model-­‐T Assembly Plant into a 21C Museum Hotel, an upscale, full-­‐service hotel ajd a cirated modern art gallery will have a major impact on an area of OKC that has stagnated decades when it opens in 2016.

Edmond has a matching program for public art through its Art in Public Places program. The program was created to help businesses, organizations, and individuals purchase artwork. Consequently, there are many sculptures on display that the local business owners purchase and are rewarded with matching funds up to $30,000 from the city.

The Oklahoma City Philharmonic was established in 1988, five years after we moved to Oklahoma. We were an early season subscriber, but with my heavy travel schedule, we reduced our attendance to a select few performances. The University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond also has great events from well-­‐ 223

known performing artists in its Broadway Tonight Series and Jazz Lab. We frequently enjoy these performances.

Oklahoma City has evolved since the late ‘90’s to a tourist destination. In 1993 the voters passed a measure called Metropolitan Area Projects Plan, or MAPS, that levied an additional penny sales tax for five years for the purpose of redeveloping the downtown and stimulating the local economy. It generated $350 Million and was applied to renovating and constructing many public facilities. The funding was committed at the outset and couldn’t be spent until a given project was 100% funded. No debt was allowed.

The Civic Center Music Hall (Home of the OKC Philharmonic), State Fairgrounds, and Convention Center were renovated and/or expanded. A new sports arena and Triple A ballpark was constructed. A riverfront on the Oklahoma River was constructed and recreational dams built. A core investment to transform a former warehouse district into an entertainment district was made with the construction of the Bricktown Canal. A new public library and learning center was constructed and a trolley-­‐bus network is under development.

The new sports arena, now called the Chesapeake energy Arena was key to moving the Seattle SuperSonics basketball team to Oklahoma City. It is now called the Oklahoma City Thunder. The riverfront is known as the Boathouse District and is the headquarters for USA Canoe/Kayak and a training center for USRowing. All of the major Oklahoma Universities have built boathouses and train/compete on the Oklahoma River. The Bricktown Canal stimulated the renovation of the old warehouse district making Bricktown a major tourist attraction.

The MAPS programs had significant impact in Oklahoma City, both economically and from a quality of life standpoint. In the 20 years since its inception nearly $5 billion in economic impact can be attributed to the original MAPS program, representing nearly a 10-­‐fold return on the original investment.

The success of the original MAPS spawned MAPS for Kids and MAPS3. MAPS for Kids are a $700 million initiative to improve public schools that was approved in 2001. MAPS3 is a $777 million program, approved by voters in 2009 that ends in 2017. Its focus is on projects that are to improve the quality of life in Oklahoma City.

MAPS have certainly made the Oklahoma City Metroplex a more desirable and enjoyable place to live.

MEA With Sculpter Haney

In addition to MAPS, Oklahoma City got another boost in prestige when the Oklahoma State Capitol finally got the much and long-­‐ sought-­‐after dome. The Capitol was constructed in 1917. At that time, funds were insufficient to construct a dome. In 1998, legislation was enacted to form the Oklahoma Centennial Commemoration Commission to find a way to fund the dome. It was funded entirely by private donations. Construction began in 224

MEA & Replica of Guardian

2001 and was completed in 2002. It included a 22-­‐foot-­‐tall bronze sculpture called The Guardian. Oklahoma State Senator Kelly Haney, a full-­‐blooded American Indian from Seminole, Oklahoma, sculpted it. The Oklahoma State Capitol is unique compared to other state capitols because it sits on the Oklahoma oil field and is the only state capitol grounds in the United States with active oilrigs. By topping the dome off with The Guardian, Oklahoma’s State Capitol became the only one in the nation to have an MEA & Dome Under Construction American Indian statue on its top.

Construction of the dome was fascinating. Mary worked on the top floor of the Capitol and could go out on the roof and observe its progress. She was present during the installation ceremony and one of a number of state employees who autographed The Guardian before it was hoisted atop the dome by a giant crane.

When we moved to Oklahoma in 1983, the state was still reeling from one of the country's largest public corruption scandals, the Oklahoma County Commissioners Scandal. Number wise, this was the biggest political corruption case in FBI history. Two thirds of Oklahoma’s 77 county commissioners were indicted.

It was widely recognized that Oklahoma was the most corrupt state in the union. The Democrat Party had controlled almost all aspects of governance since statehood, and kickbacks, bribes and corruption were routine. One third of the USA’s governors who were impeached were from Oklahoma. Three of Oklahoma’s Supreme Court justices were convicted of accepting bribes. The list goes on, but the Oklahoma County Commissioners Scandal was the turning point in breaking the Democrats' chokehold on public office. By nature, Oklahomans are honest, trustworthy, hardworking and conservative. Henry Bellman became the first Republican governor in 1987 and won by appealing to Democrats as an anti-­‐corruption candidate. The momentum against Democrats continued with the state House of Representatives coming under Republican control in 2004 and the Senate in 2008. Since 2008, no Democrat presidential candidate (think Obama) has won an election in any Oklahoma county. The impact on the business community has been very positive. Even though there is much room for improvement, CFA Sailboat Oklahoma is among the leading states for out-­‐of-­‐state businesses to relocate to.

As of the November 2014 elections, Republicans have a supermajority in both the Oklahoma Senate and House of Representatives, hold all statewide offices and all Congressional seats in both the House and Senate. For the first time in Oklahoma’s history, Republican registered voters surpassed Democrat registered voters in January 2015.

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The year before I left Cherokee Data, I bought a Sailboat from my Dentist, Dr. Forth. He enjoyed sailing and golf, but couldn’t find the time for both so he sold me the sailboat, a 1964 Pearson Electra. It is 22’ long and was designed as a midget ocean-­‐racing vessel. His uncle bought it new and he inherited it when his uncle passed away. It came complete, including sails, an old outboard motor, and a trailer. It was docked in a wet slip at Lake Hefner, and I kept it there as well. The trailer was in a fenced in, secure area nearby.

Like Dr. Forth, I knew I wouldn’t have time for both golf and sailing and decided to concentrate on sailing.

When Brian relocated to Oklahoma City in 2000, he became my sailing buddy. We try to sail most weekends in the summer, weather and winds permitting. There are a lot of avid racers on Lake Hefner, but we don’t participate, preferring to enjoy a more relaxed sail.

Dr. Forth referred me to an oral surgeon, Dr. Holmgren, to remove some teeth and install implants. He had the best possible job. He was a great sailor and a surgeon as well, a highly desirable combination.

International Ocean Racing competition rules require that a surgeon be present on the boat during the race. Dr. Holmgren was a frequent all expense paid participant in international racing events. His entire family went along and stayed in luxury resorts while the good Dr. raced. What a job. It turned out that Dr. Holmgren’s father and I worked together at Control Data. He was a QA Engineer.

The last golf game I played was in 2003 when the Crescent Society had a reunion in Oklahoma City. The Crescent Society consists of retirees or ex employees of the companies from the Oklahoma City operation of originally, General Electric, then Honeywell, then Control Data and finally Seagate. When I joined it in 1999 it had 500 to 600 hundred members. I became an Officer in 2000 and the President in 2002. We had monthly meetings and quarterly dinners or outings. Over the years, as more and more members passed away, membership has dwindled to less than 200. With the shutdown of the Oklahoma City operations, new members are virtually nonexistent.

New Orleans−April 7th to 9th, 2000 Mary and I took an extended weekend to New Orleans. We flew down and took a cab to a B&B we reserved within walking distance of the French Quarter. The B&B was built prior to 1850 and was nicely decorated with walls and ceilings painted to look like wood paneling or magnolia trees. We had lunch at the Gumbo Shop, which was recommended by out host. After a delicious lunch of seafood gumbo and crawfish etouffee, we stopped in and made dinner reservations at Antoine’s. We wandered around a bit, stopping in at the Manheim Gallery and some of the antique shops on Royal Street. Dinner was superb, pompano fish from Lake Pontchartrain with shrimp and crab in a wine sauce baked in parchment. Next, we headed for Preservation Hall for Jazz. We took a yellow cab back to the B&B. The cabbie tried to take us everywhere we didn’t want to go. Since we had walked the route twice that afternoon, I made sure he was not deviating.

We bought an all day trolley pass ($4) the next morning and headed for the Garden District for lunch.

Next, we went to Magazine Street to look at antique shops and then back to the French Quarter to find the Irish Shop we found the day before. It had a large collection of Glenna Goodacres’ sculptures. The fellow there told us that it took two years for them to be able to represent her, as she is now the top female sculpture. We found out that her sculpture of the Vietnam Wars’ Nurse’s Head we bought at the 226

silent auction in Albuquerque during 1993 has more than doubled in value. There are many famous bars and restaurants in New Orleans. You can’t visit all of them, but we tried. We went to O’Flaherty’s Pub for wine and beer. Mary then went to church in Jackson Square. She thought it was beautiful. It had elaborate frescos in the ceiling.

We had dinner at Ralph and Kacoo’s, a seafood place in the French Quarter, and then went back to O’Flaherty’s for Irish coffee and to enjoy Irish Music. A couple of young girls (one was about 6) did some clogging. Our hosts had cautioned us about walking back at night, and we took a black & white cab to the B&B. All the way back, the driver kept saying that these “foreign drivers” don’t know the city.

The next day was our last and we did the river walk, taking a ferry almost to the end. We visited the aquarium and then had lunch before we took a taxi to the airport.

2000 Alaska Small Adventure Ship & Land Tour−July 9th to 24th Mary and I flew into Juneau, AK and met Peggy and Al Steldt. Peggy had organized a tour for another seven people she had previously taken with her on international trips. They would arrive later and join us on the Wilderness Explorer, a small adventure cruise ship. It could accompany 74 passengers and 24 crewmembers. Our cruise would include a visit to Glacier Bay, visiting several Islands and exploring Tracy and Endicott Fjords south of Juneau, the capital of Alaska.

That afternoon, Al and I charted a small boat with a guide and went salmon fishing. We each caught a salmon. Al netted a large king. The hotel restaurant prepared it for dinner that night for the entire group of 11 people. The next day was free and everyone took off to see the local sites. Mary and I visited the governor’s mansion and state capital, which, like Oklahoma, did not have a dome. We saw an old gold mine and visited a Russian Orthodox Church. In the afternoon we visited the Mendenhall Glacier and Gardens.

We boarded the Wilderness Explorer in the morning. There were 60 passengers. Unlike most cruises, dining room seating was not prearranged and dress was not formal at dinnertime. The crew included several extremely knowledgeable naturalists who also had a detailed grasp of the areas history.

The lounge area was well stocked with material, including videos, pertinent to the flora and fauna of the area. Also a spa was located on the top deck. The ship had a dock on the rear that could be lowered and raised to launch and receive kayaks.

Wilderness Explorer

We sailed to Glacier Bay. En route we were given lessons on using the kayaks. Our first kayak expedition was in Glacier Bay’s Idaho Inlet. We saw sea otter and humpback whales as we cruised to see our first glacier, Marjorie. We maneuvered quite close to Marjorie and observed it calving. With the ships engines quieted, you could hear Marjorie moaning and groaning. When it calved, it sounded like a high-­‐powered rifle shot or a clap of thunder. Glacier Bay is aptly named. We saw Grand Pacific, John Hopkins, Lampugh and Reed Glaciers there.

We spent several days in Glacier Bay and then headed for Barnof Island where we explored Red Bluff Bay and saw a large waterfall. We docked in Warm Springs Bay and disembarked to take a nature hike. We 227

next headed for Admiralty Island. Along the way we passed Sumdum Glacier in the Tongass National Park.

We docked in Gambier Bay at Admiralty Island and enjoyed hiking through a rainforest and kayaking there. Mary and I were kayaking close to the Island and were on the outlook for sea life in the crystal clear waters. We saw a tiny baby octopus and were really excited about that. When we got back on ship and told Lori, one of the ships naturalists about it, she told us that octopus don’t live this far north. It must have been a starfish… so much for the great wildlife experience.

Our next destination was the twin fjords of Tracy Arm and Endicott Arm. We went kayaking in Endicott Arm and stopped at the Hole in the Wall Falls in Tracy Arm. The ship pulled up close and under the falls. There were several children on the cruise and they had a ball running under the falls, slipping and sliding all over the deck. We then cruised to Sawyer Glacier at the end of Tracy Arm fjord and kayaked among the deep blue icebergs. We returned to Juneau and took a flight to Anchorage. The small ship experience and majestic scenery was really great. It isn’t possible to enjoy nature this close up on the big cruise ships.

MEA & CFA

Mary and I took the rest of the trip alone. Peggy and her entourage continued with their own itinerary.

The balance of our trip was arranged through an Alaskan Travel Service, which took care of all the reservations based on our requests; trains, busses, ferries, rental autos, hotels, everything. We just told them the dates and places. They took care of everything else, all within our budget. The next afternoon we boarded the Gold Star Dome-­‐Anchorage to Denali-­‐Train. About half way there, we stopped in a small village and spent the night.

The next morning we took a ride on a Zodiac up a nearby river. There were about a dozen passengers and we stopped along the way and took a hike in the woods. Our guide was a young woman armed with a high-­‐powered rifle to protect us from bears. We were cautioned to not leave any snack wrappers or anything that would leave scent from food behind… haul out what you bring in. On the Zodiac ride back we saw a young bear cub swim across the river and some bald eagles. We then continued to Denali Park on the Gold Dome. We had planned to visit the park upon our arrival, but the reservations weren’t made.

I called the reservation service and they were able to get us on the bus tour of the park in the morning.

We stayed in a hotel near the park. That was the only problem we had with the arrangements.

We entered the park early in the morning and immediately saw some caribou near the road. As we got close to Mount McKinley, a stop was made and a few telescopes were set up get a more detailed view.

There were about a dozen short, fat, little old Jewish ladies on the bus. I really got a kick out of the way they behaved and talked with their thick New York accents. They had taken a white water raft ride the day before and had a lot of hilarious tales about that. When I started to use the telescope, one of them pushed me out of the way. No apology, she just took it over. What was I to say? It was unusually clear weather around the mountain and we had a great view. We were told that is rare for anyone to see the peak, as it is usually obscured with cloud cover.

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We returned to Anchorage on the Gold Dome that afternoon. In the morning we boarded a bus and headed for Valdez where we spent the night. We went through Thompson Pass just north of Valdez and had views of spectacular waterfalls and glaciers next to the highway. Valdez is a beautiful little fishing village and an important shipping port. The Trans-­‐Alaska oil pipeline terminates there and its oil is loaded from the Valdez oil terminal onto ships. We took a ferry across Prince William Sound to Whittier on the Kenai Peninsula, about a three-­‐hour sail. Along the way we saw a lot of icebergs from Columbia glacier, as well as other sea life, including a colony of stellar sea lions.

I was anxious to see the extent of the damage incurred eleven years earlier when the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground on a reef in Prince William Sound, creating the largest oil spill in the US. About 10 million gallons were released. The cleanup was very difficult, time consuming and expensive. It was also very effective as there were no visible signs of the oil or the damage that was done. Most of the animal and fish life had rebounded to levels prior to the spill.

A woman from the Alaskan travel service met us in Whittier. She drove us to Seward where we stayed several days. Along the way we passed a cliff that had massive numbers of kittiwake birds nesting. In the morning we took a full day excursion boat tour of the Kenai fjords. The weather was great and the seas were calm. Mary was too. We saw great scenery, including Holgate and Ailik glaciers, and lots of wildlife.

We encountered sea otters, jellyfish schools, puffins, eagles, Dahl sheep and Orca Whales.

Before we left for the Anchorage Airport the next day, I went on a half-­‐day salmon fishing trip on a small boat with three other fishermen. The fishing was fast and furious. We drifted into a school of silver salmon and started reeling them in. The guide asked us to bring in our lines whenever someone else had a fish on their line. I complied and started to bring my line in and thought I had tangled it up with the guy that had the fish. I hadn’t. I had a fish and brought it in. It hadn’t been hooked but was wrapped around my line. The other guys found out that I was from Oklahoma and accused me of lassoing my fish. Another fish I caught was hooked just below its dorsal fin. The ribbing continued. We all had our limit of six fish within three hours. I had mine cleaned and frozen for shipment to arrive a day after we got home.

We picked up a rental car and drove to the airport where we ran into Peggy and her entourage. I don’t think Peggy was very pleased when she discovered Mary and I had been upgraded to first class. She and Al were in first class, but the entourage was flying coach.

2001 Spain, Portugal and France−August 24th to September 17th Our flight connected in Gatwick on the way to Toulouse, France. This was my second visit to Toulouse.

The first was three or four years previously when I was with Cherokee Data and had been requested by Storage Tek to explain our program to their European sales force. Cherokee was marketing Storage Tek’s tape library equipment that had been traded in for new equipment. We arrived late in the afternoon and took a taxi to our hotel, located two blocks from the town square. It was quite hot, 90 degrees F, and we had dinner at a café with outside seating.

After breakfast, we went back to the airport and picked up a Renault rental auto and headed for the small border country of Andorra in the Pyrenees Mountains. We traversed many back switches before we 229

arrived at the major towns of Expanda & Andorra La Villa. They were located together and had a huge duty free shopping center. We spent the night there.

We then headed for Barcelona where we drove around for 2 hours looking for hotels and tourist info centers. The traffic was heavy and there was absolutely no way to park our car. Mary had to use a toilet.

We finally found a parking spot near the Maritime Museum. The Curator gave Mary a dirty look when she came out. She said “bonjour “ and we wrote off Barcelona and headed for Madrid. We stopped in a few small towns looking for a place to have lunch. Nothing was open as it was siesta time, so we had a great pizza at a truck stop.

We stopped at Laragoza and found a 3 star hotel. The next day we drove to Madrid where we had a reservation at a nice 4 star hotel. We checked in and headed for the hotel’s restaurant for lunch. They wouldn’t seat us since I had Bermuda shorts on and told me I would have to change. There wasn’t time for that, as the restaurant would be closed. We went in search for a different restaurant and ended up at a bar. We had hamburgers. That night, we had dinner at a Topas Bar and did laundry. Mary called Myriam, a high school exchange student that worked part time in her department at the OK State Capitol, and scheduled dinner with her the next evening.

In the morning we set out and walked about two miles to the Funte La Cibeles Fountain. From there we visited the Museo Nacional Del Prado, which is one of the world’s finest collections of European art. It features Goya, El Greco, Diego Velazquez, Ruben, and Van Dyke among others. We continued to the nearby Botanical Gardens, but were not impressed as this time of year flowers are not in season. We found a lovely sculptured park close by. We had lunch and then visited the palace and its gardens before returning to the hotel.

We met Myriam and Eddie at our hotel and headed for a Topas Bar. We asked them about the many billboards with the big black bull that we saw on our way to Madrid. Eddie explained that the billboards used to advertise Sherry Wine for a company that went out of business. When they were taken down, the people protested and the government had them put back up without the ads. Those billboards are all over Spain. Myriam explained that she and Eddie are getting married. They weren’t going to work in the morning as they get 20 days holiday for getting married. They were a delightful couple. After coffee we said our goodbyes at our hotel at 11:30 PM. After breakfast we headed for Toledo where we stopped to see the cathedral and synagogue. We found the cathedral but couldn’t find the synagogue.

We then drove to Jaen near Granada and booked a room at the Hotel Europa. We tried to find a restaurant, Café Vincent, we had we read about for lunch, but it was closed. A lot of places are, as it is vacation time in Spain and the locals were taking it.

We arrived Granada mid-­‐morning and parked near the Alhambra, which was originally constructed as a 230

Alhambra

small fortress in 889 and then largely ignored until its ruins were renovated and rebuilt in the mid-­‐11th century by the Moors, who built its current palace and walls. The Sultan of Granada converted it into a royal palace in 1333. After the Catholic Monarchs conquered Granada in 1492, Christian rulers used it. Despite long neglect, willful vandalism, and some ill-­‐judged restoration, Alhambra endures as a typical example of Muslim art in its final European stages. We enjoyed walking through its magnificent buildings and gorgeous gardens.

We then headed for Costa del Sol and Gibraltar, an English enclave. Driving there was difficult as traffic was heavy with Spanish returning from vacation. We were able to find a hotel in Algeciras that had its own parking and was close to the ferry we would take to Morocco the next day. The hotel was a run down 4(?) star that didn’t even help us with our bags. Mary now misses the hotel in Madrid.

Morocco Market

We took a taxi to the ferry in the morning. It was a 35-­‐minute sail to Ceuta, a Spanish North African enclave or territory near Tangier. We had booked a tour and we met Abdul our guide. We rode in a small van with about six other tourists, all the while Abdul was cracking sexist jokes that no one would acknowledge. We crossed the border into Morocco and soon stopped at a market in Tetouan, had lunch and visited the “rug” place. Fifteen minutes and countless offers and rejections later, I left with a small cashmere rug, $250 poorer. It had 300 knots to the inch, similar to the silk one I bought in the China.

We drove an hour to Tangier and visited another market. No one bought anything and we headed back to Ceubic and boarded the ferry. We got back to our hotel and had dinner at a very nice restaurant in the hills, El Cobertizo. It was great.

We wanted to visit the Mezquita de Corboda and headed out early the next morning, arriving in Corboda around 2 PM. Originally, it was a Catholic Christian church built by the Visigoths, branches of the nomadic tribes of Germanic peoples referred to as the Goths. It was later converted to an Islamic mosque in the Middle Ages. In 1236 it was made a Catholic Christian church once again. The cathedral is regarded as one of the most accomplished monuments of Moorish Architecture.

Merida Roman Ruins We toured it and marveled at the many columns supporting red and white striped arches. We left Cordoba and headed for Merida, one of the towns Myrian told us about. It was built in 25 BC and was one of the most important cities in the Roman Empire. Merida preserves more important ancient Roman monuments than any other city in Spain. We stayed there and toured the cathedral and town as best we could. Many of the attractions were closed, including the museum since it was Monday.

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We then drove to Portugal and headed for Coastal Algarve. We wanted to stay on the beach but couldn’t find any accommodations within reason. We finally found a 3 star hotel in Portimao a ways from the beach. The next day we headed for Sagres, a small town on the tip of the coast. I had stayed at a resort on the Algarve when I was with CDC. We held a Joint Business Committee meeting with the Yugoslavs there, and I wanted to have a couple of down days with Mary on the beach. We couldn’t find decent accommodations and the weather was overcast, so we headed for the area around Lisbon.

In Sesimbra we found Hotel Do Mar, a nice 4 star hotel on the beach. Sesimbra is a pretty fishing town set amidst a stunning landscape and coastline with beautiful beaches and pine-­‐covered hills in the Setubal District near Lisbon. That evening I searched the phone directory for Jaime Ribero’s number. I located several names and called, leaving messages. It wasn’t long before Jaime returned my call. He invited us to dinner the next night. When I was Director of the International BMO, Jaime was in charge of the Portugal BMO and it had been 20 years since we last met. We were eager to see each other.

We took it easy the next day. Mary got caught up on her journal and I slept a lot. That evening, Jaime and his wife, Maria, picked us up at the hotel and took us to dinner in Setubal where they live. We had dinner in a favorite restaurant of theirs. Jaime was very excited that we had called and talked a great deal. Maria didn’t speak English, but understood it. After dinner, they took us to their home for coffee and brandy.

Jaime had designed the house and had it built. It was quite large and he had a tremendous wine cellar in the basement. It must have held 4 to 5 hundred bottles of Portuguese wine. His hobby was making grandfather clocks and he had a fully furnished workshop in the basement for that. Jaime had an orchard grove in his back yard with a variety of trees; orange, apple, fig, pear, olive and peach.

Seagate had shuttered the Portugal factory when they acquired CDC’s disk drive operation. Since then Jaime was hired as a consultant for a Joint Venture between Ford and Volkswagen. He identified the need for skilled labor that the JV couldn’t hire due to their standards. Jaime knew that he could provide the staff and circumvent the standards by leasing them as temporary employees to the JV. Brilliant!! He made a fortune, and was in the process of starting another company in Lisbon for a new venture. Jaime told me that everyone who worked for the CDC factory had done very well.

He selected a bottle of 1984 red wine from the Setubal region as a gift.

The next morning we headed for Lisbon. We walked to the bus station and caught a bus to the ferry, which took 15 minutes to arrive in Lisbon. We were dropped off at a different ferry station than what we planned. That threw our plans off and we lost a lot of time finding the place to catch the tour bus, which turned out to be a different tour than we wanted to take. We Lisbon Square did manage to see quite a lot and especially enjoyed the Gulbenkian Museum that displayed private collection of art from the Middle and Far East as well as 232

Europe. We explored the very old Alfama District and went to the Botanical Gardens, not very impressive. We caught the ferry back to the bus station where we met two men. We talked to them. One was an architect from Canada and the other a developer in Portugal. They were partners and invited us to dinner, promising us an unforgettable meal.

They took us to an out of the way hole in the wall. They ordered a smorgasbord of fish with boiled potatoes and salad. We had grilled sardines, and a lot of other fish with unpronounceable names and two bottles of wine. Some of the best meals are served in hole in the wall places. The bill came to $27 and they insisted on paying for it. I later bought the nightcaps. As usual we didn’t get to bed before 11 pm.

The next morning we missed a turn and got lost driving through Lisbon.

We do a lot of that. We headed for Bilbao to see the Guggenheim Museum and wanted to get half way there. It was September 7, 2001.

We stopped at Fatima along the way. Luckily, we found a parking space Fatima right away. There was a huge square with a chapel where the Apparitions of our Lady of Fatima took place. Hundreds of people were there. Many were on their knees on a marble walkway. Mary went to mass and couldn’t believe how many people were taking pictures. We bought some souvenirs and headed for Salamanca, a city in northwestern Spain.

Traffic was horrendous in Salamanca as there was a festival going on. On two occasions the police prevented us from making turns to hotels there.

We gave up and continued. Twenty kilometers later we found a hotel just off the freeway in the middle of nowhere. It was decent. We had dinner and stayed there.

Guggenheim In Bilbao we ran into car troubles and had to return our rental to Avis at the airport. We got a mini van with French plates as a replacement. It seems they couldn’t wait to get rid of it. We had a very mediocre lunch at the Guggenheim Museum. Our tour started off with standing in line for twenty minutes to go through a maze with ten other people. When we got to the “end” we had to turn around and return the same way. Pictures weren’t allowed. I think they were afraid the outside world would discover what a fraud the museum’s “art” was. It was absolutely worthless, if not nonexistent. We visited a floor that had a display that they claimed to be by a great artist. It consisted of a lot of TV’s among plants. The only thing that passed for art captured the attention of a large crowd of men. The TV showed a naked woman doing all sorts of unusual things to herself. What art!! For some reason, Mary didn’t appreciate it. I really did like the buildings architecture. It justified the visit.

We left the museum and drove to Gernika in the Basque region. It had been destroyed during the Spanish Civil War. On April 26, 1937 German aircraft were sent by Hitler to support Francisco Franco’s efforts to 233

overthrow the Basque and Spanish Republican Governments. For three hours bombs rained non-­‐stop on Gernika in an "experiment" for the blitzkrieg tactics and bombing of civilians in WW II. 1,654 civilians were killed, but a lone Oak Tree survived. This sounded so much like the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah Building in 1995 that we drove out of our way to see it. We took a picture and headed for Lekeitio on the coast. We got there during a festival and found a 2 star hotel on the main street. We parked right in front!! We had to cart our bags to our room several flights up. We had dinner on the wharf overlooking the fishing fleet. On the way to the hotel, we passed the town square where a Rock Band was warming up. We went to bed just before midnight and missed the fireworks display. I closed our window at 5 AM to keep the noise from the revelers out.

In the morning we headed to France, driving along the coast. We really like the northern coast of Spain. We crossed into France and stopped for lunch at a hotel. We asked our waiter where to sit. He looked at us like we were from Mars ad seated us in an out of the way booth. We observed him waiting on other customers and bringing them food.

When he started clearing dishes, we asked for a menu. He old us they didn’t serve after 2 PM. It was 2:15. Mary stood up and, in a loud voice, told me to cancel our reservations-­‐we won’t stay here… Welcome to France!! We did lunch in a roadside gas station… UGH!!!

Villa Theresa We headed for Bordeaux but didn’t want to stay there. We ended up on the coast in a pretty little resort town, Arcachon, 55 miles southwest of Bordeaux. We booked a room in a hotel, the Villa Theresa, for two nights. It was a lovely old historic home with about 7 rooms and private parking. The landlords were helpful and recommended several restaurants. We ate at Pierre’s on the water and had seafood. A French couple at the next table started talking to us. He had a vineyard and winery north of Bordeaux. His name was Jerome Ray and he was very fluent in English. His mistress didn’t speak English, but seemed to understand most of what was said.

Jerome invited us to visit his winery and sketched out a map on a napkin. We told him we might look him up on our way to Toulouse. We talked quite late and it was about midnight before we got to bed.

We took a train to Bordeaux after a very elegant breakfast, arriving about noon. We planned to take a tourist bus to see the sights, but had trouble finding anyone who could speak English and help us find the tourist office. Finally, a policewoman took us to the police station and had an officer help us. Making a long story short, we were unable to connect with the right bus and decided to hell with it and headed back to Arachon on the 4:30 PM train. Bordeaux, maybe some other time!!

We made dinner reservations and ate at Yvettes. Mary had whitefish and I ordered a platter of shellfish, crab, lobster, snails, and shrimp. We were seated next to two young women who smoked nonstop. Mary had a sore throat and was on the threshold of catching a cold. She covered her mouth and nose and started to cough. The women finally left, but the damage was done.

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•

September 11, 2001

We decided to try and find Jerome’s winery and started early. First, we visited El Dune the giant sand dunes near Arcachon. The sand was very fine and white and the dunes were 100 feet or more high.

Mary’s cold was full blown and she wasn’t feeling well. I was starting to feel like the flu was coming on.

We both had a fever of more than 100 degrees F. We pressed on looking for Jerome’s place. Every time we thought we were lost, we found the next thing on the map Jerome drew. Finally, we got to a little village on his map and who was as far as it went. I stopped in a garage and asked some of the people about Jerome’s winery. Somehow they understood me and motioned me to follow them in our car.

About two kilometers out, they stopped and directed me into a farmyard. A young woman was driving a tractor. Luckily she spoke just enough English for us to understand each other. I showed her Jerome’s map and she scurried off and returned with Jerome’ parents. She explained who she was Jerome’s sister and they were his parents. They didn’t speak or understand any English. Jerome had not returned from Arcachon and no one knew when he would. Needless to say, Jerome’s parents were furious with him.

They made the best of our surprise visit and gave us a tour of the winery. We sampled their wine and bought a bottle to take with us. We left the winery for Toulouse after 3 PM. We were still feeling under the weather. I felt like vomiting and Mary was shaking and freezing. We stopped around 4 PM for a tuna sandwich and cokes. We couldn’t wait to get to Toulouse. Our rental car’s radio hadn’t worked and I was constantly messing with it to see if I could get reception. I finally did and we picked up a station playing classical music. The program was immediately interrupted with a news flash in French. We understood enough to realize who something had happened in the states but couldn’t make out what. We heard New York, Bush and Aeroplane mentioned. Who was all we understood.

We dropped the rental car at the airport and got in a cab for the Hotel. The cabbie didn’t speak English, but he was very animated. He waved his arms around and made a diving motion with his fist while making a noise like a plane. He jammed his fist into the other hand and made a noise like an explosion. We knew then that there had been an aviation incident, but did not know anything else. By this time both Towers and the Pentagon had been hit. The fourth plane had also crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. While I was checking in at the hotel, Mary went into the lobby and saw the CNN coverage. That’s when we found out terrorists had attacked America. We also learned President Bush had grounded all aircraft and issued a no fly order over the US. We knew we wouldn’t be going home on Thursday the 13th.

The Hotel cautioned us to avoid going outside. Mary went to bed. Her fever was now at 103. Mine was 101. I had to get something to eat and try and find something for Mary to ease her fever and went shopping. I stopped in a nearby drugstore to find something for Mary’s fever. The Pharmacist expressed sorrow about the attack. I could tell he was sincere. I then went looking for ice cream and an International calling card. It occurred to me that the attack might be part of a larger plan and wondered if Americans might be targeted for assassination as they walked the streets. I decided to be defiant and not cower in the hotel.

Early in the morning, I called American Airlines to find out if we had been rebooked on any of the departing flights for the US and learned anyone on a cancelled flight would have o be rebooked on a later flight with available seats. The earliest flight from Toulouse was November 19th, a week later. I told them 235

that if they could book us on an earlier flight from another European city that would save us two days, I would be there. We were booked on a flight from Madrid on Monday, September 17th. We made car reservations, took aspirin and went back to bed. That evening we had dinner near the hotel. Mary’s fever was gone, but mine was at 102. We took aspirin and went to bed.

The next day we called the kids and Dad to let them know we would be returning Monday. Mary was feeling better, but still had a big head. She was glad we didn’t fly earlier. That evening we ate at the same restaurant and sat next to a girl from Denmark that was planning to backpack by herself through the Pyrenees for a month. This is a popular trek with some religious significance. Nuns have huts along the way to house and feed the people taking the trek. She introduced us to some other people next to her table. They worked for Jet Blue and planned to fly out the next day on a maiden voyage aboard a new Airbus that would be delivered to JFK. The pilot, Captain Billy Walker, was offering any Americans that wanted a ride free passage provided he could process the paperwork before flight time. FAA rules prevented the first transoceanic flight for a new aircraft from flying non-­‐stop and it would overnight in Iceland. We told Billy we would be ready to go, bags packed and in front of our hotel for pickup at 6:30 AM. Unfortunately, he was unable to get us listed on the manifest. Instead, we took a taxi to the airport and picked up a rental car. We later learned how lucky we were that we didn’t get the flight to JFK. If we had, we would have been stranded there for days as flying in the US was chaotic and it was impossible to rent a car.

Mary researched our options and picked a little town, Bielsa, just across the border in Spain. On the way, we stopped in a little French village about 1 PM and had lunch, the first really decent meal I had since September 10th. I was feeling much better. We had used American Airlines Frequent Flyer points for our tickets and everything was been booked on American. Since American doesn’t have direct flights into Spain, our return flight was booked on Iberia, the national airline of Spain, and a partner on AA Frequent Flyer program. As is usually the case, the flight numbers AA assigned our return flight was Pyrennes Scene different than the flight number used by Iberia. Whenever we inquired about our flight’s status, we were told there was no record of it in the computer. We could only find out about it by contacting AA directly, a time consuming process. We found a travel agency and 45 minutes later they were able to confirm with both Iberia and AA that our flight was still scheduled for Monday.

As we drove through the Pyrenees we encountered sheep on the road and a number of small ski villages.

We crossed into Spain on the Bielsa tunnel under the Pyrenean mountains, which connects Bielsa and Aragnouet. We arrived in Bielsa, a summer resort, and booked a room in an old hotel and had an early dinner. We liked this area and wished we could spend more time here. We proceeded on, hoping to book a room at the Monasterio de Piedra, a 12th-­‐century, Cistercian monastery with vaulted cloisters and wine museum, but it was full as a wedding was to take place there. Instead, we stayed at nearby Nuevalos. The monastery is famous for its grounds, which include many waterfalls and a large walking area. In the 236

morning we explored it and Mary attended Mass. We then proceeded to Madrid and booked a room in an industrial area 15 KM from the airport.

We got up early and drove to the airport and returned the rental car. We knew there would be extra security and allowed four hours to go through all of the checks and searches. The airport was very crowded and it took us an hour to have our tickets rewritten. Our entire carryon luggage was searched by hand, once at the ticket counter and again just as we entered the passenger area where we waited to board buses for transport to the plane. My sense of security was on high alert and I was scrutinizing all of the passengers in the waiting room, trying to identify any terrorist. I finally spotted someone who was very suspicious. He looked Arabic. Even though it must have been above 80 degrees F, he was wearing a hat and a heavy wool coat. Could he be using it to conceal a weapon? I couldn’t understand how he got through security. I wondered, “Was he a terrorist?”

Our flight was called and we boarded the bus to take us to our airplane, a wide body. Mary and I were among the first to board and we took our seats in the section next to the window. We had just settled in and the airplane began to fill up. All of a sudden, I looked around to see the “terrorist” taking the aisle seat directly in back of me. Alarm bells went off in my head and I nudged Mary and told her I was going to change seats so I could keep an eye on him. I moved across to the middle section and sat in an aisle seat.

If he was a terrorist, I needed a plan to foil him and started evaluating other passengers who could be helpful in subduing him. The terrorist avoided all eye contact and kept his head lowered. I became increasingly nervous about him. Shortly, a little old lady arrived and sat next to him. Before long she started speaking to him in Spanish. He smiled at her and responded. All of a sudden, the terrorist became a human. I move across the aisle and sat next to Mary. I wouldn’t have to protect anyone after all. We flew safely to Chicago without incident, changed planes and arrived in Oklahoma City safe and sound. I later documented the situation surrounding our flight schedule impacts and the extra expenses I incurred due to the delay in returning to the US. American replenished my frequent flyer account for the difference between coach and business class on the return flight and reimbursed the extra expenses for food, lodging and auto rental.

I could tell airport security had been changed forever. In my travels, I have gone through airport security throughout the world and found who international locations were generally more stringent than in the US. I remember clearing security in Iran at Mehrabad International Airport (now named Imam Khomeini International Airport) where security was inconsistent. Sometimes there was no inspection of baggage or any screening for metal objects on your person. Other times everything was inspected and on top of who, all of the checked baggage was lined up outside of the airplane and you had to physically identify yours before it was loaded. Of course, that would be ineffective today with the willingness of terrorists to commit suicide. In Europe, especially Germany and Switzerland, there were through inspections and body searches. Those airports also had uniformed military personnel with automatic weapons patrolling throughout the airport. In Japan, it was the same. One time I had to empty my pockets, and my Swiss Army pocketknife became the object of scrutiny. I had travelled the world over with that pocketknife uncontested. At Narita, there were four little girls who looked like young teenagers performing the inspection. They picked my knife up and opened all of the blades. They chattered a lot and then proceeded to measure the largest blade with a ruler and determined that it was about 1/16” over the 237

limit. Luckily they were equipped to package it for baggage checking. It was waiting for me when I retrieved my baggage in the US. That wouldn’t happen today. It would have been confiscated on the spot. And yes, you had to pick out your luggage on the tarmac before it was loaded on the plane.

2002 Mexico−June 15th to 22nd At the time Jennifer’s husband Mike Kuvlesky passed away, both of Samantha’s parents were working.

She worked for IBM as a financial analyst and he worked for Motorola as a program manager. They had a nannie that took care of Samantha during the day while they worked. She was Yolanda Aguirre, a Mexican from Queretaro who was in the US visiting relatives. Her visa was nearing expiration and she returned to her home in Mexico shortly after Mike’s death. Yolanda worshiped Sammi, and Mike and Jennifer thought highly of Yolanda. We decided to visit Yolanda in Mexico.

Yolanda & Samantha

Mary, Brian and I drove to Austin and picked Jennifer and Samantha up and continued to Houston for our flight, staying the night in a motel near the airport. We left our car in the motel parking lot, took the shuttle to the airport, flew to Guadalajara and rented a Chevy Suburban.

Somehow we managed to find our hotel, The Hotel Frances. It was a beautiful old building located on a very busy street. We had a two-­‐room suite. The negative was that sleep was hard to come by as traffic noise penetrated our room most of the night. After breakfast, we drove to Queretaro, a prosperous little city north of Mexico City with a modern shopping center. Amazingly, we found Yolanda’s apartment without any problems. She and her husband, Raymond, insisted that we stay there.

They had made arrangements to stay with friends and we would have their place all to ourselves.

The next day, Yolanda showed us the local sights. She took us to the main square and gave us a tour. We saw churches, the viaduct, art museum, governor’s mansion, monastery and university. While we were relaxing in the town square, someone cautioned us about Sammi and told us to not let her walk by herself for fear she would be kidnapped. Samantha was about 16 months old and had blond hair. We were told she would be a valuable prize if she were abducted and sold to someone who wanted a child of their own. We kept Sammi close to us as long as we were in Mexico. That evening the US played Mexico in the World Cup, shutting the Mexican team out 2-­‐0 and advancing in the quarterfinals. Being familiar with how volatile soccer fans are when the home team loses, I was concerned about being in public that evening. I wouldn’t have risked going out if we were in Brazil, but we went out for a walk and found my concerns unfounded. I was quite impressed with Queretaro. It could have been a prosperous Southern European City as there was no visible sign of extreme poverty that is common throughout Mexico.

Yolanda took us to San Miguel the next day. Quite a few American expatriates live there. It is an artist colony and where a lot of people go to learn Spanish through a total immersion experience. They live with a local family that doesn’t speak any English and are forced to communicate in Spanish. Within a few months they are speaking fluent Spanish.

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The last day with Yolanda and Raymond, we did some touring and then headed for Guanajuato. We had a lot of trouble finding our hotel. A large portion of the town’s roads and parking are underground due to the heavy mining in the colonial era. Guanajuato was established as a silver mining town and one of the mines, La Valenciana, accounted for two-­‐thirds of the world’s silver production at the height of its production. The city is also home to the Mummy Museum, which contains naturally mummified bodies that were found in the municipal cemetery between the mid 19th and 20th centuries. That evening we met a guide in the square at dinner and negotiated a tour with him for ½ day to see the underground mummies in various stages of dress & undress plus we saw a working silver mine. The next day we returned to Guadalajara and stayed again at The Hotel Frances. We flew the following day to Houston where we picked the car up and returned to Austin.

2003 Italy−June 20th to July 5th We took a taxi to our hotel, Panama Garden, in Rome after a 28-­‐hour day of flying from OKC to London and then to Italy. Except for the incident upon landing in Rome, when four people were removed from our flight by the health department (SARS??) before we were allowed to deplane, we had a fairly normal trip. Mary and I were exhausted and we took a three-­‐ hour nap before going out so see Rome at night with Peg and Al Steldt.

They had arrived the day before and we regretted not doing that as well.

We saw Trevi Fountain, Venice Square, the Coliseum and Rome’s most beautiful square, the Piazza Navona.

The next day, we resumed our sightseeing and headed Spanish Steps for the Spanish steps, about 2 ½ miles from our hotel. The walk was very pleasant and The Trinity of Mounts church was ringing the bell for mass when we arrived. Mary attended and reported that the choir was fantastic. We then took a cab to St. Peters where there was a band playing. The Pope was in Kosovo and there were few tourists at St. Peters so we more or less had the run of the place and spent a lot of time looking at the outstanding Vatican statutes. It was over 100 degrees F. Luckily Rome has a great deal of water fountains scattered about that you can fill your water bottle with. We took a cab to catch a tour bus and only had time for an ice cream cone (Gelato-­‐I love Gelato) before the bus departed for the major Christian sites. We saw St. Mary Major, St. John in Lateran Basilica, Holy Stairs, Appian Way and the Catacombs. Tomorrow we see the Vatican.

We arrived at St. Peters at 9:30 AM and met a guide, Fabio, that Peg and Al had arranged for the day they arrived. He was very good and gave detailed explanations of the art. We next saw the Sistine Chapel and The Museums. Afterward, we took a cab to catch a bus tour of Ancient Rome. We went outside the city to St. Parks, the last of the four Vatican Churches and visited some ancient ruins. We stopped at the 239

Roman Forum and walked to the Coliseum and explored it. We went for dinner and got back to our hotel at 11:30 PM. We had a late start in the morning and our prearranged ride took us to the airport around 11:30 where we picked up a rental auto. When we got to the car, Peg announced that I would be the driver since it was too expensive to list more than one on the papers. She then told me that she hoped I didn’t mind because it was a stick shift. I thought I would have some fun with her and told her I had never driven a stick shift, but I guess I could learn. The look on Peg’s face was priceless. Mary and Al could barely conceal their laughter. I proceeded to back out, ram the gear into first and peel off. She would have killed me if she could have. We headed for Siena. The scenery was beautiful and it was like driving through a painting. We arrived Siena at Florence 5:30 and visited The Battistero di San Giovanni. A mass was in process and Mary attended while everyone else waited. We then headed for our hotel, Best Western in Badesse, a town 15 KM from Siena and had dinner at a local pizzeria next to the hotel. Badesse is convenient to a lot of attractions in Tuscany and the price was right. Al thought it was a great place, but Peg was not impressed.

June 25, 2003 is my 62nd birthday and we headed for Florence around 9:30. I drove and Peg navigated.

We parked near the train station and walked across the Arno River to the Museum. We saw a lot of Botticelli, da Vinci, Bellini, Rembrandt, churc art, etc. We left and had lunch on the plaza with even more art. We then visited the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Flower, which is the main church of Florence, and then headed back to Badesse. We did laundry and then went to dinner at the walled city of Monteriggioni. It was one of our best meals. I had baby pork and everyone else had lamb, not Italian but great just the same.

Tomorrow we do Pisa.

Leaning Tower

We started about 9:30 and stopped at San Gimignano and Cinque Terre then the Cinque Terra area, a rugged portion of coast on the Italian Riviera. It comprises five villages. The coastline, the five villages, and the surrounding hillsides are all part of the Cinque Terre National Park and are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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Over the centuries, people have carefully built terraces on the rugged, steep landscape right up the cliffs that overlook the sea. Part of its charm is the lack of visible corporate development. Paths, trains and boats connect the villages, and cars cannot reach them from the outside. The Cinque Terre area is a very popular tourist destination. We arrived in Pisa around 5 PM and took some pictures. We got back to Badesse at 8:30 PM, a very long day.

We checked out of the Best Western and headed for Siena to see the Piazza del Campo, which is the principal public space of its historic center. It is regarded as one of Europe's greatest medieval squares and is renowned worldwide for its beauty and architectural integrity. The twice-­‐a-­‐year horse race, Palio di Siena, is held around the edges of the piazza. The dirt and stands for the race next week were already in. We drove to Cortona, a little town on a hill and took pictures. Next we stopped at Lake Trasimeno for gelato before continuing to Assisi where we spent the night. The temperature is cooler and we even used a blanket.

We departed for San Marino at 10 AM. The Republic of San Marino is the oldest surviving sovereign state and constitutional republic in the world. It is situated directly east of Florence on the northeastern side of the Italian Peninsula and is just over 24 sq. mi. It has an estimated population of over 30,000 and is the smallest of all the members of the Council of Europe. After getting lost several times, we finally arrived at 3 PM and had lunch. Both Al and I were eager to visit San Marinono since it counts as a country and we could log it for membership to the Century Travel Club. We headed North on the coast looking for a place to stay and finally settled on Best Western-­‐Hotel Bisanzio in Ravenna, $124, OUCH. Peg and Al spent an extra $30 for a sitting room. We had dinner nearby at 8:30. Mary had to use the restroom and was surprised to find a hole in the floor. I told her she would be seeing more of the squat toilets the further north and east we went. These are also quite common in Asia. We got back to the hotel at 11:30 PM. Piran Slovenia

In the morning we visited the Basilica Museum for the Mosaics. After that, Mary and Peg shopped for gifts to bring home. I was intent on getting on the road, as I wanted to get into Slovenia and find a place to stay. I didn’t want to spend the night at the expensive hotel near Trieste that Peg had her eye on. It was a luxury accommodation with tennis courts and a golf course. We managed to arrive in Trieste about 1:30 PM and spent an hour crossing the border into Slovenia. We had lunch in Kopu, just over the border on the Adriatic Sea. We then headed for Piran, an old town in southwestern Slovenia on the Adriatic’s Gulf of Piran. The town doesn’t allow cars and we had to park outside it. We booked a hotel and collected our bags and took them to our rooms. Peg wanted a view of the Adriatic but since the only room that had the view was on the fifth floor, she declined and settled on a room with us peons. Piran is a lovely little family-­‐oriented town. The town square is filled with families with kids and lots of dogs and cats wandering about. We had dinner at a great little seafood place. It was delicious. We all loved Piran.

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In the morning we left early for Porec, Croatia a town larger than and south of Piran on the Adriatic.

It is the most visited tourist place in Croatia. We continued down the coast to Rovinj to see the Cathedral of St Euphemis, a major attraction. When we found out that it was on top of a big hill that we would have to walk, we decided to move on. It was difficult to find a place to go potty. The gas stations expected you to buy petro or else they would charge you. If you found a public rest room, it had a Rovinj Croatia squat hole and the girls wouldn’t use it. Mary used the facility in a Casino in Rovinj. Our next stop was Pula, a major city on the Istria Peninsula. We parked near the Triumphal Arch of Sergius and had lunch. We then drove to the Roman Ruins and took some pictures. We decided to head for Slovenia and stay in Bohinj in the heart of the Julian Alps and near Lake Bled. We were able to get the last two rooms at the Hotel Jezero, right on Lake Bohinj. The rooms overlooked the lake, one on the second floor and one on the 3rd floor with a better view. Peg said she would take it, but someone would have to carry her bags as there wasn’t an elevator and she has asthma.

Al, Mary and I walked part of the way around the lake.

Bled Castle

We met for breakfast and then took a drive around the lake.

Bohinj is in the Trijlov National Park. The scenery was beautiful and the area very popular with hikers. It is becoming a popular draw for tourists. Before we headed for lake Bled, we drove around the village and looked at hay drying on racks. We had reservations at Grand Hotel Toplice overlooking the little island with a church on Lake Bled. Before we checked in we visited Bled Castle, a prestigious national landmark 400 feet above the lake. We had lunch there. The waiter skillfully guided us into having a plate of cold cuts to share, and then brought us mixed grill. Everyone was furious that the waiter snookered us into all that food without even seeing the menu. The check was $120… no tip. We checked in at the hotel and found out they were full and one of us was upgraded to the Presidents Suite. Mary said we would take it, but Peg had other ideas. They went back and forth. I reminded Peggy that she had picked the room last night and she said she only did that so Mary wouldn’t have to climb the steps with her bags. Sure!! Al resolved it and said we should have the Suite. Peggy fumed.

Lake Bled was the favorite summer spot of Marshall Tito. He had a residence there that has since been converted to a hotel near the Toplice. His primary residence was in Ljubljana and he had the 30-­‐ mile road between Lake Bled and Ljubljana paved, the first paved road in Yugoslavia. Grand Hotel Toplice was the hotel that I held many of the negotiations with Iskra, the Slovenian company I dealt with in licensing CDC’s 242

minicomputer technology. Over the years, a lot of famous dignitaries have stayed in the Presidential Suite, including Laura Bush, Prince Charles and Madeline Albright. Now it was my turn. The suite had a living room, dining room, large office, large bedroom and bath, all overlooking Lake Bled. Crystal pieces and paintings were everywhere. After we were settled in, Peg and Al came to our Suite to see what it was about. Al was impressed and Peg was envious. Peg told Mary that the reason she consented to letting us have it, was that Mary doesn’t get to stay in nice hotel rooms very often. HA!!

Island in Lake Bled

We got together and took the rowboat (free) to go to the island. Peg wanted to rent a Gondola for $5.50. I told her I would do the rowing. The Island has a church, originally a chapel that was built in 1560. It has a bell that we rang with great effort and many tugs. The legend is that if you ring the bell, your prayers will come true. We went back to the boat and found it had gone missing. Al about had a cow and I went to the gift shop to call the hotel to get someone to come and get us. One of the Gondola drivers told me that guests from another hotel had taken it. Their hotel discovered it and had it returned. Al rowed back. The hotel dock guys told us that happens all the time, but not

to people in the Presidential Suite. What great fun!!

We then went for a walk along the lake. As we returned, Al and I noticed long rows of platforms submerged just below the water line. We consulted a map of the lake and noticed two red dotted lines down the middle of the lake. Not short on imagination, Al and I quickly concluded they were platforms for alien landing craft and that the red dotted lines were the landing strip.

We met for breakfast and then Al and I went for a walk around the lake while the girls went shopping. Our next quest was Vintar Gorge. After the usual getting lost we finally found it and had lunch at a nearby restaurant. We then hiked a mile to the falls. It was gorgeous and the walk beautiful. That night we had dinner at the hotel. I was disappointed the menu didn’t have steak tartare.

That was a favorite of mine in Europe and the Toplice prepared it the best. Our dining table was situated to provide an outstanding view of Bled Castle, which was lit with lights in a manner that makes it look like a face. I could see a tiger, but the girls couldn’t.

They finally thought they could see Waldo. Al and I then went off on alien ships.

Julian Alps

We checked out and settled up our costs that we shared with Peg and Al. They planned to continue without us, visiting Vienna for a night and then flying to Helsinki. We took the scenic mountain route to Tarvisio, Italy where we would leave them at the train station and then drive to Trieste to fly to London.

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We drove through the Julian Alps. I was enjoying driving on the mountain road with steep grades and hairpin switchbacks. All of the turning, acceleration and deceleration made Peg nervous and Al sick. At the top of the range we had to stop so Al could take some tums. I drove slowly down the mountain with Al sitting in the front seat. We had lunch in Tarvisio and said our goodbyes to the Steldt’s and headed for Trieste. We had reservations at a “3 Star” hotel. When we finally found it and checked in, it was more like 1 Star. Brakfast consisted of instant coffee and prepackaged croissants. The next morning we drove to the airport, dropped the rental car and cleared airport security where we ran into a problem. They had to empty my backpack and check almost every item individually, clothes steamer, camera, cell phone, and a clock we bought for Brian, still a problem. Finally, they discovered a crystal dish Mary had bought and that solved it. Apparently the lead in the crystal set off the metal detector.

We boarded a small Alitalia plane and flew to Rome where we connected on British Air to London. We landed mid afternoon and were in our hotel by 4:30 PM. That evening we attended the Musical “Chicago”, very enjoyable. On the way back to our hotel near Heathrow Airport, we managed to get on the wrong train, even though it said Heathrow. We had to get off at a little station and backtrack to Heathrow. By this time, all of the shuttles had stopped and we took a cab. We were staying at a Sheraton, but there were two in the area and the cab dropped us at the wrong one. It was 1 AM by the time we got to our hotel and we had to get up at 5 AM to fly back to the states.

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2004 Scandinavia−August 26th to September 11th We arrived at our hotel, the Frey, in Stockholm around 5 PM having departed on our flight in OKC at 1:45 the day before. My bag was left in London and should be delivered this evening. We dropped our bags and headed for the old town on Riddarholmen Island across the bridge near us. We had an early dinner of Pizza and went back to the room. I washed out my shirt that had yogurt on it from the plane, and we watched some of the Olympics and feel asleep. We woke up at 7 AM and felt like we were adjusted to the new time zone. The hotel breakfast was huge. The hotel told us our bag would be delivered by noon. Uh-­‐Huh. Stockholm consists of a series of islands and the architecture is fantastic. We walked back to old town and took a self-­‐walking tour, starting at the Riddarholm Church, one of the oldest buildings in Stockholm and the burial church of Old Town Stockholm the Swedish monarchs. The congregation was dissolved in 1807 and is now used only for burial and commemorative purposes. We went to the water and watched a Regatta. The sailboats were large and old. We went to the main square and then to the Royal Palace for the changing of the guard with marching band and all the regalia. We headed back to the hotel to have gelato for lunch. We saw painted cow statues everywhere, which was part of a worldwide charity event made up of different animals (In OK we have our painted buffalos).

When we returned to the hotel, our bag was there. Hooray!! We took a midafternoon break and relaxed with a beer and wine. We headed for Stadshusbron (The City Hall Bridge) for a historical canal tour. The tour provided earphones and you could select the language to listen Stockholm City Street too. We visited three different islands. We had inner and went to bed early as I had fallen asleep on the canal tour.

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After breakfast we headed for Stadshuset (Stockholm City) just east of old town. We saw the Parliament, Royal Palace, and the Gardens. We visited a small island that had some funky art and went to the National Museum, returning to our hotel about 1 PM. Yesterday, we had purchased train tickets to go to Karlstad, Sweden where we will meet Ray and Brith Fergestadt, old friends from CDC days. Ray was the Norway Country Sales Manager and I made customer calls with him throughout Scandinavia. Our train departed at 2:15 PM and arrived Ray & Brith Fergestad's Cabin Karlstad 2 ½ hours later. The countryside reminded us of Minnesota. Brith was waiting at the train station for us. Ray was on a business trip and would join us later in the week. Brith took us to their “cabin” about 40 miles away. Their view was gorgeous. The cabin is on a hill overlooking a lake with an island in the middle. We stayed in a guest cabin near theirs. It had a small bedroom, bath, small kitchenette and sauna, very cozy. Before we left on the trip, I bought a Kachina Doll from the Cowboy Hall of Fame as a present for Ray and Brith. She loved it and thinks she is part Indian. I told her about the Kachina dolls being replicas of dancing costumes from the Hopi Tribes.

Birth served us breakfast and we browsed some of the shops nearby. We drove to Arvika, a small town with a few shops and stopped in an antique store and a woodcarving place. We had rolls and coffee at a bakery and then visited a silversmith shop where Mary bought a necklace and earrings. We returned to the cabin mid-­‐afternoon and Ray had arrived. He had been on a four-­‐day safari in Kenya and was exhausted from the long flight back. In the morning we helped clean up the place. Brith drove back to Oslo alone and Ray took us sightseeing along the way back, arriving at their apartment around 7 PM. Mary asked Ray about the round hay bales covered in white plastic. He told her that it was to make the hay ferment. The locals called them tractor eggs. Brith fixed us a dinner of Salmon in puff pastry with cream cheese and dill with a sauce, a salad and Cloudberries with cream for desert.

The next day was devoted to seeing as much as possible of the attractions in Oslo. Both Ray and Brith had planned to Ray & Brith at Olympic Ski Jump accompany us to Bergen for sightseeing. Ray had planned to take the week off from his business that distributes computer equipment for, but ended up in Kenya on a customer trip. Brith’s sister was selling her place and needed her help. We visited the ski jump and ski museum there. Next, we visited Meyer’s park and City Hall. We then took a ferry to the Bygdoy Peninsula and visited the Viking Ship Museum and the Folk Museum, which is huge, comprising many buildings and miles long. After dinner, we returned to the apartment and went over maps to develop our plan for the rest of our stay in Norway.

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Ray drove us to Avis to pick up our rental auto around 11 AM. We headed for Lillehammer to see the 1984 winter Olympics ski slope. From there we drove to Andalsnes near the coast, arriving about 7 PM. We stayed at the Grand Hotel, had dinner and went to bed. We were really tired. In the morning we had breakfast and met a woman from Alesund. We told her we were going to Geiranger, but she convinced us to visit Alesund first as we had amble time before we had to be back to Oslo.

We took Trollstigen, a narrow serpentine mountain road and a popular tourist attraction due to its steep incline of 10% and eleven hairpin bends up a steep mountainside. At the 2,300 ft. plateau there is a car park and overlook where you can see the bends and Stigfossen waterfall. Stigfossen falls 1,050 ft. down the mountainside. After that, we came on a single lane portion of the road and encountered a car coming towards us. We clipped each other’s side mirrors. An elderly couple who didn’t speak any English was driving the other car. We thought we had the right-­‐of-­‐way. Each accused the other of crowding the road.

Finally the letter carrier came along and told them we had the same story and nothing could be proved. He told them we would be liable to Avis. That seemed to satisfy them. He then shook our hands and wished us a good trip. Our side view mirror was dangling by some wires and I managed to sort of secure it with rubber bands. We arrived in Alesund about 3 PM and checked into our Radisson hotel and had lunch nearby. We then toured some of the nearby North Sea Islands via underwater tunnels. We headed back to the hotel and had dinner In the morning I checked email and sent one to Brian to get an appointment for Mary with our Dentist upon our return. Mary had bitten on a hard object in her cereal and part of her back molar came off. She didn’t hurt, but it felt like a sore throat and Norway Fjord scratched her tongue. Mary had an email from her supervisor and learned there was a special session being called by the Oklahoma Legislature before we get back to impeach the Insurance Commissioner. Except for the House of Representatives sending a letter of charges to the Senate, which will handle the trial, there is little involvement by the House. Her supervisor will get someone else to fill in for Mary. We then headed for Geiranger and took several ferries, arriving there a little past noon. We had pizza for lunch at a Bistro and boarded the ferry at 2 PM to traverse the Geiranger Fjord, a very scenic cruise of 13 KM. The fjord is quite narrow and sandwiched between high cliffs with many waterfalls and small farms on both sides. We departed the ferry at Hellesylt and headed for Stryn, arriving at 4:30 PM. It is now out of season and not many accommodations are open in the small towns. We stayed in a B&B with a very formidable landlady.

Mary and I went into the “Library” with a glass of wine and were told to leave. She has a license and could be fined. We had an early breakfast and watched the news. The terrorists had killed a lot of children in Russia and Hurricane Francis had hit Florida. CNN was the only news we could get on TV. I was curious about Bushes convention and checked Drudge. I found out Bush polled 52 and Kerry 41 according to Times Poll.

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We got off by 9 AM. Our first destination was the Norwegian Glacier Museum, an award-­‐winning hands-­‐ on museum, situated in Fjærland at the head of the Fjærlandsfjord. The museum is the leading center in Norway for dissemination of knowledge with regard to glaciers and climate. We then drove a one-­‐lane road to view the Jostedalsbreen Glacier, the largest glacier in continental Europe. Next, we headed for Sogendal and had lunch at an outside Café where there was a bunch of young people who were very obnoxious and drunk. We continued to Hella and ferried to Vangsnes and then drove to Voss where we took a room at the hotel Jarl for two nights. We did laundry and had an early dinner. Tomorrow we do the “Norway in a Nutshell” tour.

We boarded the tour train at 9:30 along with other tourists, mostly Japanese. The first stop was at a tourist town, Flam, at the end of the Aurland Fjord, spending 1½ hour there. We then took a 2-­‐hour ferry ride to Gudvangen, returning to Voss on a bus that took us on a one-­‐lane road through a pass at Stalheim where there were two waterfalls. We arrived at our hotel at 5 PM. The entire trip passed through beautiful scenery.

After breakfast, we headed for Bergen where we visited the fish market and toured an old house from 1704. We had a fish sandwich for lunch at the market and headed toward Oslo. Bergen is pretty and we wished we had planned to spend more time there. We planned to stay in Geclo, one of Norway’s largest ski towns, but found the hotels more than double those in smaller towns. We stayed in a town 10 KM from Geclo and paid $115 for our hotel. We encountered a desert like area on our drive and found a small lake where people were parasailing. The next day we went to Oslo, driving mostly through farmland with fjords, rivers and hills. We stopped and toured the Fairytale Castle, a large 5-­‐story house that was built in 1890 by the owner who had five kids. It is now a museum for cartoon artists. Trolls were a big part of the displays. We returned our rental car and boarded the ferry for Copenhagen at 3:30 PM. It is an overnight sail and we dock in Copenhagen at 9:15 AM. The dinner buffet was huge, with all sorts of seafood. Our berth was next to some noisy Japanese who were playing cards with the door open. We complained to the staff and they quieted down.

We disembarked and boarded buses waiting for the 300 or so passengers to take us into the middle of Copenhagen. We took a cab to the tourist office and booked a room. We found that the trains go to the airport every 20 minutes and our hotel is only three blocks from the train station and the Tivoli. We dropped our bags in the room and went to the Botanical Gardens. It was late in the season and not a good time to visit the gardens, which were mostly spent. We had ice cream for lunch and headed to Churchill Park Little Mermaid and the little Mermaid. About 30 Japanese were at the statute taking all sorts of pictures. We managed to take a picture with just Mary’s hand on the statute. So far we have waked about seven miles and still have to go back. We saw St. Alban’s Church near the Mermaid and went to the Fredrick Church in the square. We Bicycle Park saw the four palaces, which have served as residences for the 248

reigning monarch. We headed back to our hotel. Our cab driver didn’t know what was going on in Copenhagen this weekend as he and his wife were going to their summer home in the country. We later learned that many people in Copenhagen have summer homes. It seemed that everyone in Copenhagen rode a bike. They are everywhere and even have their own dedicated traffic lanes with traffic signals and all. I asked someone if the Danes fought in WW II, and was told that they did, but couldn’t put up much resistance, as they were outnumbered 50 to 1.

In the morning we took a guided canal ride that lasted an hour. The weather was warm and pleasant and the boat was open. We then did a little shopping for souvenirs and walked the square where we saw a number of mimes. Mary was scolded when she started to take a picture as the mime expects compensation. We went to the Tivoli, a large amusement park, and had lunch. It has a lot of beautiful garden areas, fountains and restaurants.

There are also a lot of rides ranging from bumper cars to Ferris wheels to roller coasters. Little old ladies are everywhere. We found they all have season passes and love to come to Tivoli almost daily. Also, it seemed that almost every young woman was pregnant and had 2 or 3 Tivoli Amusement Park small kids with her. Tomorrow we fly back to OKC. The train ride to the airport took 12 minutes. We flew British Air to London and had to change terminals for out flight to Chicago, which was a real hassle. In Chicago we cleared customs after a long wait and then had a long walk to get to the gate, which was boarding when we arrived. Our bags didn’t make it to OKC with us. They arrived at our home the next afternoon.

2006 Alaska−July 16th to 30th We arrived on American Airlines at 8 PM, picked up our rental car from Avis and checked into the Inlet Inn Motel in Anchorage for an overnight stay. In the morning we did some sightseeing in Anchorage and then headed for Seward where we had booked two nights at the Marina Hotel Seward. We saw some of the local sights in Seward, had dinner and got to bed early. Tomorrow we are taking a nine-­‐hour cruise on Aurora Charters to explore the Kenai Fjords. We boarded early. The boat was smaller than the one we had taken in 2000. There were about ten passengers. The weather was beautiful, but the wind was strong and there were a lot of waves, an unfortunate combination. As we got closer to the mouth of Resurrection Bay there was more open water and the turbulence and waves increased. The boat pitched and rolled a lot. Mary did not handle this well. She occupied a table in the cabin and clutched it for dear life. The other passengers were concerned for her, but I knew it was typical behavior. The Captain came down to check on her. When Kenai Fjord Cruise Mary saw the Captain, she told her “What the hell are you doing down here? Get up and drive the boat”. Despite Mary, the cruise was enjoyable. We saw much of 249

what we had seen on the cruise in 2000. That night we went to dinner and saw the Captain and some of the passengers at the restaurant. We knew Mary was the subject of their conversation.

The next day we drove to Homer where I had booked a full day on a charter to fish for Halibut. The drive from Seward was very scenic and beautiful. We stayed in a B&B on a hill overlooking Homer and Kachemak Bay. The next morning, Mary dropped me at Silver Fox Charters, three doors past the Salty Dawg Saloon. The charter boat was small and we had about 8 people plus the Captain. It was to take 8 to 10 hours. The weather was overcast and somewhat rainy. The Captain headed for his favorite spot to catch Halibut. An hour later we started fishing, but after a half hour we didn’t have any luck. The Captain was in touch with other boats and heard that some were having luck. We pulled our lines in and headed where the action was. By now the waves were bigger and the ride rougher. Three of the passengers were young oriental girls who were visiting their uncle who lived in Alaska. The girls were complaining they were feeling sick. When we arrived at the new spot we immediately started fishing and getting Halibut.

The Captain was disappointed they were not bigger. He referred to them as chickens. I was hoping for larger fish, but was happy to catch as many as I did. The waves did not subside, and after a couple of hours the girls were really sick. Their uncle told the Captain that we had to go in. He would pay for a half day for all of the passengers. Everyone was OK with that and we headed in. I called the B&B while the fish were being cleaned and Mary came down to fetch me. I had the fish flash frozen and sent to our home to arrive a day after we got back. We had enough fish for a dozen or so meals.

The next day we backtracked and drove to Kenai where we stayed at the Kenai Landing hotel. I had made reservations with Alaska Drift Away Fishing to go King Salmon fishing on the Kasilof River. Early the next morning Mary drove me to the Kasilof River Recreation Site and Boat Launch to join the boat. There were three of us plus the guide. The fish were not cooperating and only one king was caught. I regretted listening to the over-­‐coaching guide who warned everyone to make sure to give the fish a lot of time to take the bait. When I finally got a good bite he told me to wait. By the time I tried to set the hook the fish and bait were gone. Oh well. Mary went to museums and gift shops while I fished.

Kenai Peninsula In the morning we headed for Anchorage where we met Mary’s niece, Lisa Allard and her friend Robert Dean. We had reservations at Simon and Seafort, our favorite restaurant in Anchorage. We enjoyed our dinner with them and catching up on their family. The next morning we flew to Seattle on Alaska airlines, arriving early afternoon, rented an auto at Avis and drove to Vancouver, Canada where we stayed overnight at the Executive Vintage Hotel. Our destination in the morning was Whistler, a two-­‐hour drive north of Vancouver. We spent three days in and around Whistler including doing the circle drive to Lillooet and D’Arcy. This is a beautiful mountain area. While in Whistler, they had a Crank Worx bike-­‐jumping contest just outside our room. We headed back to Seattle, staying at Towne Place Suites and spent some time at Pike’s Fish Market, which is a must see. We flew back to OKC, arriving at 5:30.

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2007 Canadian Maritime Provinces−June 28th to July 14th We flew to Boston to meet with Mary’s brother, Bill, and his wife, Luanne. The next day we drove to Portland, Maine to catch a ferry to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and toured the Maritime Provinces. The following is a composite of Bill’s account, which contains comments from everyone, Mary’s trip diary, and my edits and additions.

Getting up at 4:15 am to leave at 4:45 was so much fun. We (Mary, Charlie, Lu and Bill) arrived at the CAT Ferry terminal in Portland, Maine about 7 AM and lined up to drive our car onto the ferry. The ferry carried 400 people, 160 cars and about 20 trucks to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and was ushered out of the harbor by the Coast Guard. It was about 60% full, and moved at a cruising speed of 42 mph powered by 4 9500 hp engines operating as a hydrofoil. We ate some fast food during our 5½-­‐hour journey. After we drove off the ferry, we passed through customs “forgetting” to tell them about 5 bottles of wine (over the limit) stashed in our luggage.

After getting cash from an ATM, we motored to Lunenburg, arriving at the 1775 Solomon House B&B about 6:30 PM. We were shown our rooms by Janet Palmer. Bill and Lu took the room with the ensuite bath. Mary and I took the room with the bath down the hall. Luckily we were the only guests that day.

Janet recommended the upscale Fleur de Sel for dinner. We then toured the clean and charming town and took some 1775 Solomon House B&B pictures of the waterfront area and the unique Academy building the locals call the castle. Lunenburg had fine looking 19th century buildings, many distinguished by the “Lunenburg bump”, a protruding second story bay window. We had dinner at a nearby restaurant recommended by our host. My $44 lobster was delicious. We wanted to see the “Bluenose” sailing ship, but it was not in, nor was it in Halifax along with the other tall ships. The piece d’ resistance was next morning’s breakfast, which featured Janet’s ginger scones, stewed rhubarb with ginger, blueberry jam, special juices, puff apple and pear pancakes and additional accompaniments. We left at 10 AM and toured the coastal area, stopping briefly at Mahone Bay and Peggy’s Cove en route to Halifax. Peggy’s Cove is a rocky outcropping on the coast that features a lighthouse with a post office. The weather was windy and chilly that day. It is a definite tourist location with a gift shop, art shop and even a fiddler and Peggy's Cove Light House bagpiper. It was about this time that I caught Bill’s cold and it stayed with us for the rest of the adventure.

We arrived in Halifax about 2 PM and toured the Citadel, a massive hilltop fort with steep masonry walls surrounded by a ditch. The British built it 251

Citadel

around 1858 on the site of earlier fortifications that defended the city since it’s founding in 1749. Mary and I inadvertently sneaked in by driving right past the registration booth. We were led on a walking tour by Lance Corporal Morrow – all decked out in his Highlander uniform. After checking in at the Radisson Hotel (free internet) right on the Waterfront, we walked the area and had a late lunch. Later, we enjoyed dinner at Murphy’s on the Water. The city reminded us of Duluth, Minnesota or San Francisco, with all the hills leading down to the water.

Today is Canada Day, the 140th celebration of the founding of the confederation of the Canadian provinces. Mary and I shared the room with Bill and Lu. The room was a Suite. Bill and Lu slept on the pullout couch in the sitting area. Mary and I got up and got ready, but no noise from our travelling companions. I turned up the TV volume and we made some noise. They finally woke up. After the hotel breakfast, we visited the Public Gardens, which were full of beautiful flowers. We then went to the Maritime Museum that featured exhibits on pirates and the explosion of the French Mont Blanc gunpowder carrying ship in 1918 that devastated the waterfront and killed over 1900 and left more than 8000 severely wounded. Next we then left for Cape Breton -­‐ so named by the British apparently because it had a relationship to Brittany. After checking out the ferry times in Pictou, we lunched at one of the few open pubs in New Glasgow. We arrived at Baddeck, which overlooks the Bras d’Or, a large inland salt-­‐water lake. We checked into Heidi’s B&B about 4 PM and proceeded directly to the nearby Alexander Graham Bell museum, which is very good with many of Bell’s experiments on display. Bell lived much of his later life in Baddeck. Prominently featured were the invention of the telephone, his lifelong work with the deaf who used phonics to teach them to speak (his wife was deaf), and his experiments with hydrofoils, airplanes and a fast submarine chaser.

Our host at Heidi’s was Lloyd and Shirley Murdoch. Both are Presbyterian reverends entering retirement. Lloyd was a charming outspoken man of the world with many stories and candid opinions. He gave us his read on the deplorable state of the Canadian healthcare system and other topics. He directed us to several restaurants, but Heidi's B&B we dined that evening at the Lynwood where we were serenaded by a folk/Celtic singer. We had wine and beer before and after dinner at the B&B (as we did at all of them). Lloyd is retired and did not mind if we had wine; he even provided us with wine glasses. While at Heidi’s, we were required to take our shoes off indoors. We were warned not to let their Shi-­‐tzu dog, Gizmo out.

After a breakfast with interesting banter from Lloyd, we set off to the Louisbourg Fortress, which was once a busy fortified seaport focused on cod fishing. The French settled it in 1713. During the French-­‐English war in 1744 the English took it over, and in 1749 they gave it back when the treaty was signed, only to blow it up when they defeated the French in 1760. In 1961 the Canadian Government reconstructed it to 1/5 the original size using the original plans from 1744. We got off the bus and stepped into a fishing village of 1744 with all of the characters in period costume. We then proceeded to the fortress, a walled town with an enclosed citadel where the army was garrisoned. We learned the army officers really exploited the common soldiers. There must have been 100 people dressed in costume from 1744. When you asked them a question, they responded as if they were living in that era. We were given a guided tour, did our own poking about and had a period lunch. Louisburg was a “10”.

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Louisburg Fortress

After 5 hours, we proceeded to the Glace Bay Miners Museum where we were shown a crude video and given a guided tour into the coalmine. Our hardhats and capes were needed for the underground tour of the Ocean Deeps Colliery since it was cold, damp, and dirty and 4-­‐5 feet high, the height of a seam of coal. We banged our heads a few times proceeding in a crouched position for over half-­‐hour. After that experience, we appreciated the plight of the coal miners who were mercilessly exploited by the coal company. They were dependent on the company for their homes, food and medical care – all of which was sometimes withheld. We had to applaud their attempts to form a union. The mines closed in 2001. A Swiss group is offering to open them again. Our Guide said the area is in dire need of jobs. After that we tried without success to find Bill and Lu’s friend Lydia MacNeil’s home in nearby New Waterford without success. That evening we had a good dinner at the Telegraph House.

After breakfast, we set off on a clockwise tour of the Cabot Trail, a 185-­‐ mile loop in upper Nova Scotia. We stopped at a yard full of scarecrows depicted as world famous characters (e.g., President Reagan) located in Grand e’tang (Ethel’s Diner). We stopped at Flora’s Gift Shop near Cheticamp.

Next, we entered Cape Breton Highlands National Park and experienced dramatic scenery of the coastline through to Pleasant Bay where there were many lobster traps. We looked for, but did not see moose and whales. We veered off the trail and went to see Meat Cove and its inbred inhabitants at the northernmost tip of the island. We had seafood chowder at Morrison’s and then stopped at the Celtic Lodge near Ingonish where we dipped our toes into the ocean water at a nearby beach. After passing through the scenic Camp Smokey we stopped at the Gaelic College in St. Ann. It was disappointing since Coastline on Cabot Trail no classes were in session. That night we had dinner at the Village Kitchen and ate Poutine, french fries covered in cheese and beef gravy. Bill had the loaded Poutine, which also has ground meat. Mary and Bill then went to the last half of an enjoyable Ceilidh (Celtic music) at The nearby St. 253

Michael’s Parish Hall. Mary thoroughly embarrassed Bill when she got up and danced the Galic dance. Three little children joined her.

We exited Cape Breton for Pictou County and took the ferry to Prince Edward Island. It was slower and much cheaper than the CAT and delivered us across the Northumberland Strait to the red-­‐sanded shores of PEI in 75 minutes. We immediately stopped at a nearby park and waded in the ocean water, purported to be as warm as on the Virginia coast, and then proceeded to the MacInnis B&B in downtown Charlottetown. After our host, Jean MacInnis gave us the lay of the land, we walked through the charming town to a marina. We searched without luck for a public library to use their computers.

On the way back we passed the “Cows” ice cream stands. We next drove to Cavendish on the north coast to tour the reconstructed house and grounds immortalized in “Ann of Green Gables” by Lucy “Ann of Green Gables” House Maud Montgomery. Lu and Bill even strolled on “Lovers Lane”.

Many Japanese are enthralled with AGG and go to PEI to get married. Our host told us they love the play, “Anne of Green Gables”. The Japanese laugh and cry during it. It is held nightly and we saw a number of them leaving it. The PEI countryside is generally flat and filled with well-­‐kept farms, many growing their trademark potatoes in the sandy red soil. Off shore, you see a profusion of buoys marking lobster traps that get serviced once daily. On the way back to instead for dinner at the Old Dublin Pub where we enjoyed the five-­‐piece Celtic group called the Banshees. Altogether, we were impressed with PEI and rate it a 10.Charlottetown, we bypassed two renowned Lobster Suppers held in church halls opting

Low Tide at Bay of Fundy

It was a rainy and dismal day when we left for New Brunswick. We crossed the new Confederation Bridge. The toll was $40 and, at 9 miles, is the world’s longest bridge. On our way to St. John, NB we elected to catch a few of the tourist spots along the Bay of Fundy, which experiences the world’s largest tide differential. We bypassed the world’s largest Lobster festival in Shediac to go to Cape Hopewell and saw the rocks, large sandstone edifices shaped by the large tides. Lu and Bill walked on the ocean floor, while Mary and I tried to find them. They hadn’t informed us what they were doing, and by the time we saw them, it was too late to descend the five flights of stairs before the tide came in. Oh well.

We then drove to nearby Alma to buy six of the World’s Greatest Sticky Buns at Kelley’s bakery and had lunch in the diner there.

Thru the rain and fog, we next drove to St Martin and the “Wishing Rocks”. Our view of the Reversing Falls in St. Johns (when the tide comes in, the falls go one way and reverses when it goes out) was severely hampered by the rain and fog. The downtown area where we stayed was old and rundown. After difficulty rousing the landlord for the Earle of Leinster B&B, we stowed our luggage and walked through downtown ending at Vito’s. We had an excellent meal of seafood lasagna and a cheese covered tortellini. Our waitress told us the town had 50%

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unemployment and to be very careful on our walk back to the B&B. We saw a lot of “For Sale” signs and Baptist Churches.

After a surprisingly good breakfast, we departed in rainy weather on our journey through New Brunswick and on to Quebec. We stopped twice during our long drive, once to see the longest covered bridge in the world at Hartland, and again at Grand Gorge Falls -­‐ both OK. We lunched at Edmundston and arrived in Quebec late afternoon, gaining a time zone hour. By this time, Mary was experiencing ugly cold symptoms. In bumper-­‐to-­‐ bumper rush hour traffic, we weaved our way through the clean, modern town and reached our B&B. It was in Vieux (old) Quebec, a picturesque town with a Citadel (fort), surrounded by walls at the tip of land bordered by the St Lawrence and St Charles rivers. It has a distinct European flavor with its old stone buildings and narrow streets. Vieux Quebec is situated across a small park from the boardwalk and overlooked the St. Lawrence River (Fleuve St Laurent) from a very high bluff. The small park commemorated Wolfe’s victory over Montcalm in 1769, which ended the French rule in eastern Canada. The Chateau de Lery B&B was delightful, moderately priced and quiet with the only sounds being clops from the passing horse drawn carriages. We were Chateau Frontenac very close to the main tourist attraction – the Chateau Frontenac – a large hotel built in the 1800’s on the site of the fort initially used to defend this capital of New France. We arrived during their summer festival and musicians were playing everywhere. We spent our time there in Vieux Quebec, We dined that night at l’Omelette. Mary and I returned to our room so Mary could get extra rest and recover from her cold by getting a good night’s sleep. The Allard’s strolled the town taking in the merriment present during the Summer Festival.

I got up early and walked the area including lower town next to the river not realizing I would have to climb 600 steps to return. We were all so delighted with Quebec that we cancelled our reservation in Montreal for that night to stay one more day. After breakfast, we took in an exhibit depicting the battles of Quebec and enjoyed a walking tour that was guided by Michael O’Farrell. We then walked around the town exploring the Citadel, walls, boardwalk, Chateau Frontenac, lower town and the public garden, which was on the Plains of Abraham outside the walls. Mary and I took a tram up the stairs while Bill and Lu climbed all 600 steps. We had one of the best ever fumes soissons (hot dog) on the boardwalk. We had dinner at D’Orsays Pub and watched the street performers afterwards before retiring.

The next day we traveled to Montreal in under 3 hours and checked in to the Maritime Hotel, a very nice and modern hotel well situated in the heart of downtown. We then lined up a Grey line bus tour which covered the high spots including stops at old Notre Dame Basilica (built 1829), across from Olympic Park, St. Joseph’s Oratory and Mont Royal Park which overlooks downtown Montreal. Our bus driver answered some questions people asked. He said the universal health care system is a mess. There is a shortage of doctors as they are limited on compensation, non-­‐life threatening surgery is postponed for up to 3 years, and hospital stays are restricted because of lack of staff. The government only funds 14% of health care. The other 86% goes to government agencies, roads, bridges etc. Every one is covered and private insurance is not allowed. After our routine beer and wine, we headed down Rue Ste. Catherine to Rue Crescent that had blocks of sidewalk restaurants for dinner.

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We found Montreal to be a big bustling city with an efficient clean Metro underground. As we pondered our maps, we were frequently offered help.

In the morning, Mary, Luanne and Bill piled into the car in search of the churches where the Allard ancestors were baptized. I went to the Bodyworks exhibit at a nearby museum and thoroughly enjoyed it. We (Mary, Luanne and Bill) drove north of the island and out into the country where we found St. Jacques amid farmlands. The church was a very large edifice erected in 1916. It has a capacity of 1500, but only 200 parishioners. They share a priest with 6 other parishes. The town of 4000 is the same size as it was 150-­‐200 years ago when our relatives lived there. This info was from Clone, the parish custodian, who discovered us as we were taking pictures. He gave us a good tour of the church responding to our questions in passable English, which he had not spoken in 7 years. We then met with the woman who kept the records. She spoke no English and could not find the record of our great grandfather. She took Bill’s name and address and said she would research it. She did make a comment about Monsieur Allard not knowing his native tongue. We got pictures of the old church that was established in 1774.

The original and former pastors built it in 1814. It burned down in 1914 and was rebuilt in 1916. We then went on to St. Calixte and found the church. We knocked on the door of the rectory and were met by an older woman who spoke no English. However, unbeknownst to us she summoned the man who oversaw the parish. Gilles soon arrived and gave us a nice tour and answered our questions. We were really astounded by the warm, gracious and helpful people we encountered in the French speaking countryside. The church was built in 1853. It was later destroyed in a fire in the basement. The ash and smoke destroyed the beautiful art on the walls. There are 5,500 residents in the area but very few parishioners.

In the afternoon, they returned to Montreal and I joined them. We walked down Rue Ste. Catherine to a Church Lu wanted to see. We spent some time in the underground stores and checked out Simons, the well-­‐known department store and took the subway back. We had both lunch and dinner on Rue Crescent. The next day we bagged further sightseeing and had an uneventful ride back to Sudbury, stopping at Vermont University for lunch.

We toured the area around Sudbury today. We went to Sleepy Hallow Cemetery to the Authors’ Hill. Buried there are Thoreau, Hawthorne, Alcott’s, and Emerson. We then went to the Minute Man Park and the Old North Bridge, where the first revolutionary battle was fought on April 19, 1775. Next we visited Longfellow’s Wayside Inn for a cocktail and went to David’s, Bill and Lu’s son, house.

Mary and I visited the JFK Presidential Library the next day. We had visited the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, IL the month before and were looking forward to learning additional history on the Kennedy term. Unfortunately the presentation did not meet our expectations. The displays were oriented to maintaining and perpetuating the“Camelot” image of JFK’s term. A balanced depiction of the limited historical presentations was also lacking.

JFK’s economically beneficial tax cut and the war that his Attorney General waged on the mob were not presented. One thing that stuck in my craw was the over emphasis of the Cuban Missile Crises. It failed to present the context of the final negotiations wherein the US surrendered its missile bases in Turkey. Some Historians believe Russia came out the better of the deal. Perhaps Oliver Stone is the Curator. We also toured the

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U.S.S. Constitution, Old Ironsides, and were disappointed we couldn’t get down into the hold. It took me four tries to get through security. On the last day before we flew to OKC, we had dinner at Bill and Lu’s daughter, Theresa, and husband Dave. We stopped in Gloucester and walked along the wharf.

We stopped where some of the missing fishermen were listed. We also Old Ironsides stopped in Rockport and visited the harbor and saw a great many sailboats. That was when I received a phone call from Brian. He told me he stopped by the house to check on it and the dining rom was flooded. A leak had developed in the tubing that provided water to the David & Theresa Gilbert’s Family refrigerator. It was buried in the kitchen concrete floor.

Brian had the water turned off by the fire dept and they helped him move the dining room furniture out of the water. He contacted Blackmon Mooring and they pumped water out of all the downstairs vents and took our silk oriental dining room rug to have it cleaned. We headed for Theresa’s and had a great get together with everyone, including her kids, Jake-­‐11, Maggie-­‐8, and Sarah-­‐6. Bill and Lu took us sightseeing in Boston on the way to the airport the next day.

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2008 Iceland−June 25th to July 4th We decided to do a self-­‐drive tour, circumnavigating Iceland in a rental auto. The room accommodations were reserved in advance according to a fixed schedule we planned. We visited Mary’s brother and his family in Boston before flying to Iceland. We arrived at 6:30 AM and met the man from the self-­‐drive tour company. He took us to the capital, Reykjavik, where most of Iceland’s population lives. Despite some reservation mix-­‐ups, we were able to check into our hotel and get the car delivered. A rep from the tour company visited us at the hotel and went over the details of the trip and provided maps annotated with our route and a telephone to use if we had an emergency or needed help. The temperature was in the 40 to 50 degree F range and the wind was quite Reykjavik strong, especially near the water. We went shopping for water and snacks for the car, and then walked around the old town where we saw huge old homes. We had dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant. It was good. We got to bed at 8:30 PM and planned to get up at 6 AM. We were awakened at 2 AM by tires screeching and a noisy crowd. This lasted until 6 AM. We learned that bars close on Saturday at that time. Welcome to Iceland. That explained all of the roadblocks we saw upon our arrival just out of town. The police set these roadblocks up every Sunday morning right after the bars close and haul the drunks to jail.

We had breakfast and began our drive around 8 AM. We tried to find where the Reykjavík Summit was held in October 1986 between President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s General Secretary of the Communist Party, but couldn’t as we were heading in the wrong direction. After our typical discussion on map reading, we corrected course and headed down Hwy 1 towards Pingvellir National Park. What a way to start the trip. Iceland has extensive volcanic and geothermal activity. The rift associated with the Mid-­‐Atlantic Ridge marks the division between the European and North American tectonic plate. It runs across Iceland from the southwest to the northeast. This geographic feature is prominent at the Pingvellir National Park. We visited the Geyser in Haukadalur Valley. It erupts daily, but the nearby Strokkur Geyser erupts every ten minutes. We took a pic. We then visited the Gullfoss two-­‐ tiered waterfall, followed by a visit to a 55-­‐meter crater with eerie green water. We headed for Vik where we stayed the night. Along the way we went to a beach of black volcanic sand with rock columns rising out of the water. The area is very scenic with green mountains, glaciers and many birds. The ocean view was beautiful. We saw WW II gun placements on the hills. The road in was gravel and very bumpy, but well worth the trip. We saw a lot of horses and sheep (they seem to cuddle in threes) on the drive today.

It rained off and on again throughout the day. Our hotel was five KM from Vik. We had a buffet dinner at the hotel cafeteria. Horsemeat was served, but we didn’t try it.

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Haukadalur Valley Geyser

Black Volcanic Beach

Falls

Up at 6 AM and had breakfast. Ham, salami, bread, cukes, tomatoes, yogurt, cereal and hard-­‐boiled eggs were our choices. We requested ice for our cooler and they obliged. Only Americans care about ice.

We left for the south coast drive and promptly missed our first stop. We saw Dverghamrar where the cliffs are supposed to have elves living in them.

We then visited Skaftafell National Park. The land is beautiful and the glaciers fantastic. In 1996 a volcano erupted and penetrated 1600 ft. of glacial ice, melting 5000 cubic meters per second. The resulting flood destroyed three bridges crossing the ring road (Highway 1). Over the centuries, glaciers Glacier−Skaftafell National Park

Glacial Lagoon

have significantly reduced farmland in this area. The scenery is beautiful and it seems that every corner we turned provided a Kodak moment. We saw beautiful fields of purple Lupens. There is a lot of hay grown here and the tractor eggs are wrapped in different colors. We drove to Jakulsarlon, a glacial lagoon where many movies have been shot. A lot of glacial icebergs were floating in the lagoon and headed for the open sea. Our next stop was Djupivogur, a town on the east coast. It was a long drive as the towns are few and far between. When we checked in we asked if we could have a refrigerator and were told no. The clerk made a call and we could have a room with a kitchenette for the same price. We took it. The town we stayed in was on the harbor and we could see the mountains from our room. Except 259

for the bumpy gravel road into the town, this was the best and most beautiful day so far. We bought some groceries and had dinner in our room.

After breakfast we followed the coast for Egilsstadir. We didn’t see much due to the fog and rain. We left the coast and took a narrow dirt road going north to the interior and up a mountain. Mary does not like narrow dirt roads, especially ones where her side of the car overlooks a steep hill or mountain. Even worse, we encountered a few cars and trucks headed toward us. When we started down, we saw glaciers very close to the road. We arrived in Egilsstadir and bought gas, last chance for 100 KM. We continued towards Reykjahlid near Lake Myvatn where we will spend the night. Our Guesthouse is in Vogarfarm, just across the road from the lake. During our drive we saw a lot of sheep. They were on the road and everywhere. We saw some birds that looked like swans in the harbor this morning and along the glaciers in the mountains, maybe geese. We stopped to see a geothermal power station in Krafla. We watched a movie about it and climbed six flights of stairs to look down on the operation. We drove around the complex. There were pipes all ove the place carrying steam to the turbines and we smelled sulfur everywhere. We stopped nearby Namafjall Hverir to see the boiling mud pots, fumaroles and solfataras.

Krafla Geothermal Power Station

On our way to the Guest House we stopped at a grocery store for snacks and ice cream, which we had for lunch. We couldn’t find the GH and stopped at the tourist information place. They told us to go to a local café and register for our room. We went to the Café Vogafjos and Cow Shed, which is inside a cow barn.

Our room was located across the road or the Café. We had dinner at a local restaurant and went to bed early.

We had breakfast at the Cow Shed Cafe. It occupied a corner of the barn, partioned off from the cows.

There were large widows on the walls sharing the area where the cows were milked. The milk was collected from milking machines and flowed through pipes that passed overhead in the Café. The breakfast was good and we watched the cows being fed and milked. I enjoyed hearing them moo. We 260

headed for Husavik to go whale watching. As we neared Husavik we saw large green houses heated by geothermal steam. Icelandic green houses operate 24/7 all year long and produce most of the produce consumed by the populace. Pigs and poultry are raised inside year round. In the winter, livestock is housed inside as well. We arrived five minutes before the boat took off. I was surprised Mary agreed to go whale watching on an ocean bearing boat. The last time was in Alaska and it was a disaster. As soon as we left, our Captain told us that it was too rough to go out the day before. I knew we were in for a rough time with Mary. We saw a lot of porpoise and a few old lonely grey whales. Mary reacted as usual and one of the crew asked her to go topside with her, as it was less rocky. Mary thinks she just wanted her out of sight from the other passengers. She sat on a stairway step and held on for dear life.

The next day we headed for Reykjavik, but after we drove for a while, I realized we were making better time than I thought we could. We decided to detour and visit the Snefellsnes Peninsula where the film of “Journey to the Center of the Earth” by Jules Verne was made in 2006. We managed to drive around the rim of a volcano at the tip of the Peninsula. The volcano destroyed a glacier that used to cover it. We think that was a major scene in the movie. We drove back to Reykjavik, gassed up our car and repacked for the flight back in the morning. We had dinner and got to bed around 11 PM. Up at 5 AM to eat breakfast and head for the airport. We flew Icelandic Air to New York and then took Delta to OKC. Brian picked us up and we got home around 10 PM.

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2008 Costa Rica−November 15th to 25th Brian took us to the airport. Along the way we had lunch. I had packed one suitcase for the two of us and found out it exceeded the allowable weight of 49 pounds. It weighed 62 pounds and I told the Continental check-­‐in guy it was for two, but that didn’t matter. Overweight bags cost $50 for each flight. Luckily, we had extra space in our carry on bags and I repacked it to get the weight down and avoid the penalty. We flew Continental to Houston to overnight and stayed at the Days Inn near the airport. We were taking our first group tour. It was booked through Caravan Tours and included everything, nine hotel nights, meals, transportation, everything except, taxes & fees, airfare and gratuities, all for $995 per person.

We flew Continental to San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital, cleared customs and were met by the Caravan Tour people. En route to the hotel, we saw police with guns everywhere. Hu Jintao, President of China was visiting and security was tight. Roads would soon be closed. Our hotel was next to a park and close to downtown. We checked in at the Aurola hotel and took a walk through the park.

We had dinner from the hotel buffet and went to bed. Tomorrow we must be on the tour bus by 7:30 AM. After breakfast we left for the Poas Volcano. Along the way we stopped when we spotted a Sloth with a baby hanging from a tree. Sloths have no enemies here. At the volcano we hiked a half-­‐mile to the overlook. It was raining and we didn’t see much.

We watched a film. Poas is an active volcano and has erupted frequently. It rained on and off the rest of the day. Some of the roads were closed as Hu Jintao was leaving. It took a lot longer to get to the hotel.

Our sightseeing in San Jose was cancelled due to roads being closed. We had the buffet again and turned in around 9 PM. Our impression of San Jose is that it is a very poor city with a lot of poverty and homeless people. The infrastructure is poorly maintained and has a lot of trash about. An interesting fact we learned is that Costa Rica does not have any military and cannot defend itself should it be invaded.

We were on our bus and left at 6:30 AM for the Rainforest. We drove through the Brealio Carrillo Park, but couldn’t see anything because of the rain and haze. When we got to the Rainforest, we were told a bridge had washed out and would have to come back later in the week. We headed for Tortuguero Park. Four and a half hours later we stopped at a banana plantation and watched the bananas being processed. We continued to a waterway where we boarded a boat with our travel bag and cruised to the Pachira Lodge where we would spend the next two nights. Fortunately, the boat was covered as it was raining quite hard. Upon arrival, we had lunch and then checked into our cabin. All of the cabins were separate and had large windows with screens, no glass. We couldn’t drink the water or flush toilet paper. Used toilet paper had to be put in a trashcan. There were a lot of monkeys in the trees surrounding the lodge and we got a kick out of watching their antics. The rain did not let up and we spent the afternoon in our cabin reading and napping.

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The next morning we left on a boat trip though the Cano Plama wildlife reserve. The boat was open and we saw many iguanas, herons, and monkeys. We returned to the lodge and had a snack before we took the boat to the turtle reserve station and Tortuguero Village. It started to rain and we walked the beach in our ponchos. We returned to the lodge for lunch. Mid afternoon we went on the boat for a tour of the park where we saw more of the same animals plus a crocodile. We headed back when it started to rain as the boat was getting a lot of water in it. So far, we have not had any sun here. The food here has been good and tonight there is a Calypso band performing, three guys singing and playing a drum, banjo and a stick and string.

In the morning the monkeys awakened us about 5 AM. This happens every morning if the frogs don’t beat the monkeys to it. We left by covered boat at 7:15 AM. We backtracked on the same route as before and had lunch at 11:30. We took a tram ride over the rainforest and saw it from many different angles. It was a fantastic experience, seeing many different species of trees and some animals. We crossed a 300-­‐foot suspension bridge on a walk though the rainforest. This is one of the top attractions in Costa Rica. On the way to Fortuna in the San Carlos Valley, our bus broke down. Luckily, another bus stopped and helped repair it. The ac belt had broken and was replaced. We arrived at the Arenal Manoa hotel around 8:30.

Mary was excited about our room. It was very large and had ac, flush toilets that were toilet paper capable, a large bed and reliable electricity. The hotel staff decorated each room with towels that were sculpted to look like animals. Our room had a white dog and a puppy on our bed. Another room had Rainforest swans, and someone else had elephants.

We left at 7:30 AM and drove through sugar cane, teak and orange plantations. We cruised the Rio Frio, which runs through the Cano Negro wildlife refuge. We saw a lot of different animals and birds. The cruise went to the Nicaragua border. I asked to go ashore on the Costa Rica side and they accommodated me. I walked up to the barbwire fence demarking the border and stuck my foot through it, touching the ground and logging another country. We returned to Fortuna for ice cream and shopping. We went to the volcanic hot springs and spa. I soaked in the water. It was very relaxing.

Mary didn’t as she wanted to catch up on the trip journal, but didn’t, spending the time talking to some of our entourage.

CFA at Nicaruga Border

The next morning we drove thru the Childrens Eternal Rainforest, which was purchased from donations by children around the world to be preserved 263

forever. It was raining and we didn’t see much. We then entered a cloud forest reserve and put on our ponchos. We walked in the rain and saw a lot of humming birds, yellow birds, and teak and ficus trees. The rain subsided as we headed north across the continental divide. The weather was much improved and we finally saw the sun. Our hotel was a Hilton Doubletree Resort. We stayed two nights and the drinks were free. We relaxed around the hotel pool the next day and attended a cooking class in the afternoon. After dinner we attended a concert. We left at 8:30 the next morning and headed to San Jose and the hotel we stayed at our first day. Along the way we toured a coffee plantation and attended a play in a theater that depicted the history of coffee. It was very funny and entertaining. As soon as we got to the hotel, Mary and I strted repacking to make sure we didn’t exceed the 50 pounds luggage weight restriction. That night, Caravan tours held a goodbye dinner at the gourmet restaurant in the hotel. We got to bed at 9 PM and were up at 3:30 AM. Our flight was at 7:30. We managed to avoid overweight fees, as our bag weighed 51.5 pounds. They didn’t seem to notice that. Our flight was bumpy. After we cleared customs in Houston, we caught our flight back to OKC. Overall, the trip was enjoyable. Caravan Tours selected first rate hotels and the food was quite good. We had rain for most of the trip, but Costa Rica is very lush and green and the people are friendly. We had a great group, 46 people, mostly couples, on the tour and we all got along well.

Various US Short Trips−2005 thru 2014 •

In October 2005, we visited Doris and Bob in Peculiar, Missouri. We drove to Jefferson City to see the State capital.

We then drove to Rocheport near the Missouri River to hike the Katy Trail, which is an old railroad bed that stretches 225 miles across most of the state of Missouri and follows the Lewis and Clark’s trail along the Missouri river. It has been converted into a major public trail and is very popular. By the time we reached Rocheport it was pouring rain. We hiked nine miles under umbrellas. Most people bike the trail, and the rain didn’t bother the bikers at all. We later met Shirley and Dale Smith, my aunt and uncle in Columbia for dinner at a restaurant overlooking the river.

South Carolina Swamp Tour

• In early November 2005, we took a long weekend and flew to Charleston, North Carolina, a beautiful old city with a lot of history. We stayed in a B&B that was built in 1832 and is close to downtown. We visited the various islands and attractions surrounding the city. The food, especially the seafood, was wonderful. We learned an incredible amount about the civil war from the Confederate viewpoint.

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Katy Trail

We returned to Charleston in October 2007 and spent most of out time seeing the countryside around Charleston and visiting Myrtle Beach for two days. Charleston is a great place to visit.

• In June 2006, we got together with Doris and Bob in Southern Missouri for a weekend. We visited Neosho, Missouri to see The George Washington Carver National Monument and his home. I remember being fascinated by his life story when I read about it in high school.

George Washington Carvers Home

•

In mid-­‐June 2007, we flew to St. Louis and met Doris and Bob. We visited the nearby Cahokia Indian Mounds State Park and went to Peoria to spend the night. The next day we took the Spirit of Peoria paddleboat up the Illinois River to Starved Rock State Park. We stayed overnight in a lodge near the park.

We cruised back to Peoria the next day and then drove to Springfield to spend the night. We visited the Lincoln Presidential Library in the morning for several hours. It was very educational and well done. We then went to St. Louis to check baggage and Spirit of Peoria pick up a rental car to drive to St. Clair to visit my 85-­‐year-­‐old aunt Margaret Eime. She was in good shape and mentally sharp. We left her and returned to St. Louis to fly to OKC.

•

In December 2007, we spent a week over Christmas holidays in Utah at the Solitude Ski Resort close to Salt Lake City. We had a large condo and cooked most of our meals. Jennifer, Sammi, Brian and his girlfriend, Justine were with Mary and I. The kids all went downhill skiing while Mary and I went snowshoeing and cross country skiing. I ventured out on the bunny slope without injuring myself. Daughter Jennifer encouraged me to try a more challenging slope and I soon found myself hurling uncontrollably down the slope and broke my left wrist.

CFA Skiing

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•

In July 2008, we drove to Kansas and met Doris and Bob to attend the Symphony in Flint Hills. It was at a Ranch and the Kansas City Symphony performed. Before the music started the ranch’s cowboys drove a herd of cattle in the distance. We stayed at a motel in a nearby town for several nights and enjoyed visiting some of the small old towns in the area.

Doris & Bob

MEA Getting a Wagon R ide

•

In August 2009, we flew to Boston to visit Mary’s brother and his wife, Bill and Luanne, in Sudbury Massachusetts. Their son, Bob, and his wife, Gina, were visiting from Arizona and we were glad we could see them. We saw their son David and daughter Terri and her husband and children.

We visited Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard house and Salem, the witch town. We spent one day driving the Cape.

•

In late September 2010, we flew to Colorado Springs and met Doris and Bob to tour Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico. They drove from Peculiar, Missouri and we took their car for the trip. We spent three to four days, starting by driving to Pagosa Springs where we spent the night. The next day we went to Chama, New Mexico for breakfast and then visited Los Ojos where they raise a species of European sheep that produces much sought after wool. We visited a weaving business there. The pieces they weave are works of art. We then drove to Tierra Amarillo where there was a famous gunfight. From there we drove to the Ghost Ranch, the home of Georgia O’Keefe, a famous artist who painted nature and western landscapes.

Rio Grande Scenery−Alamosa to LaVita

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Los Ojos Wool

We then went to Alamosa for the night. The next day caught Rio Grande Scenic Railroad from Alamosa to La Veta in South Central Colorado. It was an old railroad track and top speed was maybe 30 mph. The scenery was gorgeous, mostly through mountains with aspens that had fall colors. A live band played tunes throughout the ride. The train paused for several hours in La Veta where we had lunch and enjoyed Oktoberfest. The train had a lot of passengers and many of them had purchased the option of “all the beer you want included”. Things got a little sloppy at the end. The next day we returned to Colorado Springs, stopping at the Great Sand Dunes National Park on the way. We spent the night near the airport and flew to OKC the next day.

•

In 2012 we visited Sullivan, Missouri for a weekend to attend a reunion of cousins from the Blesi side. Most of them were able to attend. We had a great time and visited the cemetery where my Blesi Grandparents are buried. We also visited their farm and some of the surrounding area that had historical significance I wasn’t aware of. Glen Blesi is the Historian for Franklin County and took us to an old airstrip in the Spring Bluff area that was used for pilot training in WW II.

Blesi Cousins

•

In November 2012, we took an extended weekend to see Washington DC. We stayed in Baltimore near the Inner Harbor at a Marriott property using my Reward Points. We took the train to and from Washington DC, about an hour commute one way. During the next three days we visited the Capitol, getting a personal guided tour from James Langford’s office, the Smithsonian, where we visited a number of museums including the National Air and Space Museum, the Natural History Museum, etc. We went to the White House, but didn’t have reservations to take the tour. We visited the WW II Memorial, the Korean War Memorial and The Vietnam War Memorial where we found Capitan Carl Bockewitz’s name. He was killed February 28, 1967 by hostile small arms fire and was Doris’s high school classmate. That was a moving experience when I located his name.

On the last day we went to the Supreme Court and watched the Justices hear a case. It was fascinating to hear the questions they asked and see the postures the various Justices took during the hearing. On our way to the train station, I left my camera in the back seat of a taxi. I tried to find it by using Craig’s List, but without results.

•

In June 2013, Jennifer, Sammi, Brian and I floated the Colorado River. Floating in a river with rapids isn’t Mary’s idea of a good time, so she stayed home. The float lasted four days and three nights. Everything was included, meals, tents, non-­‐alcoholic beverages, everything. The guides cooked the meals and took care of the toilets. Brian and I drove from OKC to Moab, stopping to overnight along the way. Our first stop was in Burlington, CO where we toured the Old Town Museum Complex. Next, we headed for Boulder, stopping for lunch in Denver. We stayed near

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the University of Colorado, Pearl Street Mall and the Boulderado Hotel. The next day we went to Estes Park and drove through the Rocky Mountain National Park and took the scenic route to Leadville. The scenery was fantastic. We continued to Aspen and then to Carbondale and stayed with Peg and Al Steldt where they have retired. We then drove to Grand Junction and picked Jennifer and Samantha up at the airport.

Floating the Colorado River

We arrived in Moab, Utah mid afternoon and made arrangements to leave our car at our motel while we floated the river. We went shopping and bought beer and soda for the trip. The next morning we met Western River Tours at a tourist information center. There were about 25 people that would be taking the trip. Four rafts were required. The float started just south of Moab where the Colorado River and Green River meet, the beginning of Cataract Canyon. Bolstered by the Green River, the Colorado River doubles its force, and has carved a deep 100-­‐mile-­‐long chasm through the heart of Canyonlands National Park. We encountered class III-­‐V whitewater rapids.

Almost everyone in the group, except the guides, one other person and me, ended up being swept into the river when we hit the rapids. We had to “rescue” those overboard. There were calm stretches of water that wound through canyons and impressive geologic formations. We stopped to hike and explore ancient Native American ruins and pictographs. Sleeping under the stars was fantastic. We were far removed from the ambient light of civilization and you could see more stars than you knew existed, even satellites could be seen passing overhead. At the end of the trip we flew back to Moab in a small plane, passing over Canyonlands National Park. We took Jennifer to the Moab airport for her flight back to Austin. Sammi was going to spend a week with Mary and I. She, Brian and I drove back, taking a different route on the western and southern part of Colorado. We went through Amarillo and onto OKC. •

In October 2013, we took an extended weekend and visited the San Juan Islands in Washington.

We flew to Seattle, picked up a rental auto and went to Pikes Market for lunch. We drove to Oak Harbor, near the Anacortes ferry terminal, and stayed in a motel there. Up early, we took the ferry to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island where we had booked an apartment, Courtyard Suites, owned by a private party. It had a small living area, full kitchen, bedroom and private parking space. It was conveniently located near the ferry terminal and downtown. That afternoon we explored the island, driving south on the east side to the end on Cattle Point Road. We returned 268

to Friday Harbor via the west and north routes. We had a take-­‐n-­‐bake Pizza from King Fu for dinner and went to bed early. We went whale watching the next day.

T h San Juan Whale Watching Cruise−Photos Courtesy of Guide

There were about fourteen on the whale watch boat. The weather was clear and we saw porpoise, stellar seals, harbor seals, and a couple of eagles. One was killing a seagull and the other was eating a fish. Finally we saw two humpback whales. We were going to circumnavigate the island and were about a third of the way when we received a radio call that the resident Orca Whales had been seen where we had started. We turned back and were rewarded with Orca’s breaching and diving. Seeing their fluke going down is an awesome sight. That night we took in a movie, “Gravity”. The next day we drove to Roche Harbor, where a lot of the rich and famous have their yachts and sailboats. In the afternoon we visited the Whale Museum. San Juan is where a lot of whale research is conducted. In the morning we took the ferry back to the mainland, stopping on Orcas Island on the way. We went to Moran State Park and Mt. Constitution. The drive was very pretty. We drove to our hotel in Renton, WA, the Larkspur. We had Dungeness crab cakes and lobster Pernod chowder with sweet potato fries for dinner, delicious. The next morning we flew to OKC, arriving at 5 PM.

•

In late September 2014 we attended my 55th high school class reunion in Sullivan, Missouri. The reunion committee had selected this time for the event at the request of the out-­‐of-­‐towners that wanted to see the Ozark fall foliage. We drove to Sullivan and stayed at the Bay Mont Motel where Doris and Bob, Jack Reed, and Don and Rosemarie Bartel also stayed. Doris and Bob, Mary and I spent Saturday driving among HS Class of ‘59−Picture Taken at 1994 R eunion the old neighborhoods 269

and haunts. The reunion was well attended by about 65 people. It was great to see so many of the Class of ’59 schoolmates and get caught up on each other. Our plan was to take advantage of the fact that half of the miles had been commited by driving to Sullivan. The rest of the trip was a little more than double the mileage, 2300 miles total.

We drove to Memphis, Vicksburg, and New Orleans, and then to Austin to visit Jennifer, Tom and Sammi and see their new home. We arrived in Memphis mid-­‐afternoon and found our lodging, a bedroom in a loft apartment occupied by an Economics Professor. The room was half of what we would have paid a hotel and the location was great. We booked it online through AirBnB, our first experience with this service. Mary wasn’t impressed and said it would be our last. We’ll see. An art festival was in process and only a block from our room. We spent the afternoon looking at the exhibits, which were of high quality. We had ice cream at the Arcade Restaurant, the oldest restaurant in Memphis. It was established in 1919. That night we ate at Central BBQ and enjoyed the live music. In the morning we had breakfast at the Arcade and walked the famous Bealle Street where all of the Honky Tonk, music stores, antique shops and restaurants are located. We returned to the Arcade and had ice cream. Two blocks from our room was the Civil Rights Museum and we took a tour of it. The museum is built around the former Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. We spent over two hours and closed the place up. That night we ate at Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken, a must do if you haven’t done it.

The next day we drove to Vicksburg, MS. The drive to Memphis involved a lot of fall foliage, but all we saw on the way to Vicksburg was cotton fields and flat land. We upgraded our hotels by staying at a Fairfield Marriot property. I used my Marriott Rewards points for that and the rest of the trip. We had breakfast at the Rockhaven restaurant in Clarksville, one of the best, and cheapest, of the trip. In Vicksburg we toured the county courthouse and learned the Confederate perspective of the Civil War. In the morning we drove to New Orleans via Jackson, MS. We stayed at the Residence Inn on St. Joseph St. That afternoon we explored the French Quarter and had ice cream at Antoine’s Annex. We were on a quest to find the studio that represented Glenna Goodacre, the renowned sculpture. We were in NO in 2000 and visited it, but after the 2005 Katarina Hurricane most of the businesses have shut down or relocated. We encountered a lady on Bourbon Street that chastised us for being there. She told us the area was trash, that we were above it, and she should know. She lived there. That night we planned to eat at a restaurant Jennifer and Tom recommended, but Mary was too tired. Instead we had hors d'oeuvres and wine on the house at the hotel.

The next day we got up early and walked two blocks to the WW II Museum. It is first rate and we spent three hours just on the exhibits. If we had more time e could have seen some optional items. Highly recommended. In the afternoon we took a bus tour and saw the area most damaged by Katrina. A lot of rebuilding has been accomplished, but a lot hasn’t. The city allows the owners to keep their property if they pay the taxes and have removed everything in the interior down to the studs. Before we left on the trip, I tried to locate the contact information of the couple that visited us after Katrina. They had to evacuate their apartment and leave New 270

Orleans. Peggy Steldt was a good friend of the wife, Yanuzzi, and called us to see if we would let them stay with us as they made their way north to old friends. We hosted them for about three days and enjoyed their visit. We learned that Yanuzzi’s husband died and we wanted to contact her during our visit, but couldn’t’ find her contact info. We visited a graveyard, the city park and went through the Garden District. That night we had Gumbo Soup, Shrimp and Battered Fish at Peche, a new gourmet restaurant two blocks from our hotel.

On the way to back we saw a lot of young people in Halloween costumes rushing ahead of us. They stopped at the next street where there was live music. We went there and found out that the “Krew Boo” parade was coming through this area. Krew Boo is an annual event the day before Halloween. Nest to Mardi Gras, it is one of the biggest tourist attractions in NO. We didn’t know about it.

The parade lasted an hour. Over half of the costumes were gross skeletons. Sometimes you just stumble onto the neatest things.

We stayed north of Houston, near Conroe the next night and arrived in Austin around 10 AM. Sammi was on her school’s volleyball team and in the playoffs. Her team won the first round and played the next round for the championship. Her Sammi With Volleyball Champion Trophy team won and she was very proud. We returned to OKC the next day.

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Decorative Arts International

Jeff & Julie

With increased emphasis on International art trends, Decorative Arts International heritage of more than forty years of providing exquisite fine art with superb craftsmanship and industryleading quality continues and is enhanced with its Fine Artist Partnership Program. This will expand DAI’s original artwork that reflects the latest global trends featuring unique and exclusive Giclee Art. Our customers will receive the same excellence in manufacturing and customer service that is DAI’s hallmark.

DAI’s management is under the talented direction of Jeff Amend, President, and Julie McBride, VP of Sales and Marketing, son and daughter of Bob and Diane Amend who founded Decorative Arts in 1969.

Developing elegant designs and superlative finishes coupled with unique and exclusive art continues to be the driving force at Decorative Arts International. Our talented and loyal staff shares our values of excellence and service with a diligence that is apparent in every detail of our work, and in our strong relationships with retailers, interior designers and other professionals.

As a leading designer and manufacturer in the industry, Decorative Arts is unsurpassed in providing sophisticated and elegant wall décor of the highest quality of craftsmanship and materials. We've been at the forefront of creating original designs and unique techniques. Whether it is in the exquisite details of the borders or in our innovative finishing techniques for frames, mats and prints, art lovers around the world admire the subtleties of our work. Indeed, we are often told that we have mastered the art of wall decor.

Decorative Arts is a leading USA manufacturer of wall décor, sourcing significant material domestically.

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We strive to employ best practices, including green manufacturing and, where possible, sourcing from vendors that employ green practices as well.

Our team of highly talented artisans creates original and extraordinary work so our clients can offer trend-­‐ setting products. We accomplish this by using the finest raw materials, collecting exquisite artwork, and establishing relationships, which enable us to introduce 1200 new, fresh and exciting products annually, thereby meeting your expectations of sophistication and originality. This also gives you the opportunity to offer a wide spectrum of choices throughout the year to customers with wide ranging tastes at a set of price points appropriate for a variety of budgets.

As a winner and multiple time nominee of the Arts Award Wall Décor Manufacturer of the Year, our customers have the assurance they will receive the unsurpassed in product, quality and service.

DAI Facility−200 E Hill St., OKC

The foregoing was excerpted from Decorative Arts International’s (DAI), web site, a company I acquired in August 2009. This saga began earlier in the year when I received a call from my neighbor Bill Amend. His brother, Bob, was desperately attempting to sell Decorative Arts Inc. (DA Inc.), which had fallen on hard times and was nearing bankruptcy. In its heyday, DA Inc. employed over fifty people and had annual sales in excess of $6 Million. It occupied a 40,000 sq. ft. facility that housed offices, manufacturing and warehousing. Bob needed professional help and Bill wanted me to meet with Bob to see if I could be of service. I got in touch with Bob. During our initial meeting, I reluctantly agreed to list the business. I had a limited number of buyer prospects I was working with that might be interested. I questioned if it was saleable as cash flow was negative and sales were rapidly deteriorating. On subsequent visits to the business I became quite familiar with it and was impressed with the quality of the people and their manufacturing process and thought there must be a buyer for it.

DA Inc.’s demise had been triggered by several factors. Gross margins had declined due to an accounting software change that failed to update product cost when material costs increased, the business abruptly, and without warning, lost a major sales rep organization in 2007 that generated over 25% of sales, and overhead 273

costs had increased substantially without adjustment until severe damage was done. Those factors, plus restrictions placed on DA Inc. by their working capital lender, FCC, concerning payments to vendors and earned commissions to sales reps hindered DA Inc.’s ability to function. Sales reps were unwilling to place orders and vendors would not fulfill purchase orders without advance payment. FCC approved each of these expenditures. Customer payments went into a lock box for disbursement by FCC as they determined. The payments were mostly applied to pay down debt owed them by DA Inc. Another aggravating factor was the subprime mortgage crisis that resulted in the collapse of the United States housing bubble and failure of many of the United States' largest financial institutions, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Citi Bank, AIG, and a crisis in the automobile industry. The Great Recession officially started in 2007 and ended in 2009, but its effects coupled with Obama economics adversely impacted the health of the economy, especially the home goods industry, throughout the time I owned DAI, and beyond.

Despite these hurdles, I was convinced that a buyer for DA Inc. could be found. By the end of March I had two viable and interested buyer prospects. One buyer dropped out of consideration in late May and DA Inc. was getting dangerously close to bankruptcy. Production was down to several days a week and all but 17 of the work force had been terminated. The Offering Memorandum was revised in late June to make the sale of DA Inc. more attractive to the remaining prospect.

Mary and I left on vacation to Ireland July 5th with the expectation that an offer would soon be forth coming. I contemplated making an offer myself if the remaining buyer didn’t come through. Near the end of the trip, I received an email from him that he was going to pass. I considered the pros and cons of buying DA Inc. and came to the conclusion that the business could be turned around. The amount of capital I would have to inject initially was quite manageable and I could remove the constraints that FCC had placed on the business and get it turned around in a short period of time. There were significant orders waiting to be sent in by the field sales force to carry the business for several months. In the meantime sales should ramp to the point that additional capital infusion would be minimized. I called Bob from Ireland and told him I would give him an offer within a week. The offer was made and the deal closed on August 26th. I was now in the business of manufacturing and wholesaling framed wall décor with an organization that had a lot of holes to plug and rebuilding.

All of the existing employees were offered employment with the new entity, Decorative Arts International, LLC, at their previous salary with DA Inc. In addition, their seniority, but not any vacation accruals, was carried into DAI and their health benefits reinstated. The existing management team would be responsible for day-­‐to-­‐day operations and I would provide oversight and strategic direction. I elected to not have an office on premise. I assumed the FCC debt and agreed to a schedule for payment of the sales commissions that were owed to sales reps by DA Inc. This was necessary to motivate them to resume selling DAI’s line.

The sales reps were independent and carried a number of other lines for the home furnishings accessories industry. In addition I provided DAI with a working capital loan in an amount that was to cover needs until the business achieved self-­‐sustaining cash flow.

Prior to closing, I was in negotiation with Xerox Corporation to buy the color printing press they had leased to DA Inc. a year earlier. Xerox ceased servicing the equipment when DA Inc. fell in arrears for the monthly lease and maintenance of $3500 per month. The printer was highly sophisticated and had color correction 274

capability. It was used to print the sales catalogs and enlarged images of art requested by sales reps for presentation to their customers. It was a critical capability as quick turn around customer proofs was essential. Outside printing sources couldn’t satisfy the turn around nor meet the exacting color requirements demanded by DAI. The OKC Xerox service company determined that Xerox would not lease the equipment to DAI, but would sell it at a 40% discount plus the monthly maintenance fee of $500. I wanted to avoid putting additional assets into DAI and decided to purchase the equipment and lease it to DAI. The service company wrote up an agreement and submitted it to Xerox Corporation for approval. It was rejected with the explanation that my business plan was to weak. I never submitted one. Apparently the person in charge of the sale of used equipment had other customers in mind. The service people were not happy with this. They used DA Inc., as a prestigious customer reference since printing art catalogs, and small art items for framing, was an exacting process. In the world of art, you can’t just print something that is sort of the color of the image. It has to be the exact color. There are a lot of variables that need to be compensated for to achieve this. Xerox service had spent many hours and visits to DA Inc. to get the printer fine-­‐tuned to meet those rigorous standards. They did not want to give up the bragging rights of having the industry’s most color critical installation and went to bat for me. They went over the head of the guy in charge of used equipment sales, made the case for DAI, and got it approved shortly after the purchase of DAI was closed.

Early on, I attempted to establish third party printing business. At the first trade show in High Point, I contacted several companies that offered a full range of products and published catalogs similar to those DAI did. The Phillips Collections had an exotic array of offerings. They were interested and gave DAI an order to print one of their seasonal catalogs. Jeff had a good relationship with them and was able to tune our quote to make it competitive with their China source. DAI won that bid and subsequent orders were placed.

Further marketing efforts were made to secure additional printing business with the intent of generating enough to offset the rent and maintenance of the Xerox printing press. I attempted to have Bob take the lead on securing additional customers to no avail. The printing business didn’t get adequate effort and additional customers were far and few.

While I was trying t sell DA Inc., I learned that the market was developing for Giclee’s, which are printed on high resolution ink jet printers. One of my first priorities was to identify a printer that would meet the needs of DAI in publishing Giclee’s. I ended up selecting a recent introduction by Epson. It printed on both canvas and paper, up to 44 inches wide and as long as practical. It had 12 inkwells for the various colors and produced resolution of up to 3 Million plus ink droplets per square inch. Again, I purchased the equipment and leased it to DAI. Supporting this printer required a full time operator. DAI had a part time graphics artist when DAI started and she was brought on full time. All we needed was digital images to print. With this print capability, DAI could manipulate a given digital image to produce countless variations. Images could be cropped, scaled to different sizes, color palettes modified, etc. Expanding the product set was cost effective and produced on demand. Inventory and freight cost were eliminated for Giclee’s, which would increasingly represent a larger share of production as time went on. The Epson Giclee printer was fully functional in January 2010.

With the Giclee print capability, DAI developed a formal program to encourage artists to enter into licensing agreements for their work. Once a licensing agreement, including royalties for the artist, was worked out, DAI obtained a high-­‐resolution digital image of the art item and produced it on the Giclee printer. As it 275

turned out, artists do not think or behave like most business people and the response was disappointing. The major success of the program was the arrangement we arrived at with Barbra Cosgrove, a leading designer of lighting products. Barbra was not only a great lamp designer, but she was an accomplished artist. She owned her own company that manufactured and wholesaled her designs and she had strong industry presence with her own trade showrooms and sales reps. DAI debuted her first art introductions in our High Point, NC show room at the spring 2011 trade show, a semi annual event, which was the dominate show in the home furnishings industry. Each year she launched a series of new introductions. She was creative and always searching for a theme that would be commercially successful. Barbra was every bit a businesswoman as she was a creative designer and artist. Over the years, she received substantial royalties form DAI. DA Inc.’s’ web site had been created about ten years previous to DAI. It was hopelessly outdated and awkward to use. Updating the database of images was extremely time consuming and the web site was prone to crash. Restarting it was a major effort. With a new owner and name it had to be updated to reflect that. Brian was an accomplished web site designer and had won a national competition for his work on the University of Central Oklahoma’s web site. He undertook the task to update and rebrand the DA Inc. web site, a major undertaking. It was done in phases. The first was to reflect the name and ownership change with emphasis on changes being made to DAI’s business, such as the Artist Partnership Program and increased sales and show room coverage. The second phase was to totally overhaul the web site using a new open source platform, Magento, which was one of the most robust available. Magento had a community of independent developers constantly creating cost effective plug in’s. This allowed DAI to offer features that made the web site more useful to customers and DAI employees. A lot of time was devoted to defining those features and getting them implemented. Jeff, Julie, Brian and myself spent several afternoons a month for nearly a year working on the definitions. Brian spent a lot of evenings and weekends doing the development and testing. I invested in equipment to host the website and had it installed at a company that provided colocation service and the support necessary to keep the web site functional 24/7. When we finally launched it in early 2011, we received a lot of positive feedback from the sales reps and customers. Out of pocket costs were several thousand dollars. If a professional web site developer had implemented it, it would have cost $20 to 40 Thousand.

An early challenge was to secure credit terms with DAI’s vendors, most of whom had been left holding the bag as DA Inc. had stiffed them and they were reluctant to extend terms to anyone associated with DA Inc. Most of them would accept payment by credit card, and as time went on extended normal thirty-­‐day terms.

Luckily, I had acquired a Business Platinum AMEX card in the name of my business brokerage company. It had no limits on amounts charged provided the balance was paid in full when due. That really helped. It took two years to convert all but a few vendors to payment terms. Not a single vendor of DA Inc. declined to do business with DAI. At the time DAI commenced operation, there was only one trade showroom and approximately twenty sales reps. Sales coverage was woefully lacking in the South central and Western regions of the USA, and in four states in the Midwest. There was no International coverage. Increasing sales was critical to surviving and financial viability. DAI had to increase sales to achieve the break-­‐even point. Once that happened, each dollar of sales above break-­‐even contributed 45 cents to the bottom line. When word got out that DA Inc. was being bought, the owner of a sales rep organization that serviced the South central region contacted 276

Julie and set up a meeting. Bill Reiman was the owner and he had a show room in the Dallas World Market Center and carried a number of product lines from important manufacturers. Bill’s territory was Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. His showroom was open year round and sold the items he represented off the show room floor, as well as taking orders from walk in traffic. DWMC held a trade show event in January and one in June. That was when DAI would update the showroom with new introductions, an expensive event. Bill had about four reps in the field plus people staffing the show room. Before the end of 2009, Bill and his people were representing DAI and generating orders. DAI populated his showroom in time for the January show. Our relationship with Bill plugged a significant coverage hole.

Our next major challenge was to increase sales and marketing coverage where none existed, particularly in the western half of the US. We were really stretched thin in the sales support and marketing area, which was headed up by Julie. In addition she was responsible for new product design and introductions. Under a smooth well-­‐oiled machine that would have been ok, but with limited staff and the necessity to recruit new sales resources, train new sales reps, and manage key customer relationships, she was overwhelmed despite working sixty hours plus a week. She didn’t have the bandwidth to adequately focus on new sales recruitment. We decided to hire a senior industry assistant for her to focus on the sales area. Fortunately, Donna Westbrook approached us. The company she worked for had just closed its doors due to a lawsuit.

Donna was the primary sales and marketing person there and had previously been a sales rep and sold art, a critical skill. She had a great reputation and was well known in the industry. Early in 2010 we hired Donna part time as a sales consultant, but in reality she had hire and fire authority over DAI’s sales reps. Donna lived in Dallas and periodically visited DAI in OKC. Soon after Donna joined DAI, she reconnected with Lance Bissell, owner of Dillon Wells, a Sales Rep organization that covered the Western region and had a permanent show room in the World Market Center in Las Vegas, an important trade show venue for the home furnishings industry. Like the Dallas showroom, it was open year round and staffed to sell off the floor and from the factory. DAI stocked the LVWMC in time for the summer show and entered into an agreement with The Bianca Group, a sales rep organization that covered the North West and Western Canada. Donna was also instrumental in hiring a sales rep organization to cover MINK, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas, as well as individual sales reps to cover selected states.

Donna had a long-­‐term relationship with Barbra Cosgrove and was instrumental in introducing DAI and Barbra to each other.

By the time DAI’s first anniversary came and went, a lot of progress had been made in building the sales and marketing infrastructure. Now, the key question was, can sales increase to the point where cash flow was sustainable? DAI had a ways to go. Each sales rep organization came under increased scrutiny as did the individual independent sales reps. I found it difficult to get the attention of Jeff and Julie sufficiently long to conduct meaningful discussions. Not only was the latest phone call interrupting us, but also there was would be pressing matters that their people wanted their opinion on or a decision from them. Another problem was with Bob Amend, the founder. When I bought DAI, I retained all of the employees, including Bob and his wife, Diane. Bob was assigned the role of senior consultant to Jeff, Julie and me. Diane was the companies lead product designer, an essential role. Bob, never adjusted to the fact that he wasn’t running the company and second-­‐guessed many of my major decisions. He frequently found an excuse to intervene in my meetings with Jeff and Julie. I decided to conduct strategy meetings off site and I started holding mid to late 277

afternoon meetings with them at my home three to four times a month. Brian joined us when we needed to discuss web site matters.

An early casualty was Bill Reiman’s South Central sales rep organization. It was apparent that Bill was a star salesman, but he was covering too much territory and needed to hire one or two additional sales people to generate the needed sales. In addition there were substantial accounts throughout Texas that weren’t being cultivated. Despite much prodding from Julie and Donna, Bill resisted adding people. It was time to make a change and Elle was hired to replace Reiman near the end of 2011. Elle had better sales coverage and presence in a lot of the key accounts, but lacked adequate show room space to properly display DAI’s line.

Our hopes were that they would compensate by being effective with the larger key accounts. As I recall, sales improved, but not sufficiently. Julie was approached by Jane Kieke, owner of Taylors on Ten, one of the most prestigious rep organizations in the South Central region. She had an enormous show room presence in the Dallas World Market Center and had just lost a line that occupied about 2200 square feet. Her show rooms were open year round and her sales people in the show room were interior designer savvy. Jane had the best sales coverage as anyone in the South Central Region. In addition Jane didn’t have a viable mainstream art line to rep. DAI was a great fit and she was just what we needed. I was very impressed with her professionalism and the way she managed her business and sales reps. DAI was ready to participate in the January 2012 trade show.

DAI TOT Show Room−Dallas World Market Center

DA Inc.’s, showroom in High Point North Carolina at the International Home Furnishings Center had been shrunk to about 1200 square feet by the time I took over the business. The showroom was sublet from Mike Straaton. He owned the Mid West and South East sales rep organizations that represented DAI’s line and about ten other manufacturers products. Most of those lines sublet space in the showroom as well. IHFC conducted two trade shows annually. These were the furniture and accessories industries most important trade show venues, attracting exhibitors and customers throughout the world. As an industry manufacturer, if you didn’t have presence at the IHFC, you weren’t a player and wouldn’t be considered viable by the major customers, most of whom went to those shows to select merchandise for the next sales season. They frequently wrote orders in the show room. The showroom space was about half of what was needed to have a serious presence and adequately display DAI’s line of best sellers and new introductions. Several months before the fall 2010 show, DAI was offered the opportunity to increase space to about 2100 square feet. This required relocating to a nearby space and acquiring new display walls, as the existing walls couldn’t be 278

relocated. I didn’t want to incur the $10,000 expense for new walls, but realized it was essential to increase the show room space.

Mike Straaton suggested we build our own walls in the factory and ship them to High Point. There wasn’t a lot of time to make this happen, about six weeks before shipping. I got busy developing a layout for the new showroom and designing the walls. I couldn’t rely on much help from DAI, as everyone was preoccupied with normal business and completing the design and manufacture of new introductions for the fall show. I drew up schematics for the new walls, which included five or so different configurations. The total hanging space was about 3000 square feet. About 100 8’X4’ sheets of plywood and a lot of 2”X4” studs and screws were used. I prototyped some of the larger walls to test structural integrity and found the design was adequate. Fortunately I had help from Mike Eiden, who operated the equipment to saw art framing material.

I used him throughout to saw the lumber. Fortunately, I was able to hire some part time help who had the skills I needed. The walls were built, assembled and painted. They were then disassembled for shipment.

Building the walls took about three weeks. I was constantly making design changes on the fly and became preoccupied with them. When I zoned out at home Mary would ask me where I was. I told her, “In Wall World”. Throughout this process I made detailed instructions on where the walls had to be positioned at High Point and marked them so who they could be mated correctly. I had Bob tackle lighting. The space we were given didn’t have proper lighting to illuminate the art. Bob laid out the lighting requirements and made arrangements for its installation. The walls shipped with the fall show display items. Rob Stuckless, DAI’s employee who handled shipping and packaging, went to High Point to assemble the walls and apply a final coat of paint. He had some part time help in this and also hung the display items. This new show room served DAI for four shows, through the spring show in 2012.

One of the nagging problems I identified early on was the aging IT infrastructure. Most of the equipment was ten or more years old. At its heart was an IBM AS 400 Mainframe that ran the critical factory functions, purchasing, scheduling, work order generation, job tracking, shipping, invoicing and accounting. It was used in conjunction with a file server. Each of the office personnel had their own PC, as did the key areas in manufacturing. These were networked to an IBM file server. Every week or so, the computer equipment was in need of a service call. DA Inc. had this under contract with an IBM affiliated service company and they charged way more than I thought reasonable. I needed to decrease dependence on IBM equipment. The AS 400 couldn’t be replaced without a huge investment in manufacturing and accounting software, but it was quite reliable. Most of the failures that generated service calls were attributed to PC’s of the server. One of my friends had a PC service company and I consulted with him to develop a plan to replace the office and file server computer equipment and software. The IT equipment and software upgrade started in the spring of 2011 and was completed by yearend. Everyone had a new computer with two monitors and the latest Office software. I put my friends company under contract for servicing the equipment, a significant cost saving. In addition to the equipment upgrade, another serious shortcoming was the lack of a systematic backup process. Backups were done manually and quite infrequently. Early on, I started researching commercially available backup services and found that most IBM AS 400 backup was extremely expensive and would require additional equipment. I finally found one that was affordable and didn’t require a lot of new equipment. As before, I purchased the equipment and software and leased it to DAI. Approximately ten desktop and notebook computers and a sophisticated file server with the latest software were bought.

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In the spring of 2011, the ice-­‐making machine gave out. The manufacturing area was not air-­‐conditioned and it really got hot. Large fans throughout manufacturing were constantly running and all of the overhead dock doors were open to supply cooler air and circulation. Manufacturing employees started at 5:30 a. m. and finished at 2 p. m. in order to take advantage of the early morning temperatures. I would have had a mutiny on my hands if the people couldn’t get their ice after the hot weather started. I waited until the then before I replaced it. Everyone was relieved when it was installed.

DAI was contacted prior to the spring High Point IHFC Show by an acquaintance, Joel, of the Amend family who previously worked for Thomasville Furniture. Joel was working for a division of the Da Vinci Group, a major upscale furniture retailer in the Far East with headquarters in Shanghai, China. They had seven stores in China and a number in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia. There were a lot of recent millionaires in China and they were demanding the most prestigious imported products. They regarded products manufactured in China as of inferior quality. Da Vinci catered to these newly minted rich by offering prestigious brand name European and American home furnishing imports. Joel had pitched DAI’s art to the owners of Da Vinci and they wanted to visit our showroom at the upcoming show. The owner, Doris, and several of her employees toured the showroom and contacted Julie to discuss terms. Julie and I agreed before their visit that she would negotiate the deal and I would remain in the background as the final approving authority. We knew that pricing would be down and dirty, but wanted to make sure we got the best terms. Doris told Julie that there would be a trial order of a full third high sea container and was prepared to write the order during the show if we could meet their price of 50% off wholesale. GULP!! This was going to be a sharp pencil deal. The only way to justify this deep discount was to view the order as a one off and see if it would absorb enough overhead to make it worthwhile, plus there would be no sales commission, saving another 15%. We had done some homework prior to the show and knew we could basically breakeven, plus absorb fixed and variable overhead at the 50% discount level. Jeff had run the numbers and determined we could further improve the deal with a minimum of ten for each item ordered.

That would greatly improve workflow and labor efficiency. One of my major concerns was that they might back out of the deal after we had products in production, or string us out with late payments. We agreed to Da Vinci’s pricing request provided they agreed to the minimum per item requirement, pay 50% down upon placing the order and pay the balance when shipment was ready, fob DAI’s dock, which was when title transferred and they assumed risk of damage. Da Vinci was also responsible for freight and customs charges.

Not a great deal, but an acceptable one. The order was placed for more than 5500 items of art.

Jeff sweetened the deal by going to the top vendors and negotiating discounts for this order, pleading that this would help keep jobs in America. I was surprised how patriotic their response was. After the order shipped in the summer, I ran the numbers to determine how many da Vinci orders would enable DAI to break even. I was eager to do business with them. Later, when we followed up with Joel we got the run around.

Near the end of the year we learned that Da Vinci had serious legal issues. They were accused of counterfeiting imported goods from Europe. I never learned what actually happened.

In like manner, DAI was approached at the fall High Point IHFC show by representatives from a small furniture store chain in Brazil. They were on a worldwide buying spree and wanted to place a trial order with DAI. The deal was not as large as the Da Vinci order, but represented half a sea container. They wanted to fill the other half with rugs from Loloi who occupied part of the Straaton showroom. They agree to the same terms 280

as we had with Da Vinci, but wanted us to hold shipment until the order with Loloi was ready for shipment.

We wrote the order and a month or so later had the 50% down payment. When the order was finished we had trouble finding out when the Loloi order would be ready. We finally got the customer to take the order without the rug order. I don’t think Loloi had the same terms as DAI did. Apparently he didn’t fulfill his order. We tried to get some feed back from Brazil, but never learned how our art sold there. Both China and Brazil were one offs.

In the summer of 2011, FCC called the note I had assumed. I didn’t want to cover the note out of my personal funds and launched a search for commercial funding. A number of commercial lenders had expressed an interest in providing working capital loans to DAI and proposals were submitted to them to arrange adequate funding to retire FCC’s loans. Unfortunately, DAI’s financials were insufficient and I had to dig into my personal account to pay off FCC. In the process, I was able to strike an arrangement with Lyons Credit for account receivables financing, which greatly reduced the need for working capital. Lyons was the furniture industries leading credit rating service and offered exceptionally good terms to industry participants with good credit ratings. DAI’s credit rating ranked in the top 30 percentile and we received competitive rates from Lyons. Lyons would only finance receivables that originated from firms that earned appropriate credit scores. Any customer that was rejected by Lyons was red flagged and required to prepay or charge the order on a credit card. That really lowered DAI’s risk.

A company that had original imported oils from Vietnam called on Julie. Unlike a lot of the oil paintings from China, these were high quality and could be replicated within a reasonable lead-­‐time. DAI obtained selected samples on a consignment basis and introduced them without frames at the 2011 fall High Point IHFC show.

We got a mixed reaction, but felt that we should pursue this further as it would attract incremental customers and broaden DAI’s product line. We introduced a limited number of framed oils at the 2012 January Las Vegas show, but didn’t write any orders for them. We concluded that they were overpriced and put oils on hold until we could develop a more competitive supplier.

DAI continued to make slow progress in building sales, but I realized that a dramatic improvement was required to achieve self-­‐sustaining cash flow. In addition to sales promotions and incentive bonus for the sales reps, we tried a number of initiatives to build sales. Julie worked with American Society of Interior Designers to obtain their endorsement. With that, we could advertise that DAI was an ASID recommended source. She also worked out a subscription with Trade Only Design Library, which was an online listing of products from subscribers for 50,000 registered members of interior designers. They could design a project using products in TODL’s library and store the project on line to show their client. Theoretically, orders would then be placed. It took over six months for TODL to get DAI’s products loaded, but after another six months we had no orders. We discontinued DAI’s subscription. I don’t know what impact the ASID referral had, but talked to a number of interior designers at trade shows who came to DAI’s show room because they had seen the referral.

One of the alternatives Brian and I had talked about was selling framed art online to consumers. Brian had wrapped up the design of the new web site and it was functioning quite well. With the addition of a shopping cart and some other features it could be adapted to serve as an online retail site. The major concern was DAI’s customers might view this as undercutting their customers. We decided the retail venture had to be conducted through a separate legal entity under a different brand name. Initially, DAI could 281

resurrect previous designs that were no longer offered and manufacture those for the retail business. In addition, DAI had a huge inventory of prints that had been accumulated over many years that could be framed and sold through retail. Jeff, Julie, Brian and I began meeting on a weekly basis at my home at the beginning of 2012. Brian started developing the retail web site using a later version of Magento. I undertook the task of understanding what competitive web retail art web sites were offering and compiled a list of features for Brian to implement. Jeff and Julie researched inventory and past designs to identify the initial product offerings. We selected “The Art Conservatory” as the name of the retail company. I registered it and set up the legal entity.

One of the challenges on The Art Conservatory was how to design new products for it. DAI had four-­‐design sessions a year, introducing 300 to 400 new designs each session. The design team was already maxed out and couldn’t bear the burden of designing the amount of new products that the retail market would require.

I started researching what design tools were available in the world of fine art faming and discovered several companies that appeared to be a fit. DAI’s design process was very manual and required three people, Julie, Diane and Mar to do the design, document it, and enter the information in the manufacturing system.

Arttech was the company that seemed to offer the highest level of automation. They had a library of everything except the art image already on line for access by the design team. Once the art item was digitized, the designer could select options for framing, matts and glass from Arttech’s library. It had digital images from the major industry vendors. The designer could scale the art image to the desired size, select a number of framing and matt combinations and create the bill of materials for each product design variant. I bought a 46” LED TV to support DAI’s design team and licensed the Arttech software. This was going to eliminate the design bottleneck.

As we started working with Arttech, it became apparent that modifications were required to make its output work with DAI’s manufacturing software, Mosaic. Since we were going to engage in changing Mosaic, I had Jeff explore the possibility of implementing Quick Books so we could get rid of DAI’s proprietary accounting system. It was costing $1500 per month and had been on my list to eliminate since day one. Jeff and the Mosaic guru felt that this could be accommodated and proceeded to make the modifications, not a trivial undertaking.

In the meantime other avenues were pursued to increase sales. Design Toscano was a large catalog and online retailer that sold a huge variety of merchandise. Their catalogs are on virtually every commercial airplane in the pocket behind each serving tray, making their customers somewhat captive. Most of the items were imported from China, but they wanted higher quality framed art than they could procure from their Chinese sources. Their headquarters were in Chicago and Mike Straaton, also located in Chicago, was a good friend of their executive responsible for merchandising. Mike convinced them to use DAI as an OEM supplier of private label art. DT had proprietary art and DAI was not allowed to sell it to anyone else. DT had stringent lead-­‐time requirements. They didn’t want to place an order with DAI until they had an order from a customer. We were held to a one to two week lead-­‐time and shipped directly to DT’s end customer. They supplied the art images for DAI to print and frame. The business with DT started slow, but increased steadily.

It was a great start in the OEM business. DT’s merchandise appealed to a small segment of the market. DAI’s designers thought their designs were atrocious and wondered who would buy them. We all thought DT had

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a corner on the “Ugly” market. Some of their offerings were nudes and that did not sit well with some of our prudish manufacturing employees.

Wayfair was a large ecommerce business that sold merchandise of all sorts for the home. Their web site had the most traffic in the business and proclaimed “Shop Wayfair for A Zillion Things Home across all styles and budgets. 5,000 brands of furniture, lighting, cookware, and more.” DAI established a business relationship with Wayfair and was gradually building it. Sales increased dramatically when Wayfair was on Ellen DeGeneres TV show about a home featuring Wayfair’s upscale furnishings, including DAI framed art. The publicity was fantastic. “Flash Sales” was another new channel for DAI. It was a recent merchandising approach in ecommerce and Wayfair worked out an arrangement with DAI to participate in one of their Flash Sales. The sale period was of limited duration and merchandise was discounted. Lead times were short and the manufacturers that participated had to commit how many items would be available, and, to deliver them within several days of the order. That required the product to be manufactured in advance of the order, a new experience for DAI, which manufactured to order. Accordingly, DAI was quite cautious with commitments for the first Flash Sale. Results were positive and other Flash Sale venues were sought out.

Lance Bissell relocated the Dillon Wells Las Vegas Showroom just prior to the January 2012 show. It was now on the first floor in a better location with more traffic, but in a smaller footprint. DAI’s space was very limited and the sales from the January show disappointing. Julie and I decided to pull the plug on the show room.

Sales did not justify the showroom expense. Dillon Well’s sales reps would still represent DAI’s line. During the show, Julie and I visited the show room of a friend of the Amend family, Chris Mosley. He was working on a print on demand, or POD, concept that would allow companies like DAI to download images of prints and print them in house. It was similar to what Jeff and Julie had discussed as a way to eliminate a lot of time and cost when framing prints that were supplied by a multitude of the industries print vendors.

After the show, Jeff and Julie got in touch with Chris. Together, they decided Chris’s company and DAI should work together to bring the concept to fruition. Chris would generate the software that met the needs of the framing companies and print vendors. DAI would contribute testing and ideas to make POD more commercially viable. When the concept was working, Chris would acquire the images from the print vendors and host the system that managed and distributed the images, kept track of payments from the users and determine royalty payments to the print venders. Both companies would engage various print vendors to gain their acceptance of POD. DAI would realize significant cost advantages, as freight costs would not be incurred and there would be no time lost from the order and delivery process. In addition, many print vendors required a minimum quantity order, which usually created unnecessary inventory. DAI would not have to buy inventory it didn’t need. The print vendors would have the benefit of increased revenue with on line distribution of small quantity sales, and Chris would reap the benefit of commissions generated each time a framing company used an image that he provided. There was a lot of work that had to be done to bring POD to fruition.

Ever on the lookout for new developments useful to DAI, Brian found a scanning application, Quick Sale that ran on an iPad. It seemed ideal for entering orders at the industry shows. Julie felt we sometimes lost business because DAI manually wrote orders and many of the buyers allocated a fixed amount of time in the showroom before they had to go to their next meeting. If the order weren’t finished by then, the customer wouldn’t wait around to order any more items and move on. DAI tried QS at the 2012 spring High Point 283

show. All of the items in the show room were barcoded. I bought 2 iPads and barcode scanners as well as a pc and printer for the show room. Scanning was a lot faster than writing the order. Also, we could print the order and email it to the sales rep, the customer and the factory. It worked well and we were able to complete all of the orders without any customer leaving.

One of the items I had wanted to put in place since the inception was to update the employee handbook. It hadn’t been updated for more than ten years. I had tasked Bob to do this as one of the things he should take care of right after I bought the business. He told me he always had something more important to take care of. I got tired of prompting Bob and decided to just do it. Within a week or so I had a draft and High Point IHFC Party distributed it to the staff, Bob Included, for review for input. Bob made a big deal out of helping with the final review. Somehow he managed to find the time to do it.

It seemed that DAI was constantly being jacked around at the High Point Show Room. Originally, Mike Straaton had control of it, but Amir of Loloi Rugs was always trying to get more space. He engineered a deal with IHFC to take IHFC High Point Show Room

over the lease and expand the overall showroom starting with the fall 2011 High Point Show. Amir was now the big dog and quite assertive on making sure his best interests were served. Amir was a great promoter and advertised extensively. He hosted a major party in the showroom with an out of state band that played the latest songs and dance tunes. Catered food and open bar was provided for all the customers. The party was immensely popular. It lasted several hours and Loloi held it each show in High Point and Las Vegas.All of the showroom occupants shared in the expense of this extravaganza.

Amir continued to expand the showroom footprint and acquired significant new space for the fall 2012 show. DAI’s problem was that Loloi forced us out of our space into a larger, more expensive showroom. I really didn’t have a choice in the matter. If I declined to take the new space, DAI wouldn’t have a presence at High Point. Amir intimated that he had another framed art company 284

that was eager to take the space if DAI didn’t. On the positive side, the showroom was ready to move in as it had been outfitted to display framed art. A now defunct Canadian company had vacated it. The showroom was beautiful and had about 2300 sq. ft. Except for a significant rent increase, Julie and I were excited to have it. The showroom was a step up for DAI, but the fall show didn’t generate enough additional sales to justify the increased cost. I had the walls from the other show room shipped back to the factory, hoping that they could be used if DAI opened a show room in Atlanta that was under consideration for some future time.

Amir had expanded his show room in Las Vegas in the fall of 2011. He didn’t get along with one of the companies that was in the showroom and had forced the company out two months before the January 2013 show. He approached DAI and urged us to take the space, which was used by another art framing company and was move in ready for DAI. He implied that if we didn’t take it, he would see if the company that he had as a backup at High Point would take it. Julie and I felt he was making a take it or else proposition. The show room was really nice and large, about 2200 sq. ft., and more expensive than the Dillon Wells show room. It

DAI IHFC Las Vegas Show Room

was only open during the two major trade shows. Julie came up with the approach that we could take some the High Point art that was shown in the fall and ship it to the Las Vegas showroom, backfilling with some of the items that would be returned to DAI from the Dallas show room. This would minimize the amount of framed art that would have to be manufactured as well as the investment to support the Las Vegas show.

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Despite all of the changes DAI had made, sales were not reaching the break-­‐even level. I was counting on the retail web site to get us closer to that key event. More importantly, the economy remained laggard under Obamanomics, especially the home furnishings industry. I was convinced that things would turn around after the fall presidential elections. I just knew that the American people would not reelect Obama. I would have pulled the plug on DAI if I thought differently as I did not have the financial strength to endure a second term by him.

Mary and I were returning from a short vacation to Washington DC on Election Day. I was looking forward to getting home in time to monitor the election results. We were driving out of the airport parking area when Fox news released their projection and declared Obama the winner. That moment was one of the worst of my life. I knew then that DAI would not survive. Forever the optimist, I pondered circumstances that might change and give DAI a new lease on life. The Art Conservatory was nearing completion and expected to be operational by the Christmas shopping season. On the political side, there was a lot of speculation that Obama would pivot in Clinton-­‐like fashion and appoint advisors that would be market friendly and rejuvenate the economy. I wasn’t optimistic about that, but wouldn’t have long to wait.

As 2012 was grinding to an end, Brian had the basic retail web site with shopping cart completed and Jeff and Julie had identified which products could be sold retail. Pricing was complete and the database populated with products. The Art Conservatory had its own email addresses and phone number. DAI made arrangements to respond to retail customers as though they were dedicated to The Art Conservatory.

Everyone had spent an enormous amount of time, usually after hours, and effort to get to this point. The major obstacle to overcome was to get PayPal functioning. For some reason, it was difficult to integrate with the web site. We couldn’t go live without it. Thanksgiving and Black Friday came and went. It wasn’t until just before Christmas that Brian came up with a work around and we went live. The web site had analytic capability and we were able to track visits and traffic within the web site. We couldn’t believe the lack of traffic. The web site was well salted with key search terms and we expected reasonable traffic. As we did research and dug deeper, we found that Google had gotten increasingly sophisticated in ranking web sites and the old rules were no longer effective. We hadn’t experienced similar problems with the DAI web site when we changed the domain name, but much of the content was the same. Apparently Google recognized that and ranked us as before. I attempted to salvage the situation and hired a company that did Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Despite promises to the contrary, the SEO Company took longer than expected and was unable to significantly improve traffic.

Soon after the inauguration, it was clear that the country was headed for four more years of malaise.

Obama’s appointments would perpetuate his socialistic agenda. DAI was doomed and I had to protect what was left of my wealth. I had lunch with Jeff and Julie to break the news and give them some time to consider how best to proceed. The only option to shutting DAI down was to find a buyer. That was a long shot, and would most probably be someone in the industry who could see DAI as a strategic acquisition. We decided to have a strategy meeting that weekend and include Bob and Diane. The course of action we decided on was to maintain strict confidentiality as long as possible while I attempted to find a buyer or strategic partner.

We felt that it would be wise to bring Mike Straaton and Jane Kieke into our confidence, as they might be helpful in locating possible buyers and shouldn’t be blindsided due to the nature of their relationship with DAI. 286

The January World Trade Show in Dallas was the following week. Julie knew that both Mike and Jane would be there and arranged for us to meet them. It turned out that Mike wanted a private meeting anyway. We met with Mike first and he wanted to tell us about a major deal he was working on our behalf. It involved one of the industries largest importers. Their line included high-­‐end furniture and accessories of all types.

They had two warehouses in Fort Worth with over 1 million sq. ft. each. Inventory turns were 3 to 4 months and they were looking for a partner to design and manufacture exclusive art for them. As it turned out, this deal would have taken around nine months to put in place before a single shipment could be made. If it were a year earlier, it would have saved DAI. In the meeting with Mike and Jane, Julie and I filled them in and got their support. The Las Vegas show was the following week and we decided to not bring Loloi into our confidence since we were concerned that he might tie up our LV show inventory. We had set in motion a plan to bring the inventory back to OKC immediately after the show. We also brought Lance Bissell up to speed on what was going on. He too was supportive and offered to help find a potential buyer. In the meantime I researched potential strategic buyers and identified a small number. I didn’t want to reach out directly without a confidentiality agreement in place and had a broker acquaintance send a letter with a blind business profile of DAI to them. A number of candidates surfaced throughout the ensuing months, right up until the point that we were commited to sell all of the assets at an auction. None worked out. Despite the positive attributes, the financials were just too ugly and the economic climate was too uncertain for many to take on new risks.

Every effort was made to liquidate inventory. Customers that were known to be bottom feeders were solicited with deals that had a lot of product, deeply discounted. A lot of inventory was moved. The clock was running and we had no viable buyers to sell DAI to. It was time to let the employees know what was going on. We worked out the termination process and what they would receive. They were to receive two weeks notice before they were terminated and would receive credit for a certain amount of vacation, even though it wasn’t officially on the books until DAI’s anniversary date in August. DAI continued health care coverage until the termination date. Vendors were kept in the dark until we announced the shutdown to the sales organizations for fear that they wouldn’t honor orders without pre payment. We needed to maintain production as long as we had orders. When we did let the sales people know DAI was shutting down as well as the last date DAI would honor an order, we told them I would guarantee payment of the commission.

They all accepted that and worked diligently to get orders from their customers. I was told that someone asked one of the most senior salesmen why he trusted that the commissions would be paid. He said, “Because Chuck said he would”. That brought tears to my eyes. Before the word went out, Jeff contacted the major venders to let them know what was in the works and to solicit their support to continue supplying DAI so we could complete manufacture of orders. I was gratified that they all were extremely cooperative and not one insisted on prepayment. Some of them even offered to take back unused inventory.

The auction was scheduled for May 16th with Dakil Auction, the largest auction firm in the area. In the interim, DAI let the word out to selected individuals who would be interested in pre purchasing certain items.

One of Jeff’s contacts bought a lot of the framing material at a much higher price than we expected to receive in auction. Another local firm in a related business bought the Giclee printer and some other equipment. All in all, the presale was a good deal for DAI. I also gave the employees an opportunity to buy framed art at cost. Many took advantage of this. The employees remained dedicated up until their last day, doing anything that was asked of them. They really wanted a good outcome from the shutdown and were 287

grateful in the way they were treated. In appreciation for their service and also knowing that they would be called on after shutdown to help in wrapping up loose items, I gave Jeff, Julie and Bonnie, DAI’s accountant, the notebook PC’s they used.

Preparation for the Auction was an enormous undertaking. Jeff, Julie and their staff worked diligently to identify a lot of the finished goods and much of the excess print inventory in a manner that was suitable to be put in the auction. Without that, the proceeds would have been substantially less. Louis Dakil sent the auctioneer and a helper to do a detailed inventory and to photograph what would be in the auction. There were 2000 groups of items listed on the web auction web site. A lot of manpower was spent in preparation.

I started the day at 6 a. m. and didn’t leave until 7 or 8 p. m. I lost a lot of weight during that three-­‐week period. I brought in some contract help since the production line wasn’t yet shut down. We were going to complete every order up to the last possible day. Dakil advertised this as the largest auction of its kind and sent out several thousand mailers throughout the USA. The auction was held on line and in person at Dakil’s facility, which could host several hundred bidders. I put together an item for the intellectual property that included DAI’s name, phone numbers, web site, customer list, designs, file server with all of the business records, and the AS 400. Dakil provided, at DAI expense, security personnel to make sure nothing walked off (only one item was unaccounted for out of the 2000 items auctioned). The auction attracted a lot of bidders, some online and some in person and as far away as Southern Texas, California, and Ohio. Dakil told me the auction vastly exceeded his expectation. It did mine as well. A month later Louis gave me a check for the proceeds, less advertising, commissions and other expenses. He told me how lucky I was to hold the auction then. He had just received a number of inquiries from out of state business owners who wanted him to conduct an auction for businesses somewhat similar to DAI. Apparently there was a shakeout under way in the framing industry.

We allowed five days for the auctioned items to be picked up. The auction was on Thursday, starting early and lasting well past the 5 o’clock scheduled time. Some of the bidders were able to pick their items up then, but it was difficult to accommodate all that wanted to. DAI’s facility had two loading docks. One could accommodate two trucks and one on the other. A lot of jockeying for position went on. Some of the more savvy (and inconsiderate) bidders got to the facility early in the morning and occupied a dock with their truck and trailer, even though they weren’t prepared to load. I found myself mediating the ensuing disputes. There was a tremendous amount of auctioned items to clear the facility and it seemed like the progress was way slower than what we had planned for. Mother nature wasn’t cooperating. Conditions had been developing for several days for a tornado and Saturday a tornado warning was issued by the weather service around 2 p. m. Conditions continued to worsen and I had an announcement made over the PA system to vacate DAI within 15 minutes. Fortunately this allowed every one to leave before a rash of tornados started touching down in the OKC area at around 5 p. m. No damage was done in the immediate area of DAI and pick up resumed early the next morning. There were constant warnings issued by the weather service that day and I had everyone leave DAI around 3 p. m. Around 8 p. m. an EF 5 struck Moore, Oklahoma, killing 24 and wiping out entire neighborhoods, some of which had been rebuilt after the EF 5 tornado wiped them out in 1999. I allowed additional time for people to pick up their items. After that, another two weeks were spent cleaning up the facility and disposing of the accumulated trash.

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A dispute with the landlord arose concerning whose responsibility it was to dispose of trash, hazardous material and clean up of the finishing area. Over the past thirty or so years an enormous amount of paint had accumulated in that area, almost all of it before I bought DAI. Bob and his brother Bill owned the building and I had leased it from them. They maintained that I was 100% liable to pay for removing it plus a lot of the trash that was there when I took over the business. There were a lot of custom shelves and cabinets that the supplies were stored in and they tried to have me pay for removing those. We reached an agreement on sharing some of those costs and I thought the matter was put to bed. Bob later reneged and attempted to have me pay for all of it. The issue remained unresolved.

I remember meeting “John”, a long-­‐term acquaintance of Bob Amend at one of my High Point trade shows.

He recounted an episode about Bob. As is common, housing is scarce and expensive. Many High Point homeowners rent their homes during the shows. A number of exhibitors got together with Bob and John to rent a home that was near the exhibitor halls. John told me that Bob would get up earlier that the other people staying there. He would proceed to take a long shower and use up all of the hot water. The others had to take cold showers. When they complained to Bob, he just laughed at them and selfishly ignored their concerns. They conspired to teach him a lesson and set his alarm so that he got up two hours early. The next morning Bob got up and showered. He couldn’t understand why everyone else was sleeping so late. By the time the others got up, the water was hot. Bob realized he had been tricked.

In reflecting on this story, I now realize that it was indicative of Bob’s character. He was prone to putting his interest ahead of everyone else regardless of the inconvenience he inflicted on his associates. It was all about Bob. During the course of our relationship at DAI, I experienced a number of situations where he manipulated circumstances and connived to achieve benefits he was not entitled to. I became aware of them after-­‐the-­‐fact, but due to the sensitive nature of the Amend Family relationship, I didn’t feel I had the flexibility of dealing with it for fear of alienating Jeff and Julie as they were key to the business.

After the auction, I spent the next several months on tying up loose ends and resolving payment issues. Sales commissions couldn’t be paid until DAI received payment for the sale. That took several months to complete. Vendor invoices were paid when due. Jeff and Julie remained on payroll for one to two months to assist me in this, as did Bonnie. We notified a number of companies that were providing on-­‐going services that DAI had ceased business and would no longer need their services. A good many kept issuing bogus invoices even though we were not using it. When we disputed the invoice, it was not unusual for them to turn it over to a collections attorney, threating legal action. I researched this matter and found that an effective way of dealing with this was to send them a form letter advising them that the business was no longer in existence and did not have the funds to pay their attached invoice and to not contact DAI again.

That was effective. I didn’t hear from them again.

At the end of the day, I had shut DAI down with all legitimate liabilities satisfied. All employees were fully compensated, every sales rep was paid all commissions due, all vendors were paid for goods sold and delivered, and all companies that provided service to DAI were paid in full to the date that the service was rendered. I was proud that I was able to accomplish this.

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DAI Employees

My biggest regret was the employees of DAI. At the time of shutdown there were 17 with average seniority of 20 years. Terminating them was the most painful part of the entire process. Fortunately many of them were able to find employment within a reasonable time frame. Those whodid not either retired or drew as much unemployment as possible and then retired.

DAI Aftermath Several months after DAI had been shut down, I received notice from the Dallas County tax authority that DAI owed property taxes. We hadn’t been notified to pay taxes before and I ignored their notices until they retained an attorney to collect them. I sent their attorney the same form letter I had used with venders. I haven’t heard from them since.

The biggest problem I encountered was with the IRS. Prior to the auction, I had received notice that the Social Security Administration hadn’t received payment for the payroll taxes for the 2010 tax year. I had Bonnie try to reconcile this with the SSA, but the letters kept coming and finally they threatened me with confiscation of my personal property to the tune of more than $42,000 in penalties and fines. This was a larger sum than the payroll taxes under question. I had proof the taxes were paid, but the SSA did not have a record of them. I wrote a lengthily appeal letter, and that created an IRS response that they were researching the matter and not to expect a resolution for 3 months. Each time the 3 months came up, I receive another letter delaying their response for 3 more months. I had Bonnie hand deliver DAI’s records to the local SSA office confirming that they were paid. She failed to get a receipt for this and I tried to independently verify that they had the records and had updated DAI’s account. In the process, I learned that there is a regional representative who could act on behalf of the business owner in cases such as this. When I contacted her, she was most helpful and told me to send the W-­‐2’s directly to her and she would make sure they were posted to DAI’s account. Two months later, the IRS sent me a letter that I was no longer liable for payment of the penalties and interest. How heavy handed was that?

Just prior to the auction, Bob told me he had taken most of the gold and silver foil used to finish frames and locked them up. There were about four large boxes of various items that had precious metal content. He 290

thought I could get considerably more if I sold them outside of auction. I obtained information on the supplier contacts and was grateful to have the opportunity to improve my financial return. Two containers were left in the auction. I had no idea what the worth would turn out to be, but was encouraged when I checked the auction results. A bag of silver foil and a bag of gold foil were sold to the same party at auction for $650.

A year later I contacted Mark Mitchener, a trusted jeweler, to evaluate my stash. For a percentage of the proceeds he would have it assayed and sell it. That was the deal, and I delivered all of it to his store. A month later he reported the precious metal content was zero. I pity the poor guy who bought the bags at auction. OH WELL, buyers beware!! Mark returned the stash, and it is collecting dust in my garage attic.

There were a number of unclaimed items after the auction. Since the auction was absolute, everything had been sold and paid for. I had a friend, John Russell, who was a commercial real estate developer. John had recently bought a business that salvaged all sorts of stuff. He bought a lot of his merchandise at cut-­‐rate prices from auctions. He bought a lot of stuff at my auction. When I found out there were a lot of unclaimed items, I worked out an arrangement with John where he would pick up the unclaimed stuff and store it at his store. When he sold it, we would split the profits. In addition, there were about 15 unframed oils that Brian put on eBay and Etsy to sell. It has been a challenge to find the right pricing points.

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More Family Travel 2009 Ireland−July 5th to 15th This was our second trip to Ireland. The first was in 1995, and we covered much of the same territory. We arrived in Dublin on AA at 8:30 a.m. and picked up a rental auto after clearing customs and retrieving our luggage. Our friends from Northern Ireland are going to meet us and had reserved a B&B in Drogheda, an industrial and port town in County Louth on the east coast about 35 miles north of Dublin. We arrived at the Sallywell House about 10:30. Our room was ready, and we relaxed until Barb and Eric Mayne arrived around noon.

The four of us went to lunch at the Bru na Boinne Center and then visited the Battle of the Boyne visitor center. The battle was fought in 1690 between two rival claimants of the English, Scottish and Irish thrones – the Catholic James VII & II and the Protestant William III & II – across the River Boyne near Drogheda. The battle was won by William and was a turning point in James' unsuccessful attempt to regain the crown. It ultimately helped ensure the continuation of Protestant ascendancy in Ireland. William's forces defeated James' army of mostly raw recruits. The symbolic importance of this battle has made it one of the best-­‐known battles in the history of the British Isles. We then visited the Mellifont Abbey Ruins, which had been founded in 1172. We returned to the B&B around 6 and had dinner at a nearby restaurant, Sorrentos. Mary and I really enjoyed being with Eric and Barbara. She is the organizer, and he is very knowledgeable about history. With him, it is like having a private guide.

Alexander's with Mayne's

After breakfast we set out for the Bru na Boinne Center to explore the New Grange Tomb. Cars are not allowed near the tomb, and we took a bus there. The tomb is a prehistoric monument that was built around 3200 BC, making it older than the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge. The site consists of a large circular mound with a stone passageway and interior chambers.

The mound has a retaining wall at the front and is ringed by engraved kerbstones. The New Grange Tomb stones used in its construction were brought from miles around. There is no agreement about what the site was used for, but it has been speculated that it had religious significance – it is aligned with the rising sun, and its light floods the interior 292

chamber on the winter solstice. It is regarded as the great national monument of Ireland. We next visited an old library that houses a version of the Book of Kells. We had lunch and then went to St. Kievans Well, just off the highway. There was an altar and a tree where people, mostly sick, left items of children’s clothing.

We then visited the Loughcrew tomb on a large hill. It is similar to the New Grange tomb. We had dinner at Sorrentos and planned our trip with the Maynes until midnight.

The next morning we said our goodbyes. Barb and Eric headed home as they were going to do a canal trip on their boat. We drove south through the Wicklow Mountains and Gap, continuing to Balllyknockan and toured Kevin’s Kitchen and the Round Towers.

Kevin wanted to be a hermit, but became a monk and built a monastery. He died in 618. We then drove down the coast following a very narrow and windy road towards Wexford and then headed for Waterford, ending up at Dunmore East on the south coast around 8 p.m. We stayed at Creaden View, a nice B&B overlooking the harbor. We had a delicious seafood dinner at the Spinnaker Restaurant. Mary wanted the recipe, but only got a list of Round Towers the ingredients. In the morning, our host Kathleen prepared waffles for breakfast, a nice change of pace from the usual fare of ham, sausage, eggs, tomatoes and toast. We walked along the harbor and saw a group of kids around 8 to 10 years old going into the water with small sailboats. They were learning about sailing and water safety. We then drove to Carrick-­‐on-­‐Suir and the restored ruins of James Butler’s Ormonde Castle. From 1641 to 1647, James led the fighting against the Irish Catholic Confederation. From 1649 to 1650, he was the leading commander of the Royalist forces in the fight against the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, and in the 1650s he lived in exile in Europe with King Charles II of England. Upon the restoration of Charles to the throne in 1660, James became a major figure in English and Irish politics, holding many high government offices. We then drove to Cahir and visited Cahir Castle, one of the largest castles in Ireland. It was built on an island in the river Suir in 1142. We had ice cream for lunch and headed for Kinsale on the southern coast. We stayed at the Friars Lodge right across from St. Johns Church. We had dinner at the Fishy Fishy restaurant and had Fishy Pie, consisting of salmon, halibut and shrimp in a wonderful cream sauce. Mary took part of her meal back to the Friars Lodge and had it for breakfast.

In the morning we headed for Glengarriff. Along the way we came on a major wreck. One person had been killed, and we were forced to take a detour. We spent several hours trying to find our way back to the main road. The side roads aren’t marked, so you just have to drive until you encounter a major road or a town on the map to get your bearings. We arrived in Glengarriff around 5:30 and stayed outside it at the Rockwood B&B. We ate early, around 7:30, at the Rainbow. In the morning we headed for the Ring of Bere.

Unfortunately it turned out to be a rainy day with fog, thunder and lightning, and we couldn’t see much.

We then went to Dingle where we stayed two nights. The last time we were in Ireland, we hadn’t spent much time here and were looking forward to visiting it again. We stayed at Russell’s on the Mall B&B in the middle of Dingle. We had an early dinner to take advantage of the early dinner special. We had planned to go out on the town that night, but it was raining and cold. We had some wine and went to bed early.

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In the morning Mary went to church after breakfast. I stayed in the B&B and did some work. Mary told me the church choir was really beautiful and she sang along until she realized she was the only one doing that.

We then toured the Dingle Peninsula and headed for Slea Head at the end. We had great weather and enjoyed the scenery. We got back about 3 p.m. and walked around the harbor, then visited some shops near our B&B. That evening we went to the Marina Pub near the harbor for dinner.

We had lamb stew and split a fried Brie salad. There was a bar in the front where some drop-­‐in musicians were playing. As we were leaving, we stopped to listen and clap. Mary has happy feet, and she was swaying to the music. An old geezer at the bar came up to her and grabbed her hand and started to dance. She was the center of attention, and the band and audience really got loud.

MEA doing Jig with Old Geezer When the music stopped, she clapped and the old geezer gave her a big hug and kissed her. I have the pics.

It was raining in the morning, so we changed our plan to drive along the coast to going to Adare via Tralee, Castleisland and Newcastle West. We checked into the Berkeley Lodge B&B and set out to explore the town. We walked through the park and found a large gazebo with three couples in it. They waved at us, and I asked them if they were having a meeting. They insisted we come up and have a glass of wine with them. They told us they were from Northern Ireland and were headed for the horse races Impromptu Picnic in Killarney, an annual event they have done for 20 years. Every year they stop at this park and have a picnic with wine and beer. The women started singing Irish songs and got Mary to sing “Oklahoma.” We told them about Eric and Barbra being our friends from Northern Ireland.

That made them better friends. The three women decided to sing “The Okie from Muskogee.” They had to leave. We thanked them, and they all kissed Mary goodbye. This is the fun part of traveling. We really enjoy the Irish. That evening we ate at the Arch Restaurant. In the morning we got an early start and headed for Dublin. We stopped in Limerick and visited the King James Castle and Museum. We encountered a lot of rain and traffic as we got into Dublin. We found a hotel with a car park and stayed there, the Mercer Hotel. We had dinner at the Millstone Restaurant, and then returned to the hotel to repack for our flight in the morning. It took us an hour and a half to get to the airport. We checked in our car at the rental place and were able to make our 11 a.m. flight to return home.

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2009 Peru, Ecuador & Galapagos Islands−September 23rd to October 14th We left around mid morning for the airport and had lunch along the way at Sean Cummings Irish Pub. Brian was taking us and would pick us up on return. He was recovering nicely from an appendectomy that he had on Sunday, three days earlier. The doctor will allow him to resume work next week. Except for flights to and from South America, we used Trip Peru for booking everything on the trip. I normally do the booking myself, but this agency proved to be effective in getting good deals at prices lower than I could. We left OKC at 2:15 and connected in Miami for Lima on AA at 11:30 p.m., arriving there at 4 a.m. We were met at the airport by Luiz, the rep from Trip Peru, and chauffeured to our hotel, a three star. We were told it was fully booked, but they had made arrangements at another hotel, a five star, and took us there. We were staying in the Flores section of Lima. We went to bed right away and slept until 10 a.m. We had a meeting with Claudia from Trip Peru at 11:30. She had made all of our arrangements and responded very efficiently and professionally to my many requests for information and changes to the itinerary. The final proposal we ended with was number 12. Claudia went over all of the trip items and gave us several options for the afternoon.

We took a combined walking and bus tour of Lima. It covered some of its 43 districts. We saw government buildings, the Cathedral, Covenant and Catacombs. Most interesting was the museum, Museo de la Nación.

I was especially interested in visiting this museum as it has many Inca artifacts and provides a comprehensive look at past Peruvian art and history. It is one of the best museums in Peru for learning about the country’s ancient empires. Before we left, I had read Daniel Peters' book “The Incas,” all 1041 pages of it. Doris loaned it to me. It portrays the epic Inca civilization in the period just before and during the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. That book gave me a deep appreciation for the advanced nature of the Incas.

We had a 6:30 a. m. pick up at the hotel in the morning and had to repack so we could leave our suitcase with the hotel during our overnight visit to Ica. After breakfast, Luiz met us and drove us to the bus terminal where we boarded the Cruz Del Sur Bus, a double decker. We were in the business class section downstairs.

It even had its own bathroom (but no pooping). We were met at our hotel, the Las Dunas, by a woman from Trip Peru and went over our itinerary. The main attraction was to fly over the mysterious Nazca Lines.

These are giant geometrical and animal figures that were drawn in the desert sands by the Nazca people 1,500 years ago. Their purpose is still a mystery and they can only be seen from the air, or perhaps from space. After lunch we boarded a small plane at a small airstrip near our hotel around 1:15 p. m. There were eleven tourists plus the pilot and copilot. It took a half hour to get to the area plus another half hour to see everything. We saw about a dozen figures including, a spider, parrot, humming bird, monkey, Nazca Line Figure condor, trapezoid, hands, dog, etc. We returned to our hotel and enjoyed Peru’s national drink, the Pisco 295

Sour. We had dinner at a restaurant near the hotel. I tried guinea pig and was not impressed. It was somewhat tough and greasy.

Our wake up call was at 4:45 a.m. We had breakfast and were picked up at 6:30 and taken to the Paracas Reserve where we boarded a small open boat. The first attraction we saw was a large candelabra etched into a big sand dune. No one knows who did it or why it was created, but they think it was done as a landmark in the early 1800s. The boat skipped over the waves to the Ballestas Islands where we saw sea lions, pelicans, cormorants, sea gulls, etc. Our guide met us at the pier, and we went to Ica to tour a winery and see how Pisco was made. We then visited the Regional Museum that had archeological remains and mummies from ancient Peruvian civilizations (Paracas, Nazca, Huari, Inca, etc.). One of the civilizations wrapped their foreheads tightly to expand the upper part of the skull to make them taller. Many died of brain failure and some had holes that had been drilled in their heads. We saw the very pretty Huacachina Lagoon and then headed back to the hotel for lunch and to meet our bus. Luiz met the bus in Lima and drove us to our hotel. We repacked and got to bed at 11. After breakfast we met Luiz to take us to the airport. I needed to buy a calling card, and Luiz stopped at a gas station to buy one. I asked Luiz if he could help me get some medicine to treat a cold and sore throat I was coming down with. When we got to the airport he took me to a pharmacy and explained what I wanted. I ended up with two prescriptions. We flew to Arequipa and were met by our guide, Norma, and taken to the Casa Andina Arequipa Hotel. It definitely wasn’t a five star, no closet or refrigerator, and was very small. Norma picked us up with a driver to take us on a tour of Arequipa. We toured around the Main Square, cathedral, church and Cloisters of Jesus Company, then the Santa Catalina convent. Santa Catalina was established in 1579, about 40 years after the Spanish arrived. It had some interesting history about convent life in that era. That evening we had an early dinner. Mary had veal and I had an Alpaca steak. It was quite good, but Mary’s veal was tough.

In the morning we took a four-­‐hour ride on a tour bus to the Colca Canyon. On the way we crossed the Aguada Blanca and Salinas National Reserve where we saw lamas, vicunas and alpacas. We stopped at a store to buy water and cocoa leaves for the altitude.

Mary bought some apples and tangerines to give to the children.

Our guide, Maria, asked everyone on the bus to introduce ourselves.

On The Way to Colca Canyon There were people from Germany, Norway, Austria, Mexico, Spain and a couple of girls from Australia who had just made the four-­‐day trek on the Inca trail to Machu Picchu. We arrived at “Mirador de los Andes,” a strategic point and saw a lot of volcanoes. We stopped at a roadside where alpaca clothing was being sold. There were a lot of little kids there, and Mary gave them apples and tangerines.

We had lunch at Chivay town and were then taken to the Casa Andina Colca Hotel. It was about the same as the Condor night before, but without a TV or safe. Maria asked us if 296

we wanted to take a spa at the La Calera hot springs. We were both tired and took a nap instead. Dinner was at the hotel, followed by a musical performance. Tomorrow we will visit the Grand Canyon of South America, Colca Canyon. Hopefully we will see condors.

After breakfast we drove through the main towns of the valley and stopped at Yanque. We then went to El Mirador de la Cruz, the best spot to see the 11,155-­‐foot depth of the canyon. The view was spectacular.

We then proceeded to Cruz del Cóndor to look for condors. The bus stopped and people took a short walk along a path at the edge of the canyon and were on the lookout for flying condors. Mary opted to stay on the bus. We only saw a couple flying in the distance. It was tough to get a good picture. Before we headed back to Arequipa, we had lunch. The road back was dirty and bumpy. I tried to get some sleep, but it wasn’t possible. We arrived at our hotel around 4:30. We had an early dinner at a small pizza restaurant near the hotel. Mary thought the napkins looked familiar and took one with her. She was right. They were exactly like the toilet paper in our hotel room.

Today we are headed for Cusco and leave the hotel without having breakfast at 5 a. m. The hotel packed us a box lunch instead. Mary had a sore throat and didn’t eat her lunch. She hopes she hasn’t caught my cold. Our flight was to depart at 6:30 but there was fog at one of the stopover airports, and we had to wait for that to clear up. We left at 7:15 and arrived in Cusco at 9. Vilma from Trip Peru met us and took us to our hotel, the Eco Inn Cusco. Cusco is a very popular tourist destination and is rich in Inca history and architecture. It is the branching-­‐off point to see Machu Picchu and the surrounding area. Mary’s throat was getting worse, and we set out to find a Ancient Inca Masonry pharmacy and have lunch. We bought some over-­‐the-­‐ counter drugs for her to gargle and had ice cream.

When we returned to the hotel, our tour guide Martha was waiting for us. We visited the historic main square and the cathedral, which is built on top of Inca foundations. It is huge and has 20 or more altars.

Martha showed us the Inca influence in the cathedral.

Inca worship symbols (moons and suns) had been carved in the stones. When mixed in with Catholic symbols, they were very interesting. We then went to Koricancha, the Temple of the Sun, an ancient adoration Inca center for the Sun God. The temple has withstood many earthquakes, a testament to Inca construction engineering. The tour continued to the Fortress of Sacsayhuaman, built entirely of perfectly fitted carved stones and where the Inti Raymi celebration takes place every year. We visited the ancient Inca center of Kenko and then returned to the hotel.

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We got up about 6 a. m. to repack and get ready to tour the Sacred Valley of the Incas. The valley encompasses the heartland of the Inca Empire and was appreciated due to its special geographical and climatic qualities. Large-­‐scale maize farming started there around 1400. The tour bus picked us up, and I told our guide Mirasala that we needed to stop at a pharmacy. Mary’s throat had gotten worse, and I thought she had what I had picked up in Lima. Mirasala translated what we needed, and the pharmacy gave us two prescriptions for it. The people on the bus were gracious about us stopping. We stopped in Pisac, which is famous for its Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday markets, and had lunch at a local restaurant. We then drove to Ollantaytambo, an Inca fortress built to watch the entrance to the valley. Mary was having trouble breathing, as the area is 3,000 feet higher than Machu Picchu. She didn’t climb up the mountain to the fortress. I was impressed with the food storage bins the Incas had constructed. They had them scattered throughout their empire. Enough food was stored to feed the Inca population for 10 years. They had perfected the process of dehydration, and dehydrated potatoes could be consumed even after 10 years in storage. The Inca civilization was the first in the world to cultivate potatoes, around 7,000 years ago, and had advanced potato horticulture with over 3,000 varieties. Spanish conquistadors in search of gold discovered the vegetables in Peru in 1532. They used them on their ships to prevent scurvy. It was not long before farmers in the Spanish Basque region began to grow them, and the potato spread across Europe throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.

We overnighted at the Pakaritampu Hotel in Yucay and left in the morning at 6:30 to walk to the train station where we met Maria, our guide at Colca Canyon. She told us there were only six English-­‐speaking people in our group.

We took the train to the Machu Picchu ruins. We were in superior class in a Vistadome car. Along the way we stopped to let some people off who Machu Picchu were going to do the four-­‐day Inca trail walk. The train tracks were adjacent to a fast-­‐moving mountain stream most of the trip. The scenery was beautiful. We then went by bus from the Aguas Calientes train station to the top of the mountain where the Inca Citadel of Machu Picchu was. We met Jose, our guide, and started the ascent up the citadel, very slowly. Jose lives on a mountain near here. He is a Quecha, lower-­‐level Inca, and talked about the 5,000 Incas who built Machu Picchu. Only 400 lived there. The Incas used people from all over their empire to do the building, no slave labor. They made arrangements for the laborers to have their families taken care of while they were away. This was in sharp contrast to the Spanish conquistadors who enslaved the Incas to do their bidding and subjected them to horrible conditions. Jose stopped at each level and spent 10 to 20 minutes to explain it. We finally reached the highest level, and Mary said she would wait for the group to come back. On the way down, Jose held Mary’s hand to safely lead her down to the exit. We had lunch, and then boarded the bus to travel down to the village and stayed overnight at Hatuchay Tower Hotel. We 298

got in at 3 p.m., and Mary went to bed. She sleeps every chance she gets. We had a buffet for dinner at the hotel and got to bed at 9.

In the morning we returned to Machu Picchu where I left Mary on the lower level and headed for the guard tower to take pictures. I decided to go to the East Gate that is the termination of the Inca trail that a lot of tourists take, a four-­‐day trip. It was a spectacular view and the first point the sun shines through in the morning. I was reminded that I had read the Incas had a sophisticated network of trails throughout their empire. They were manned by a series of relay runners who could deliver message s throughout the empire in a manner of a few days.

Another intriguing aspect of their governance was their system, Quipu (also called "khipus" or "talking knots"), of keeping track of all things View From East Gate important. The talking knots typically consisted of colored, spun, and plied thread or strings from llama or alpaca hair and aided in data collection and record keeping, including the monitoring of tax obligations, census records, calendrical information, and military organization.

The cords contained numeric and other values encoded on knots in a base-­‐10 positional system. Some quipu had as many as 2,000 cords. A limited number of civil servants were knowledgeable and trusted enough to maintain this record. Unfortunately the Spanish conquistadores realized this was key to Inca governance and destroyed every one of them they could find, as well as killing the men who understood how to maintain them. We saw one in Lima at the museum. No one has been able to crack the coding used by the Incas in this Quipu system. What a horrible outcome for the Inca people.

I returned to where I left Mary and found that a Spanish woman who spoke no English, but understood it, had befriended her. They had become great friends, and she kept Mary company while I was gone. We took the bus back to the village and had lunch at a pizza place. We found a shoeshine boy and had our shoes shined. They were really dirty, and the shine cost the equivalent of $1. Before we boarded the train for Cusco, we had ice cream. The train ride had some entertainment. A couple dressed in alpaca clothing costumes and masks performed humorously. They also modeled alpaca clothing and even sold some. I had gotten a number of bites from little sand knats, 20 to 30, at Machu Picchu. Some of the people had spray to put on. I applied cortisone instead, and it helped. When we got to the hotel we found our bags already in the room. We ate some sandwiches we got for the train ride and went to bed at 9:30.

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In the morning we boarded a bus for a long ride to Puno, our last destination in Peru. We had business-­‐class seats, and our first stop was the Andahuaylillas town and its church, considered to be the Sistine Chapel of America. We next stopped at the archaeological site of Raqchi with its temple to Wiracocha. It is taller than anything else we have seen. We saw a lot of round buildings used for storage. Noble people were the only ones who lived in this area. We had lunch before we got to La Raya, the highest spot on this drive, 14,222 feet. Mary could feel it. Before we got to Puno, we stopped at the archaeological site of Puca Pucara. Anne met us at the Puno bus station and took us to our hotel to go over our itinerary. We stayed at the Posada del Inca Puno Hotel. It was a four-­‐star and even had Kleenex. We are overlooking Lake Titicaca. I did some laundry and sent my well-­‐worn and dirty jeans to the cleaners. We got to bed about 8:30.

In the morning we took a boat ride on Lake Titicaca, which borders Peru and Bolivia. By volume of water, it is the largest lake in in South America and is considered to be the highest navigable lake in the world, with a surface elevation of 12,507 feet. There were about 10 passengers, and we motored to Uros, a group of 44 or so artificial Islands made of floating reeds, totora, that abound in Floating Island on Lake Titicaca the shallows of the lake. These islands have become a major tourist attraction for Peru. Their original purpose was defensive. They could be moved if a threat arose. Many of them have watchtowers constructed of reeds. The ancient people who lived on them were known as the water people. We stopped at one of the islands and were greeted by the inhabitants.

The ground (or floor?) was mushy. The homes were also made of reeds.

The women take care of the children and knit alpaca clothing for sale to the tourists. The men hunt and fish. The women talked Mary and me into trying on the clothing they had knitted, and of course they took our picture and we had to buy it. We then took a boat made of reeds for a ride and paddled to another island.

We were then dropped off at our hotel. I saw an old navy ship being MEA & CFA Posing in Native Dress worked on and visited it. It had been built in 1862 and was being renovated to be used as a passenger ship. We had lunch and toured the Chullpas Sillustani, 40-­‐foot-­‐high stone cylinder burial chambers, used by the Aymaras to bury their important leaders. When the Incas conquered the Titicaca people, they changed the burial practices. The Inca king died and was buried in one of those cylinders. It had an opening facing east as the rising sun from the east was their god. After his death, all of the king’s children, wives and concubines were given chichi beer (made out of maize or corn) until they were drunk. The favorite wife and male child were killed and their organs removed and replaced with herbs. They were then put in a fetal position, as was the king, and buried in a chamber behind the king with food, clothing, the favorite lama, etc. All this would be there for the king’s rebirth. Only the royalty was buried here. Regular Incas were buried in fetal position miles away. Tomorrow we go to Quito, Ecuador.

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We got up early and caught our flight to Lima. After paying $62 airport tax we boarded the flight to Quito, arriving around 3:30 p.m. We stayed at the Mercure Alameda Quito Hotel, a five-­‐star. We went shopping for sunscreen and used an Internet café to do e-­‐mail. We had an early dinner. I had filet minion and Mary had soup. We both had wine. The tab was $15 U.S. In the morning we took a bus to Tambillo, where we boarded the "Chiva Express," a one-­‐car train that looks like a bus. The Chiva follows an old railroad track to El Boliche. Top speed was around 25 mph, as the old tracks couldn’t safely endure higher speeds. It runs M, W & F. The Trans American Highway shifted traffic away from the railroads, and the rail infrastructure was in a sad state of disrepair. The Chiva started about a year ago in an effort to revive rail use. There were about 30 tourists on it. As we were making our way out of Quito, we were escorted by two teams of motorcycle cops who would race ahead to stop traffic at intersections. Everyone waved at us as we went through the city. As we got out of the city, the motorcycle escort dropped Chiva Express off and the train driver had to lean on his horn to get people off the tracks. People still waved and dogs chased us. What fun!! About two hours into the train ride, a gaucho rode his horse along the train waving his six-­‐shooter. The train stopped at his hacienda and we all got off.

We were taken to the milking barn and given a milking-­‐by-­‐hand demonstration. They put on a roping show and lassoed bulls. They let some lamas into the corral for us to pet. Mary was helped on one of them, and I took her picture. The hacienda had been built in MEA on Lama 1908 by the owner’s grandfather. We had a lunch there of foria beans, corn bread, cheese and hot sauce.

We continued by bus to the Cotopaxi National Park. Our guide spoke perfect English, and we saw a lot of beautiful flowers and some animals. It was very clear, and we had a great view of the Cotopaxi volcano. We stopped at the Limpiopungo lagoon to see the birds and walk around. Our guide was a bird person who explained a lot about the native birds. We were the only ones on this tour, and we stopped for lunch at a building in the middle of nowhere.

We saw hummingbirds and a couple of condors. We then headed back to Quito and saw wild horses along the way.

We have a free day tomorrow, and Mary wants to do a city 301

Cotopaxi Volcano

and equator tour. I booked it and found that the guide is the wife of the hacienda owner. Quito seems a lot more affluent than Peru. There are a lot of personal vehicles here, and people dress up more.

After breakfast we left on a bus to do the tour. The driver from yesterday was our driver again. We had given him a generous tip, and he was happy to see us. Vanessa, the wife of the hacienda owner, was our guide. We saw the colonial old town, which has the original structures and the San Francisco Cathedral, which was under renovation. We then visited the Quito Cultural Heritage Center on the equator. We walked to the top and took pictures. There was a display that highlighted the cultural differences of the various tribes, but we only had 20 minutes to spend there. We wished it had been longer. Our guide stopped the bus two blocks from our hotel and insisted on walking us to it. She thought there would be protests there as the teachers were on strike and the street would be closed. They were protesting the government’s requirement to test them to see if they were competent. The principals had sided with the teachers, and they were fired. The students were also protesting in support of the principals and teachers.

We saw none of that. It was around 2 p.m., and we headed out to find the gelato shop for ice cream. We repacked for our trip to the Galapagos Islands tomorrow, as we are leaving some of our luggage here at the hotel. We had dinner nearby and got to bed early.

Up at 5:30 a.m. and off to the airport by 7:30 for a 9 o’clock flight. We arrived at San Cristobal Island at 12:30. It took a long time to clear immigration. We took a dingy to the MV Santa Cruz, our expedition ship we will spend the next four days and three nights on. It was anchored at Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, the provincial capital of the Galapagos Islands. We were assigned a cabin on the main deck, had lunch and then given a safety demonstration. The passengers were divided according to their language, English, Spanish, French, Italian and German. Our group is called the Bobbies, after a bird. That afternoon we took a dingy to Cerro Brujo's white coralline beach for a wet landing.

We walked through the water to the beach where there were a lot of sea lions and different birds.

Everyone walked around the sea lions but were cautioned to not walk between them as they can bite. I went snorkeling. We then returned to the Blue Footed Boobies ship and cleaned up for dinner.

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We got up early since we had to leave at 7 for a dry landing at Punta Suarez on Espanola Island to visit the bird colonies. We saw masked boobies, blue-­‐ footed boobies, swallowtail gulls, mockingbirds, hawks and finches. We also saw iguanas and sea lions. The walk was about three hours long. We returned to the ship for a lecture on the area and history of the islands, and then had lunch. That afternoon I went snorkeling again and saw a lot of fish, including a stingray. Mary went on a glass bottom boat and also saw a lot of fish. After that we disembarked at Punta Cormorant (wet landing) at Galapagos Hawk an olivine-­‐crystal beach for a walk that includes a brackish water lagoon where we saw many different bird species including greater flamingos, herons, sandpipers, frigates, etc. We also saw stingrays. We returned to the ship and had dinner with Charles and Lynn Purcell from New Zealand. We shared a bottle of wine with them. Salad, grouper, sweet potato, chicken spinach, and desert were served.

We had an early breakfast and rode the dingy to Fernandina Island for a dry landing. This is a young island and, due to recent volcanic activity, does not have much plant life. Punta Espinoza is a narrow stretch of land where hundreds of marine iguanas gather in large groups on black lava rocks.

The Flightless Cormorant inhabits the island. We saw a lot of crabs, whales and sea lions barking at us. The walk was very rough. Fernandina is considered the most pristine of the Galápagos Islands and has had no species of mammals Galapagos Blow Hole introduced, as do most of the other islands in the archipelago. We returned to the ship for lunch and today's special, Sangria. We were served a buffet of Ecuadorian food. A pig had been cooked and presented on the buffet. In the afternoon I went snorkeling with some of the other people while Mary and the others took a dingy ride around Isabella Island. The water was rough, and Mary reacted as normal. They made her move to the front of the dingy so she could get wet. She was next to an Irish guy and grabbed his leg and held on. Mary kept telling the pilot where to turn. She can really be annoying in rough water. I’m glad I wasn’t with her. I enjoyed the snorkeling and saw a lot of fish and a penguin swimming really fast. He came up from behind me and raced ahead and was gone before I realized it. Cool!!

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We got up early and had our farewell breakfast. Our bags were out for pickup, and we took the dingy to Puerto Ayora to visit the Charles Darwin Research Station and see the giant tortoises that are raised in captivity. We also saw yellow albatross. After three hours we headed for the airport, taking a ferry across the Itabaca Channel and then a bus to Baltra Island airport for our noon flight back to the continent. We got to our hotel in Quito and did some laundry and had dinner at the corner restaurant we usually went to. Our waiter was excited to see us. We have booked a tour to see the cloud forest tomorrow.

Galapogas Giant Tortoises Our tour started at 9, and we drove to the southern edge of the Choco-­‐Andean rain forest corridor. We went bird watching in the Bella Vista area. Our guide found many different bird species. We visited a butterfly farm. It was in a large building and had a tremendous variety of butterflies. We had lunch, and then visited an orchid farm where we saw many different species. We got to our hotel around 7 and did some packing. We had dinner and were in bed around 9. We left for the airport at 7 a.m. Our flight was at 9. There was a mix-­‐up in our itinerary, and we ended up having to fly coach class from Tampa to OKC. We didn’t receive any notice from AA. We got to OKC around 8:30 p.m. Brian picked us up. We were glad to be home. Overall, this was a really great trip.

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2010 Nevada and West Coast-­‐July 21st to August 1st We flew to Reno via Phoenix and were met at the airport by Ruth and Mark Brenner around noon. Mark and Ruth were neighbors in North Oaks and had children the same ages as ours. We became close friends.

Mark was retired as head of research at various prominent universities. They had retired to Reno and encouraged us to visit them. We went to their home for lunch and then headed to Virginia City, which reminded us of Guthrie, Oklahoma with a lot of old restored Victorian and vintage buildings. We returned to their home and enjoyed their deck with a view of the mountains and the golf course. They are near the 17th hole. The weather was perfect. The only problem was the sagebrush pollen that really aggravated my sinus. We had a late breakfast in the morning and headed for the Crystal Bay area on the east side of Lake Tahoe near Incline Village. We went to Kings Beach and then Mark & Ruth Brenner proceeded to Carnelian Bay and had lunch at the Garwoods Restaurant. After that we drove south to Dollar Point and Ehrmon Mansion center. Unfortunately, the old homes there were closed due to the economy.

Ruth kept mentioning how badly the Reno area was suffering. We continued to Emerald Bay and completed circumnavigating Lake Tahoe before retuning to Reno. We had BBQ steak (and ice cream) for dinner.

In the morning we headed for the Carson Trail for a hike and to see the myriad of colors from the alpine flowers. We walked to Capals Lake and had a lunch with sandwiches Ruth had packed.

We went for a walk along the lake and encountered a young couple who had just stripped and were swimming in the nude. I think Mark got some pictures. His main hobby is now CarsonTrail Scene photography. They were still swimming when we returned. We then headed for Winnemucca Lake at the end of the trail. Mary decided the altitude was too much and waited for us to return an hour and half later (She had a stent put in a month before). The flowers were fabulous. Mark slowed us down a bit with his constant picture taking.

That evening we went to a Thai restaurant and shared four dinners.

We said our goodbyes in the morning and left about noon, picked up a rental vehicle and then headed for the California Coast. We stopped in Marysville for lunch with sandwiches that Ruth had made for us. That night we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant. In the morning we proceeded to Fort Bragg and drove up the coast to Eureka where we stayed at an old hotel that had been renovated. We had dinner at the Marina cafe. The next day was very long as we made it to Portland, OR. When we got to Newport, OR we encountered on-­‐again, off-­‐again patches of fog and clouds that obscured our view of the beautiful Oregon coast. We arrived in Portland around 7:30 and stayed at a Fairfield hotel. That night we had dinner at Salty’s Seafood Grill on the Columbia. The view of the river was spectacular and the food great, albeit quite 305

expensive for my preference. We left early the next morning for Mt. Hood and the Columbia River Gorge, one of my all-­‐time favorite drives. On the way back we stopped at Multnomah Falls. I was curious to see the home that had been built on the lot Mary and I had purchased for retirement in 1990. We sold it in 2004 after we decided not to retire there. It was in the Lost Park neighborhood in northwest Portland. We found the neighborhood and believe we located the house. It was nicely done. That evening we had a great dinner at the Beaches Restaurant on the Washington side.

Our destination today was the Seattle area. We took Hwy. 5 to Tillamook on the coast and then went to Astoria, OR for lunch at Josephson’s Smokehouse where we had seafood chowder and shared a crab-­‐like salmon steak. We then crossed the Columbia and drove the river to Hwy. 5 and headed for Seattle. We booked a room at a Days Inn in Kent for two nights and bought a $7 meal for two at a Safeway deli. The room has a refrigerator and microwave, so that worked. The next day we drove to Mt. Rainier National Park and circumnavigated Mt. Rainier. Before we left, we stopped at the Safeway and bought a 6-­‐inch sandwich.

We have been eating these for the past several days. Every time we bought one, we received a coupon for another. Today we are finished with the free lunches. We drove to Sunrise Point near the top of Mt. Rainier and ate it.

We returned to our hotel in Kent. The traffic was terrible, and we didn’t get in until 6. We are changing hotels tomorrow and need to make sure we know where Al and Peggy’s daughter Jennie’s wedding to Alan will be held.

We checked in at the Larkspur Landing hotel in Renton for two nights and then left to search out The Rose Garden at the Seattle Zoo where the wedding will be held. Good thing, as we got lost a few times. We had lunch at Pikes market and returned to the room as I had work to do. The wedding was the next day. The Rose Garden was beautiful and guests were seated outside. Afterwards, an elaborate reception was held at a hotel overlooking the water.

Jenny & Alan Kidney Unfortunately, we were not able to spend much time with the Steldts. They kept telling us to visit them at their retirement home in Colorado.

The next morning we caught a flight for Las Vegas to help Julie and Donna get ready for the World Market show that starts tomorrow. We checked in at the Golden Nugget, unpacked and took a shuttle to the Market, a 10-­‐minute ride. Brian had arrived the day before and was busy helping set up. We had dinner at the hotel with everyone from DAI and the co-­‐owner of Dillon Well’s show room, Lance Bissell. The Alexander family caught a flight back to OKC several days later, leaving Julie and Donna to finish the show.

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2011 Idaho and Wyoming−June 26th to July 11th We were up at 3:45 a.m. to catch a 6:30 flight for Salt Lake. We landed at 8 and rented an auto and took Hwy. 89 for Bear Lake. We had lunch at Montpelier and then headed for Idaho Falls on I-­‐15, arriving at Nick and Joan Nichols' home around 4 p.m. We spent the evening catching up on old times. Joan had broken her arm a few days earlier, and Nick took over the kitchen. We had scrambled eggs and sausage for breakfast.

Nick took us on a tour of Experimental Breeder Reactor No. 1 (EBR-­‐I), an atomic museum at the national laboratory where he had worked before retiring in 2001. It was located on U.S. Highway 20/26 between Idaho Falls and Arco. The facility is now a National Historic Landmark and in 1951 was the first to generate usable electricity from nuclear energy. We returned to his home around 3. Joan stayed behind as she had an appointment with her doctor.

That evening they treated us to a steak dinner at a restaurant, followed by a local performance of “The Sound of Music,” very enjoyable. The next day they showed us around the Idaho Falls area and the various in-­‐town Idaho National Laboratory facilities. This U.S. Dept. of Energy laboratory is a major employer in the area, and a lot of advanced research is conducted there. During the tour yesterday, I learned that safeguards had been developed by the laboratory to prevent nuclear reactor meltdowns. If they had been implemented in Japan, the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant disaster that occurred earlier in the year would have been avoided, tsunami or not.

After a breakfast of pancakes, we said our goodbyes to the Nichols and headed for the Jackson Hole area, arriving there around 11:30. We checked into a hotel, shopped for some groceries, went to the visitor center for maps and suggestions, and then drove to Jackson Lake. We were in the Grand Teton National Park, and the mountain views were fabulous. We drove to Jenny Lake and started to hike around it but the walk coupled with the altitude bothered Mary, so we drove back to our hotel in Jackson, enjoying the beautiful scenery along the way. We had dinner at the Lotus restaurant and went to bed early. We got up at 5:30 and headed to the south entrance of Yellowstone Park and then took the northeast leg to Fishing Bridge.

Old Faithful

We exited Yellowstone at the east entrance and drove to Cody, WY to see the Buffalo Bill Museum. We arrived around noon and learned from the visitor center that it would take at least 2 to 3 hours for a quick walk through, as the museum is huge. We decided would take too much of our time from Yellowstone and had lunch at an Italian restaurant before driving back to Yellowstone. We arrived at the northeast entrance and drove south on the east side and then west between the two circles, exiting the west entrance. We saw a lot of bison along the way.

Our hotel was just outside the park. We had dinner at the Wild West Pizza. It was good. In the morning we returned to the park and headed south on the west side to see Old Faithful. We got there at 10 and were told it would go off at 10:30. It finally 307

did at 10:45. Next, we headed for West Thumb and drove counterclockwise around the entire park so that we covered the park in its entirety. We exited the west entrance around 4 and had dinner at a Mexican/American restaurant.

In the morning we headed for Salmon, Idaho via A2, 22 & 28.

The mountain range was on one side and a national forest on the other. We arrived in Salmon at noon and checked into our motel room. We then visited the Sacajawea Interpretive Cultural and Educational Center in town and stopped by the farmers' market. That evening we had dinner at Bertram’s Microbrewery. We left Salmon early and got to Stanley around noon. We drove through a lot of mountains. We checked into our room and headed for Redfish Lake in the Sawtooth Recreation Area where we had brats for lunch. We then headed south to the fish hatchery and were given a tour by Shelly, a freshman biology major at the university.

Yellowstone River in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

We returned to Stanley and visited the non-­‐denominational church where various denominations have services at different times on Sunday. The Catholic priest drives 130 miles for the one mass. We then visited the Stanley Museum. It was quite interesting, and we were told having breakfast at the bakery in town is a must do. We then returned to Redfish Lake for the music festival that started at 4, staying an hour and then going to dinner at the Salmon Bridge Grill. We were seated next to a couple from Seattle who were with their daughter and husband. The guy from Seattle was a real windbag and very impressed with himself. I let him know that I was from Oklahoma City and wanted to thank them for giving us the Super Sonics (renamed the Thunder) NBA basketball team. His son-­‐in-­‐law could barely contain his laughter. The Seattle folks were not pleased with me. We had breakfast at the bakery, and it was really packed. We split a breakfast burrito and a sourdough pancake the size of a full dinner plate.

Shoshone Falls near City of Twin Falls

It was July 4th and we headed for the Twin Falls area on Hwy. 20. En route we pulled off to see the Craters of the Moon National Monument, viewing various craters during the 7-­‐mile drive. We then went to Twin Falls and checked into our hotel. We headed for the Marble Slab Creamery for ice cream. Next, we went to the Snake River Gorge and had a great view of Twin Falls.

We had trouble finding a restaurant that wasn’t closed for the 4th, but finally did … Chili’s. In the morning we drove to Park City, UT. The drive was mostly flat. We had booked a condo at a time-­‐share that was fully furnished, spacious and cheap, since it was off-­‐season.

Bus transportation was free, and we visited the Olympic Village where the 2000 Olympics were held. The next 308

morning we flew back to Oklahoma City. It was a great little trip and an opportunity to visit old friends, the Nichols.

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2014 Chile, Argentina, Brazil−April 19th to May 1st Brian picked us up around 3 p.m. and drove us to the airport for our AA flight to Dallas at 4:20. We had a four-­‐hour layover before our flight to Santiago, Chile at 9:25 and headed to the AMEX Centurion lounge for complimentary food and drinks. We arrived the next morning around 7 a.m. I was really pleased to learn that Chile had lifted the visa reciprocity fee of $160 per person. We were met by the driver of the limo service I had arranged for transport to the hotel. I struggled with getting local currency from the airport ATM, but there were helpful local travelers who guided me through the Spanish instructions. Around 10:30 we checked into our hotel, the Hotel GEN, and immediately went to bed. We got up around 3 in the afternoon and went for a walk to explore the nearby downtown area. We had ice cream at a sidewalk café and returned to our hotel. We went to the hotel roof and checked out the view. It had three outdoor swimming pools and a workout room. The Santiago Mural temperature was in the high 70’s/low 80’s. That evening we had dinner at the hotel and sat next to a couple from Brazil. They didn’t speak much English, but we were able to understand a little about them.

The next morning we went to the National Historic Museum. After touring the museum, we tried to find the museum of Pinochet, the dictator who killed and tortured many of the citizens opposing him. A young woman stopped us on the street and asked us if she could help. She didn’t speak much English, but I thought she understood what we were looking for. She motioned us to follow and took us into a large government building. There were a lot of uniformed guards around, and the woman talked to several of them. None of them spoke English, but they really wanted to help us. They escorted us to an office to sit while one of them left to find someone who spoke English. A young man came in and was very fluent in English. He didn’t know where Pinochet’s museum was either, but told us we were in Chile’s Supreme Court building and offered to give us a tour. The tour was quite good, and we learned and saw a lot that most tourists never see. Sometimes you just stumble into the most unusual, interesting situations, and, it didn’t cost us anything. We bought tickets for the hop-­‐on/hop-­‐off bus and circumnavigated the tour route. It was too late to get off and see any of the major attractions, but we did get an overview of Santiago. I was impressed with how modern the city was. There has been a lot of investment made since the socialist government was ousted several years earlier. On the way back to the hotel we stopped and had dinner.

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The next day we had a tour of Valparaiso, a major seaport near the epicenter of an earthquake that struck Chili several weeks before our trip. Valparaiso is approximately 75 miles northwest of Santiago and is built on a lot of steep hills that overlook the Pacific Ocean. We first visited the home of Pablo Neruda, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient for poetry in 1971.

He was also a communist sympathizer and served in many ambassadorial and political roles. We thought we were going to tour the National Congress, but just drove by it without stopping. We toured the square on the harbor and saw a lot of boats. The square had a tsunami warning system. When it went off, there was imminent danger of a tsunami and not much time to reach higher ground. Our lunch was at a Pablo Neruda restaurant that didn’t take credit cards. They were haphazard in bringing food to the table, and we couldn’t keep track of what was going on. When the check arrived, we were charged for food we didn’t order. I had to leave the restaurant to find an ATM to get cash for the bill.

Claudio, our guide, told us he would never use that restaurant again. I didn’t believe him. He should have known better. With Claudio’s help, a reduction in the bill was negotiated. Before we left for Santiago, we visited Viña del Mar, a charming town nicknamed the Garden City due to its parks, flowerbeds, gardens and pleasant beaches.

We saw the Floral Clock made with flowers and sticks for the hands. It has the correct time and was beautiful. After Vina d el Mar's Floral Clock that we visited a church that had a number of stone statues from Easter Island, which is part of Chile’s territory. Our return trip took an hour and a half. We had dinner at the hotel that evening and ran into a group of people from Australia. They insisted on us joining them for dinner. It was a long boisterous and fun night.

In the morning we got up early to catch a bus for a wine tour. We visited the Undurraga Vineyard, about a two-­‐hour drive from our hotel. The grounds were beautiful, and they gave us a tour of the winery. The wine was stored in underground cellars in enormous oak barrels. At the conclusion of the tour we were invited to taste a number of reds and whites and given two large wine glasses (We hauled them with us for the rest of the trip. What a pain). We bought a bottle of nice chardonnay and returned to our hotel. We packed for our flight to Puerto Mont in the morning and took a nap. We woke up to a lot of noise in the street. There was a professional soccer game, and the winners were celebrating with loud music Unduragga's Wine Cellar and fireworks. We learned the police had barricaded some of the 311

streets and were guarding the major stores from rioters. Fortunately, things calmed down by the time we went to dinner.

Our driver was promptly on time, and we got to the airport by 6:20 for our flight at 8:40. We arrived at 10:15 and took a cab to our hotel, the Cabana Del Lago in Puerto Varas, about a 20-­‐minute ride. We checked in and then went for a walk around town. The hotel is right on the Lago LLanquichue Lake. We stopped at a shop and had ice cream and cookies. We returned to the hotel that was crowded with people checking in. Tour organizers use this hotel as a focal point to gather people for tours. We had a salmon dinner at the hotel. It was good. We then stopped in the lounge for a glass of wine and encountered a large group of English-­‐speaking people having cocktails. I tried to guess where they were from and thought they were New Zealanders. I finally asked them, and they told me they were Aussies. I told them they were far too quiet to be Australian. They laughed and we chatted for a while.

We were to be picked up at 7:30 in the morning for our trip to Bariloche, Argentina via a series of rides on catamarans and buses. There were four different tour groups congregated in the hotel lobby being sorted out by the master tour coordinator. We finally got on our bus at 8:30 and headed for the first scenic stop, the waterfalls of Petrohue River. We had a clear view of the majestic snowcapped Osorno volcano for much of the morning. We boarded a catamaran on Lake Todos los Santos for an hour and half ride to Puella, a little mountain village on the eastern side of the lake. The weather was clear and sunny with crisp temperatures in the 60’s. The scenery was beautiful, and the lake water was a deep emerald blue. We had lunch in Puella, then boarded a bus to cross the Vicente Perez Rosales border point. We surrendered our document that proved we had paid the $160 per person reciprocity fee to enter Argentina and then proceeded by bus to Lake Frias to board another catamaran to sail to Puerto Blest for the next bus ride.

After a short ride we continued sailing, crossing Lake Nahuel Huapi until we reached Puerto Panuelo an hour and 15 minutes later. We boarded a bus with our luggage and were dropped off at our hotel, the Soft Bariloche, around 9:30 p.m. On the advice of our hotel we headed for a nearby restaurant, the Familia Weiss. It served good German cuisine, and we finally were able to get to bed around 1 a.m.

We had the whole day to do whatever we wanted. The hotel desk gave us maps and some ideas to check out. Bariloche is located in a resort area. In the summer its lakes and mountains are the main draw. In the winter, skiing wins out. Our hotel had a great view of the lake. We left for the town square to see the museum, chocolate factory and other points of interest. It seemed that large homeless dogs were everywhere. We found out they weren’t really homeless. They habitate a given place where someone takes care of feeding them. They just seem to sleep the whole day. We picked up Homelesss Dog -­‐ Bariloche some wine and went back to the hotel. That night we went to dinner at El Boliche de Alberto. It was recommended as the top BBQ (steak) restaurant in Bariloche. We got there promptly at normal opening time, 7:30, but had to wait in the rain with others until 8. We shared an entrée of grilled steak. It was very similar to a New York Strip cut and one of the best I’ve ever had, and at a reasonable price.

Our flight to Buenos Aires was in the afternoon so we continued seeing the town’s attractions. We visited the Cathedral of Bariloche and did some money changing. We stopped at one of the large candy stores and 312

had ice cream for lunch. We had a cab take us to the airport. Our flight landed in Buenos Aires around 5 p.m. The limo service I reserved was nowhere to be found. I had just about given up, when the driver finally arrived. He took us to our hotel, the Grand King. It was centrally located on a pedestrian street and near a large shopping mall, Galleria Pacifica. On the way to the restaurant, there was street entertainment less than 100 feet from our hotel. A couple of tango dancers were performing to loud music and a large crowd had gathered.

In the morning we headed for the meeting point for a free walking tour about eight blocks from our hotel.

Mario was our guide and spoke excellent English. There were about 15 on the tour, and they all spoke English.

They were from the U.S., England and Estonia. The tour lasted about four hours, and we got a lot of information about Buenos Aires and saw a lot of varied architecture.

We visited many historical landmarks, including the Falklands War Memorial, San Martins Square and the Jewish Synagogue that was bombed in 1994. Eighty-­‐five people were killed by the Iranian terrorist offshoot organization, Hezbollah. We ended the tour at a very large cemetery, La Recoleta. It contains the graves of notable people, including Eva Perón, presidents of Typical Buenos Aires Architecture Argentina, Nobel Prize winners and a granddaughter of Napoleon. In 2013 it was listed among the 10 most beautiful cemeteries in the world. We had ice cream for lunch and took a cab to the Galleria Pacifica Mall near our hotel. It was Good Friday, and Mary couldn’t have meat. We had dinner at a pizza place and split a cheese and veggie pizza. We noticed a lot of dogs, but they are all on leashes here. Tomorrow we are to go on a tour of the Santa Susana Estancia, a working ranch that caters to tourists with BBQ, horse riding and Gaucho horsemanship.

We were up early and had breakfast. Our pickup was late, and we finally got under way around 10:15. We arrived at the ranch at noon and were greeted by servants offering meat pie snacks and small glasses of wine. The ranch had converted the original home into a museum. It was furnished as though it were 150 years earlier. Very interesting. The weather was perfect and the grounds very beautiful. The Estancia offered horse-­‐drawn wagon rides and horseback rides. Mary and I took the wagon ride. Lunch was Alexanders with Amadori-­‐Alberonis served in an enormous dining room large enough to serve 200 people. The beef was cooked on open grills with a large bed of coals underneath. Our names were placed on the table with everyone else from our bus. We were seated next to Roberto and Marisa Amadori-­‐Alberoni from Santiago, Chile. They had spent a lot of time in the U.S., and their kids are married to U.S. citizens and live there. They hope to return to the U.S. within several years. We spent a lot of time 313

getting to know each other and have since stayed in contact. After the all-­‐you-­‐can-­‐eat lunch, they put on a musical folk and tango dance show. Next was a show by the gauchos racing their horses towards a small metal ring suspended by a rope above the racetrack. The gaucho had a small stick and tried to pierce the metal ring as he raced by it, very entertaining. We returned to our hotel about 5. We weren’t very hungry and had some ice cream for dinner at Galleria Pacifica. Somehow, I managed to erase all of the pictures we had taken and spent the evening researching how to recover them.

It was Easter, and Mary tried to find a church to attend mass. We asked around, but no one seemed to know where we should go. The churches she was told about weren’t open when she found them. She gave up, and we decided to take an English guided tour of the Opera House. On our way we stopped at the Sony store in the mall and bought a memory card for the camera. I didn’t want to overwrite any of the pictures on the camera’s card and needed another one to continue taking pictures. When we got to the Opera House, we learned we wouldn’t be able to get a tour until it was too late in the day. So, we decided to visit some art museums instead and took a cab to the Latin American Art Museum. We then walked to the Buenos Aires Fine Art Museum. It was lunchtime, and we took a cab to the mall and had some ice cream, our normal lunch. We returned to the hotel and packed for our trip to Iguacu Falls in the morning.

Gaucho Horsmanship

Our limo service picked us up at 6:30 a.m. and we were at the airport by 7. We flew into Puerto Iguacu, Argentina, arriving about 11 and took a taxi to our hotel, Best Western Tarboba Eventos, in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil. Our driver took care of exiting Argentina and processing us through Brazilian passport control. Our passports had the $140 visa reciprocity documents in them. We arrived at our hotel about 12:30 and went down the street for a quick lunch.

We had a tour lined up for the Itapúa Dam around 2. We started at the visitor center and boarded a bus where we saw the front of the dam. It is enormous and is the largest hydroelectric facility in the world. The dam was built and owned by Brazil and Paraguay. It supplies 75% of Brazil's power and 100% of Paraguay’s and is located in both countries. The bus took us across the top of the dam, which is in Paraguay, making it the 75th Itapua Dam country I have visited and an honorary member of the Century Travel Club. Our lunch was huge, and we were not hungry. We visited a grocery store near our hotel to buy some snacks for dinner. Tomorrow we do a tour of the falls on the Brazilian side.

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Iguacu Falls

We were picked up late for the tour and then found out we were on the wrong one. We planned to just see the falls, but this tour included a boat ride to the falls. I didn’t even contemplate the boat ride since I knew Mary would just freak out. Somehow she decided she was OK to go. We went to the boat launch area and put all of our shoes and other water-­‐sensitive items in a locker. We bought some flimsy weather gear and climbed aboard the open boat. It was crowded and people were sitting in about 8 rows, 4 abreast. The boat headed upstream toward the falls and as we got close the boat bounced around a lot. There were a lot of falls along the way, and our boat went underneath one several times. I thought it was great fun, but could see that Mary was not happy. We returned to the launch area and recovered our belongings. We then went to see the falls. We followed a path parallel to the river and had a lot of great views and took a ton of pictures. The sights were incredible. We had lunch in the elevator section of the falls visitor center and then left to do a tour of the bird park. It had a great many different species and included a butterfly section. We returned to our hotel and had dinner near the hotel. Tomorrow we go to Rio. MEA & Macaw We got up at 4 a. m. and took a taxi to the airport. Our first flight was to Curitiba, Brazil and it got in at 8. We then flew to Sao Paulo, arriving there at 11:30 and caught our last flight to Rio at noon. We landed in the downtown airport around 1 and took a taxi to our hotel, the Atlantica Copacabana, three or so blocks from the beach. We spent most of the afternoon reorganizing our stuff and doing laundry. We finally went out for a walk to the beach around 4, but it was getting dark and we couldn’t see much. We returned to the hotel and had a pizza for dinner nearby. Tomorrow we go to Petropolis for the day.

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We left on the tour bus around 9:30 with about 16 others. I had visited Petropolis over 30 years ago and found it to be a nice laid-­‐back pretty little town.

In the colonial times it was a refuge for the aristocracy who wanted to escape the heat of Rio during the summer. Petropolis is about 60 km from Rio and travel took about 2 hours. We first visited the Imperial Museum, which was once the summer palace of the Emperor D. Pedro II. We visited the Crystal Palace and had lunch at a restaurant just as it started to rain. It was raining very hard when we Crystal Palace−Petropolis left the restaurant, and everyone got soaked going to the bus. There was a young man on the tour who had traveled the world over. We got into a discussion about American presidents, and I asked him who he though the greatest president was. He told me Lincoln, and I asked him why. He explained that, without Lincoln, slavery wouldn’t have been abolished in South America as soon as it was. Interesting!!

The last stop in Petropolis was a huge duty-­‐free shopping area with over 1,000 shops, mostly women’s fashion. Not my idea of spending time, but a lot of the others were enthusiastic. We finally headed back to Rio in the rain, arriving around 8. The traffic was heavy, and it amazed me there were so many motorcycles on the road. They seemed oblivious to the cars, going at high rates of speed between the lanes. I couldn’t believe how reckless they seemed, but there weren’t any accidents. Petropolis was a disappointment to me. Its quaint character has been overtaken by progress, and many of the attractions I remember were not part of the tour. Still, it was worthwhile for Mary to see and experience.

Tomorrow we don’t have anything scheduled and hope it will not rain. We want to see some of the main Rio attractions on our own.

We got up early. The weather was cooperating, and we would be able to enjoy visiting Christ the Redeemer.

Christ the R edeemer We took a taxi to the base of Corcovado and then transferred to a van for ascent to the statue. We arrived around 11 and took the elevator to the base of the statue. The view was incredible as we had a 360-­‐ degree bird's eye view of the Atlantic beaches, Rio and Sugarloaf. We spent about 45 minutes taking pictures and admiring the scenery. We then backtracked to the base of Sugarloaf Corcovado and took a taxi to Sugarloaf. We bought tickets and took the cable car up to Urca Hill, transferred to a second cable 316

car and ascended to Sugarloaf. Again the view was incredible. We could see the whole of Guanabar Bay, its islands, the Rio Nitero Bridge, Corcovado and Christ the Redeemer. We saw a young man with a Blue Thunder No. 35 T-­‐ Shirt (Kevin Durant). He was with three others. We found out they were grad students from OU and were from Norway majoring in petroleum engineering and would graduate in June.

Mary became breathless climbing some of the steps on Sugarloaf and created a lot of concern from the guards. I told them she would be OK, but they kept an eye on her. When we got off the cable car at the base, they were waiting to make sure she was fine. We returned to the hotel around 3 and found out where to buy bus tickets for tomorrow's ride to Paraty. We bought the tickets and had ice cream for lunch. On MEA on Copacabana Beach the way back to the hotel, we went to Copacabana Beach. Mary had her beach shoes on and got a little wet, her shoes filled with sand. That evening we had dinner near the beach. We shared an entrée of shrimp stroganoff with rice and fried shredded potatos.

We took a taxi to the bus station. Our bus departed at 9 a.m., and the journey to Paraty took about four hours. The route hugged the coast, and the scenery was fantastic. Paraty is a resort town on the coast midway between Sao Paulo and Rio. Before the inland highway was built, it was the stopping-­‐off place for people travelling to and from Rio and Sao Paulo. Since then, it has diminished in importance and is primarily dependent on tourism. I hadn’t visited it previously, and thought it would be a nice place to end our trip.

We stayed at the Pousada Valhacouto. The staff didn’t speak English, but were very helpful and accommodating. We checked in and went for a walk through the nearby historic area. Mary was coming down with a cough and sore throat so we went looking for a drug store. We tried talking to the pharmacist, but she didn’t speak English. She pulled up a web site and indicated that I should type in what we needed.

I typed in cough and sore throat medicine. The pharmacist changed the language and was able to prescribe a remedy. She gave Mary Benalet, a large pill to be taken once a day for 6 days. It seemed to help. We got back to the room, and I asked the reception desk if they could fix us Caipirinhas, the national drink of Brazil.

I acquired a fondness for them when I was doing business in Brazil some 30-­‐plus yeas ago. It is made of 40-­‐ proof sugar cane liquor (Cachaca), fresh squeezed limejuice, sugar and crushed ice. Paraty is famous for the Cachaca. The hotel fixed us a couple of nice Caipirinhas. We went to dinner and had seafood. I did laundry before we went to bed.

Today, we wanted to take a boat trip, but the weather wasn’t cooperating so we decided we would do that tomorrow. Instead we spent the day exploring the nooks and crannies of Paraty. We had dinner at a Syrian restaurant and ordered six different dishes that were served on a little pizza-­‐like crust. It was good, but a lot more food than we needed. In the morning we walked to the docks and boarded our schooner for a five-­‐ hour sail around the area. There were five crew and 23 passengers. The boat was powered, and we visited three different beaches. The weather was fantastic and the scenery beautiful. Snorkeling was available, but I didn’t partake. The boat had a zodiac that was used to ferry passengers to and from the beaches. One beach had a group of men taking soil samples. They were eating oranges and offered some to our passengers. They just picked them from nearby trees and sliced them in two with their machetes. We 317

stopped along an island with a large rock for lunch. Our pilot threw fresh fruit on the rock and soon it was swarming with small monkeys. We had pre-­‐ordered our lunch before we left. Mary had chicken and I had fish. It was delicious. We returned to Paraty. All in all, this was a great day and it made up for the trip to Petropolis. We had dinner at a nearby restaurant and shared a meal of Steak Parmesan, fries and salad. I had a beer and Mary had a Caipirinha. Tomorrow we return to our hotel in Rio, the Atlantica Copacabana.

Our Schooner in Paraty We carried our bags to the bus station and were on the way to Rio by 9:30 a.m. We got to our hotel about 2:30. The ride back seemed longer than that. We had the same room as before. That evening we took a taxi to Rio Scenarium for dinner and to watch Samba. I was expecting the same sort of performance I had experienced when I was in Rio many years ago. There were only a few couples doing the Samba, and the food was way over priced. OH WELL!!

Today we are visiting the Jardin Botanical before we depart for the airport to fly home. We took a taxi there and were offered a free tour. The guide drove us in a golf cart and gave a limited explanation. He seemed in a hurry and was always prompting us to return to the cart when we got off at the observation points.

When he stopped at a museum that depicted a factory for making gunpowder, I though he was going to have a cow while we leisurely went through it. After his tour we went to the Orchid area. There were a lot of people setting up their displays for an international orchid competition, which started the next day. The variety and View From Jardin Botanical beauty of the displays was the best ever. We returned to the hotel and left for the airport in a cab about 1:30. When we arrived, we learned that check-­‐in wasn’t until around 4 p.m. We had hoped to spend our time in the Admiral's Club but couldn’t until we were checked in. When we got to the club, food and drinks were available on the house.

We took off at 9:30 and landed in Dallas at 6:30 a.m. the next day. Brian met us when we landed in OKC at 9:30. It was good to be back.

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My Involvement with the Justice System Over the years I have had several occasions to serve as a juror. The first time was concerning a convict who was being tried for burglary in a break-­‐and-­‐entry case. The evidence was mostly circumstantial, but extremely convincing. I felt that it was sufficient to vote for conviction. When the trial was concluded and sent to the jury for determination of guilt or innocence, one of the jurors, juror A, insisted that the fellow was innocent and that the prosecution hadn’t proven guilt. I attempted to steer the discussion to organizing the jury deliberation process so that we could go over the evidence in an organized manner. Juror A insisted that we have an up-­‐and-­‐down vote on the defendant’s guilt or innocence right at the outset. Two others and I voted for guilt. As the deliberation progressed, it was obvious that the other two were being intimidated, and they switched their vote. I was the lone holdout. As it turned out the defendant was shackled and under armed guard. Juror A speculated that the defendant was serving time for another offense and that the police were attempting to blackmail him into testifying against another unnamed individual. I held out for most of the afternoon, but couldn’t sway any of the other jurors. I decided to switch my vote as the fellow was already doing time and wouldn’t be out to harm others any time soon. If I persisted, the jury would be hung and go to a retrial.

The second jury I served on was to try a federal drug case. The defendant was being tried for operating a meth lab among other things. He had rented an old house in an out-­‐of-­‐the-­‐way, sparsely settled neighborhood of OKC. He had several accomplices, and somehow a fire got started while they were cooking the meth. The house burned to the ground, and the defendant went into hiding. The prosecution was gagged from explaining the circumstances surrounding the defendant’s apprehension, but the evidence was overwhelming. While the judge was reading instructions to the jury, I noticed a familiar face in the courtroom. I recognized him as one of the regulars at the gym where I worked out. The jury convened and deliberated all of 30 minutes before we had a unanimous verdict of guilty. We returned to the courtroom and the judge had the verdict read. The defendant was going to prison. I was looking for the fellow that I just saw, but he was nowhere to be found. A few days later I was at the gym and encountered him. He told me he was with the DEA and had arrested the defendant during a raid on a meth lab in Tulsa. The judge gagged the prosecution because of concerns the jury would be prejudiced. I had no idea this guy was a DEA agent.

Over the years I have had a number of fraudulent charges on my credit cards. The first one I recall was two separate charges for Varig airline tickets that were charged in Sao Paulo, Brazil. One was for around $400 and another for $600. As soon as I got the statement I immediately disputed the charges and the cc company suspended them. They later reported that someone with a photo ID made the charges in person.

My name was not used on the ID. These people were sophisticated enough to duplicate the magnetic stripe on my cc and to produce a credible ID. I did not suffer any damages from this nor any other bogus charges, of which there were many when I owned DAI. I had a company cc for both Jeff and Julie that had unique numbers. Jeff was constantly buying factory material and services. Periodically, we would discover and dispute bogus charges. I don’t ever recall learning that any of the culprits were caught.

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Another time a gang of ID thieves stole our bank account ID. My Aunt Helen Blesi had just passed away, and I wrote a check for a donation to the charity that was specified. Mary and I were in the process of leaving on vacation to Ireland and left the envelop in the mail box in front of our home. When we got back from Ireland, I reviewed our bank statement and noticed several transactions that had been made while we were away. They were made payable to local Wal-­‐Mart stores and it was obvious that someone had taken over our bank account. We immediately closed our account and began the laborious, lengthy process of straightening the mess out. We had to redo automatic payments, file police reports, talk to the FBI and get new accounts and checks. The process consumed about a week each for Mary and me, but we managed to get everything straightened out. Since I couldn’t find a transaction that matched the check that was used for Aunt Helen, I assumed that the check had been stolen out of our mailbox. That proved to be true. The FBI busted the gang in a raid some months later, and the check was discovered in the place they lived along with a lot of other evidence. They went to trial and everyone was found guilty and served time, some more than others. I started receiving notices from the Department of Justice about which gang members were serving how much time, and where. Six years later, most of the gang had completed their sentences, but not all. The notices continue.

Health Scare I received a call from Elaine at the Edmond Senior Citizens Center. It was Friday, Aug. 8, 2014. She was worried about Mary and wanted to fill me in on her concern. Mary had left about 30 minutes earlier to attend one of her regular exercise classes at the senior center. Everyone in the class observed that Mary was acting strangely and seemed disoriented. They talked to her, and she didn’t make sense and seemed uncoordinated. She had trouble grasping her water container. Elaine offered to drive her home, but she would have none of that. She asked Mary if it would be OK to call me and Mary told her no. She was going to drive home by herself. When I heard this, I remembered watching Mary leave the house. Her walk was a little unsteady, and I wondered if she was OK. I quickly concluded that she had a stroke. Elaine asked me what I thought, and I told her I was going to take her directly to the emergency room when she got home.

She said “Thank God.” No sooner had I hung up than I heard the overhead garage door open. I went in the garage and told Mary to not even come inside, that we were going to the hospital. I went in for my keys and to check the house to make sure it was secure. We headed for the hospital.

I then recalled that Mary had seen her heart doctor that morning and had been given a clean bill of health.

En route, I called the Oklahoma Heart Hospital and asked to talk to her doctor. No one answered, and I explained what was going on to the receptionist. She told me she would page Mary's doctor and have her call me. I arrived at the emergency room entrance before anyone got back to me. It was almost noon, an hour and 15 minutes since she had left for her exercise class. The staff descended on Mary immediately and wheeled her into a patient room. By the time I parked the car and returned, there were five nurses and doctors taking care of Mary. An MRI confirmed that a stroke had taken place and was due to bleeding on the brain. An anticoagulant prescription was ordered. As soon as I could collect my wits, I called Brian and Jennifer to let them know what had happened. Brian answered and said he would be over as quickly as possible. Jennifer didn’t answer my call, and I left her a message to call. It was important.

I was told that Mary should be transferred to the Mercy Intensive Care Unit, the best place for treatment.

Mercy Hospital has one of the top stroke treatment centers in the country. An ambulance was ordered to 320

transport Mary to Mercy, a three-­‐minute ride. Mary was loaded in the ambulance, and I inquired about the prescription. They checked and found there had been a communication problem. The prescription was available, but the doctor had been told otherwise. Since it is so expensive, they halted the transfer and brought Mary back to administer it. She was then transported.

I called Brian and told him to go to the Mercy ICU, but he was already at the Heart Hospital and would meet me at Mercy. Jennifer returned my call. She and Sammi were at the lake house they rented each year with some of their friends for a week. They were there with Jennifer’s boy friend Tom Boone, Eileen and little Eileen, Sammi’s cousin, and their dogs. They were in the process of leaving for a boat ride when Jennifer discovered my message. She said she would leave as soon as possible. She and Sammi immediately left and drove up. Tom took the dogs back to his place. They arrived late that night. The doctor told me that he was hopeful of a good recovery because of the early intervention, but that she would remain in the ICU for 48 hours. He expected that Mary could be discharged quickly, whatever that meant.

Mary was clueless about what had happened and had a hard time recalling what year, month or day it was.

She could recall her address and recognized everyone. In the morning, the doctor checked on her and felt that she could be moved to the regular patient wing as soon as a room freed up. That didn’t happen, and she remained in the ICU until she was discharged. The doctor ordered a series of home therapy care for her: physical, speech and occupational, plus home nursing visits. Brian’s girlfriend, Sarah drove over from Tulsa, and Saturday night we all had dinner at home. Jennifer headed back to Austin in the morning, and Mary was discharged at noon.

The Mercy home care people started weekly visits to see Mary in our home. Everyone was amazed at how rapidly she was recovering and within a couple of weeks they signed off on her progress and didn’t require further visits. The next several months were spent fine tuning Mary’s meds. Her primary heart doctor, Dr. Schleffer, was in charge of this. He had Mary wear a heart monitor for several days to make sure nothing else was going on. Within 3 months everything was under control and her blood pressure was significantly improved. A side benefit that we enjoyed was a reduction in the different meds and a complete elimination of some that another doctor had prescribed. I am now cognizant of all her meds and aggressively pursue controlling med creep. I was grateful that we were not on a trip when this happened. We had a three-­‐week trip planned to visit the Baltic States in September and postponed that for a later time.

There was another scare in the summer of 2010 on June 18th. Mary was short of breath over a period of one to two weeks. I kept after her to visit the doctor, but Sammi was visiting us and she didn’t want to interrupt that. Jennifer drove up to take Sammi home and as soon as they were gone, I took Mary to the Mercy clinic on Memorial and Eastern. They would not admit Mary and told us to get to the Heart Hospital emergency room immediately. We did, and I let Mary out and parked the car. Within a couple of minutes, I was at the receptionist desk and Mary had already been taken to a room nearby. There were about five or six nurses surrounding her and hooking up instrumentation to get the key readings. Soon afterwards, the doctor in charge told me he was going to do some exploratory probing and if blockage was discovered they would immediately install a stent. Within an hour they reported back that they had. Mary was kept overnight for observation and was released the next day. She has been under Dr. Schleffer’s care since.

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2015 Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia, April 30th to May 28th We used United Air frequent flyer points for our round trip to Istanbul, Turkey, and Pegasus Airline to travel within Turkey and for the flight from Tbilisi, Georgia, to Istanbul. Airfare within Turkey is amazingly cheap and the flight to Istanbul from Tbilisi was also quite reasonable, although we had to take a 4 a.m. flight to get the low price. Brian drove us to the airport. We departed at 3 p.m., connected with United in Houston, and flew to Heathrow where we connected with Turkish Airlines for the final flight segment to Istanbul. It had been many years since I last flew United and was surprised at the poor service and lack of amenities on their international segments. The food was bland, and they didn’t provide complimentary drinks. That was the first international flight I have ever taken that didn’t offer complimentary wine or beer. Turkish airlines put United to shame. They had friendly flight attendants and provided superb service. A great meal with complimentary drinks was served. We arrived on Istanbul’s European side at Istanbul International Airport, IST, around 6 p.m. on May 1st, about 30 minutes late. Istanbul is 9 hours ahead of CST, and the entire flight took about 18 hours. We went through passport control, and the visa I obtained on line for Turkey (cost of $20 each) passed scrutiny.

I had reserved a hotel on Istanbul’s Asian side near Sabiha Gökçen International Airport, SAW, as we were only spending the next day there. The following day we were to fly to Bodrum, Turkey at 6 a.m. and we wanted to be near SAW. I had been warned about the transportation hustlers and decided to check pricing at one of the services in the airport. I was told it would cost $120 and take longer than normal due to the May Day celebration. I thought I could do better and headed for the “official” taxi line. Official taxis are yellow and have the name of the company on the taxi. I saw an airline pilot and asked him what the best way to the hotel would be. He told me that the Havatas airport buses would get us there about as fast as a taxi and cost much less. The trip to SAW should take one and a half hours.

Luckily, we only had to wait a few minutes for the next scheduled departure and were on our way at 7:30 p.m. Havatas buses from IST normally makes a round trip to a stop near Taksim Square where passengers going to SAW change buses. However, protesters were out of control in Taksim Square and police in riot gear were using tear gas to control them. The IST bus had to meet the SAW bus elsewhere and take a longer route to avoid the congestion. Overall, the trip took two and a half hours and cost less than $20 for both of us. Upon arrival at SAW, we took a taxi to our hotel, the Hotel Lounge, about 10 minutes away for $6. By the time we checked in, the hotel restaurant was closed and we had to go to bed hungry. From the time Brian picked us up to go to the airport to getting into our hotel room, it was about 26 hours.

In the morning we slept as late as possible. The hotel’s restaurant had an excellent buffet with a wide variety of selections. We then checked with the receptionist at the front desk for ideas on local points of interest. Matthew had spent a number of years working in New Jersey and gave us some recommendations. We took a taxi to the nearby town of Pendick located on the Sea 322

Pendick Harbor

of Marmara where we window-­‐shopped, had some ice cream, and changed US currency to Turkish lira. I wanted to buy a bottle of wine and checked grocery stores, but no wine. We then stopped at a restaurant in the Marina and had a glass of wine and a beer. We were seated near the pier where sailboats were docked. After we returned to the hotel I asked Matthew where I could buy wine. He gave me directions to a small grocery store about a half-­‐mile away. I found it, but somehow got turned around and couldn’t find my way back. In preparation for the trip, I bought an international SIM for my phone so that I could use Google Maps to navigate. I could connect to the local phone networks and place telephone calls, but couldn’t access the Internet for data and use it to navigate. I hailed a taxi and had the driver use my cell phone to call the hotel for directions. I had been gone for some time, and Mary was nervous that something had happened to me. She talked to Matthew. He told her that I had called and would be there shortly. After that we went to the room to get ready for our flight in the morning. I wanted to make sure that I had the numbers in my phone for the hotel we were going to stay at the next day, but couldn’t find it. I thought I must have left it in the taxi and went downstairs and asked Matthew for help in locating the taxi driver. Since the taxi driver had used my phone, there was no Caller ID from the taxi. Matthew took me to the room that had the security monitors and started playing the video recording of the hotel entrance where I was dropped off. Sure enough, the arrival and drop-­‐off had been recorded, but neither the license number nor taxi company name was clear enough to read. Matthew knew my cell phone was an Apple iPhone and asked me for my iTunes password so he could log in and use the Find iPhone App. He did and my phone was located in the hotel. I found it in our room under some papers on our bed.

Whew!!

That evening we had a dinner of sea bass at the hotel and went to bed early. The hotel ordered a taxi for pickup in the morning. We got up at 3:15 (May 3rd) and were at the airport by 4:30. Our flight left on time at 6 o’clock, and we arrived in Bodrum at 7. Since my plan to use my phone to navigate had fallen apart, I ordered a GPS for the rental auto from Auto Europe for about $7 per day. We had to pay separately for the GPS and the fee to drop off the car at the Kayseri Airport. The rental agency had no detailed maps. I was regretting not having bought one before we left. Oh well, I had my iPad and could use that as I had downloaded maps of most of our planned itinerary. We thoroughly inspected the car and made sure all of the dings and dents were documented in the rental agreement before we took off for Bodrum, some 30 minutes south of the airport. We planned to visit The Bodrum Castle and harbor, one of the top attractions there, and then circumnavigate the Bodrum peninsula. As we approached the harbor we started looking for a parking space near the castle, but the police had blocked the streets to it. The closest parking involved a long walk. The return walk meant that Mary would have to endure a long climb that would be difficult for her to handle. We opted to just do the peninsula drive, which was beautiful. We enjoyed the many vistas of the coastline with seaside towns and harbors.

Turkish Car Wash

We then headed to the Kari Pension, our hotel for the night. Along the way we stopped and had lunch at an outdoor café in the little town of Bafa. We parked in front next to a hose that was elevated about 15 feet. It was spraying water straight down. I couldn’t figure out why. I asked the café owner why the hose was running 323

and he told me it was a car wash. Sure enough, a car drove underneath the hose and drove through the water. The driver got out and wiped his car down and drove off. The hose was kept on the entire time we had lunch, and quite a few people washed their cars. I didn’t see anyone pay for it either. We saw the same thing a number of times elsewhere.

The Kari Pension is in a small town, Kapiriki, on Lake Bafa, a large inland area of water that used to be part of the Aegean and is off the beaten track. From Bafa we had to take a narrow country road for about 20 km, dodging tractors, and livestock. The pension View From Kari Pension overlooks Lake Bafa. The view from our room was beautiful. The surrounding area is famous for trekking and rock climbing. Our host greeted us with hot tea and cookies. We went for a walk to a nearby ruin, and then took a nap. The host’s wife cooked us a fabulous dinner. We enjoyed talking to the other guests, which were mostly from Bodrum or other places in Turkey. That evening the moon was full and very bright. Everyone stayed up late to watch it. In the morning we had a great traditional Turkish breakfast. We shared small plates and bowls of olives, cukes, tomatoes, yogurt, jams, preserves, and honey. We had eggs, bread and coffee.

Almost everything was locally made or grown. Before we left, we went for a walk along Lake Bafa. The Pension only accepts cash and I was concerned I didn’t have enough lira. The host was eager to accept U.S.$ and gave me a good exchange rate. We departed the area around 10:30 and headed for our next destination, Seluck.

Along the way, we took a detour toward the Aegean Sea to visit the national park along the Dilek Peninsula. We arrived in Seluck at 2:30, but couldn’t get the hotel address in the GPS. It only accepted pre-­‐programmed destinations. We stopped near a restaurant and asked for help. I showed a man the hotel reservation. He couldn’t tell me how to get there, but motioned for me to follow him. Five minutes later we were at the Bella hotel and parked along a side street next to some Roman ruins. I had just gotten out of the car when a young man approached. He explained that he was a student and was working on restoring the ruins. He offered to sell me some ancient Roman coins and would make me a good price. You bet!! I told him I didn’t have any money and wasn’t interested. We checked into the hotel and were offered tea and cookies. Our room was very small, but nice. I selected the Bella as it offered free transportation to and from the ancient ruins of Ephesus, one of the premier archeological sites in Turkey. We were lucky, as the last shuttle bus was scheduled to leave right after we had the welcome tea. Ephesus was a 15-­‐minute drive, and we spent three hours there. It was awesome, and we took many pictures.

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Upon returning to the hotel, the owner invited us to see his carpet store to learn about Turkish hand woven carpets. The carpets were beautiful, and he did his best to convince us to buy one, but no. That evening we had dinner at the hotel and ate on the outside balcony. The view was spectacular, and we sat next to three girls who were at the ruins with us. They were from Shanghai, China, and spoke excellent English. We enjoyed talking to them. In the morning (May 5th) we had breakfast on the hotel balcony and saw the girls again. We then visited the Basilica of St. John. This is where he was buried and is across the street from the hotel. In addition, we visited a castle that has been under renovation since 2009. It is next to the Basilica. We needed to use a restroom and were directed to a public one. An attendant was there. When we finished, we learned that we were supposed to pay for using it, a common situation through out Turkey. Toilets in gas stations were free, and most were really clean and impeccable. We then loaded our car and headed for Pamukkale. So far the main roads have been excellent. The speed limit is 90 km/hour, but Turkish drivers pay little attention to that. You have to be on the lookout for slow moving tractors and cars driven by little old men. We found that Turkish drivers are extremely impatient and constantly honk at you if you don’t start moving as soon as the stop light count down gets to two seconds. I wanted to honk back, but couldn’t find the horn. I think I received more than my share of honks because the license plate holder had Auto Europe on it, designating me as a foreign tourist.

Sunset View at Bella Hotel

We had reservations at the Venus Hotel and arrived about 1:30. Our room wasn’t ready, and the hotel receptionist served us tea and soda.

The hotel provided free transportation to Hierapolis and the travertine’s, one of Turkey's most famous landmarks. Hierapolis was established as a military outpost in 190 BC, and it became an important spa center in the 2nd and 3rd century. As we approached the travertine’s from a distance, it appeared that we were headed toward an enormous pure-­‐white mountain. The travertine’s ripple out in a series of semi-­‐circular white calcite cliffs formed from calcium deposits left by the hot springs in the area. The deposits grow in the same way that stalactites form within limestone caves, gradually fanning out to form natural terraces. Our driver left us The Travertine’s at the entrance near the top of the cliffs. We paid the fee and walked to the travertines where a lot of people were enjoying soaking their feet in the water pools. Shoes were not allowed, and we had to walk barefoot on the calcite to reach the pools.

My feet were tender, and I knew that Mary and I would not be able to walk down the calcite mountain to 325

the street below. We spent some time soaking our feet and then called the hotel to retrieve us, tenderfeet that we are.

We had dinner at the hotel’s open-­‐air restaurant that night. Mary had chicken and I had a casserole cooked in a huge hot clay pot, very tasty, but way too much food. The hotel had a lot of resident cats and a playful dog that kept the cats from pestering the diners. The cats kept their distance, but were alert to any indication that they could play on sympathies and extract food from a susceptible diner. We didn’t notice cats before, but almost every place we visited after Pamukkale had an abundance of cats that appeared to be semi-­‐homeless.

We had breakfast at the hotel in the morning (May 6th) and were on our way by 9 o’clock to Antalya, where we planned to spend two days. We wanted to take a detour along the way to see the well-­‐ preserved ruins of Aphrodisias, the ancient city of love. Unfortunately, the GPS didn’t allow me to enter this attraction. My research indicated that the road to Aphrodisias was well signed and I kept a sharp eye out. Regrettably, we didn’t see it and missed one of the major attractions of the trip. We arrived in Antalya early and found Old Town where we had reservations at the Castle Hotel. Finding the hotel was a different matter. Old Town is a warren of twisting streets, dead-­‐ends and one-­‐way streets. I was successful in entering the hotel’s street name in the GPS. That got us close to it, but the GPS kept sending us in circles. We stopped and asked some people where the hotel was. They told us to talk to an old-­‐ timer sitting nearby. He spoke broken English but it was clear enough. We were within two turns and a block from the Castle Hotel.

Antalya is the largest Turkish city on the Mediterranean coast with over one million people. Antalya Province, including the city, is home to almost two million people and is the fastest-­‐growing province in the country. The city was first settled around 200 BC by the Attalid dynasty of Pergamon, which was soon subdued by the Romans. Roman rule saw Antalya thrive, including the construction of several monuments, such as Hadrian's Gate, and the proliferation of neighboring cities. The city changed hands several times, including to the Byzantine Empire in 1207 and an expanding Ottoman Empire in 1391. The city was transferred to Italian suzerainty in the aftermath of World War I, but was recaptured by a newly independent Turkey in the 1921 War of Independence. The Castle Hotel was a delightful boutique hotel, and our room was the best of the trip so far. It even had a refrigerator. After we settled into our room and did some laundry, we took a walk to explore Old Town. The hotel had an excellent restaurant, and we enjoyed an enormous dinner with eight different things and a lettuce salad, which was served before the sea bass entrée.

After breakfast, we walked about five blocks in Old Town to the Kaleici Musesi. The museum focused on life in Antalya in the 18th and 19th century. We spent several hours there and then headed for the Antalya Archeological Museum. We caught the tram just outside of Old Town at the stop near Hadrian’s Gate. We rode it 15 minutes to the end of the line where the museum was located. We rented audio-­‐ guide headsets and set out to explore the 13 exhibition halls. The exhibits were well done, interesting, and educational. One hall was devoted to natural history. Others portrayed a continuous series of civilization’s beginning with the Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age cave dwellers, 600,000 or 700,000 years ago, to the Neolithic or New Stone Age, 10,000 to 8,000 BC, to the Early Bronze Age around 3000 BC, the Iron Age around 1200 BC, the Mycenaean Age, 600 to 1100 BC and the Hellenistic Age, beginning in 332 BC, 326

with the death of Alexander the Great and the emergence of the Roman empire. It ended with the last conquest by the Romans in 31 BC. The exhibits included many statuary works from the Roman Period.

They dated from the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD and had been excavated from nearby Perge. We spent about three hours in the museum and then left to catch the tram, which was not working. The tram operator helped us hail a bus and we rode it back to Hadrian’s Gate. A vendor was there and we had ice cream. As we were walking back to the hotel, we checked quite a few menus from the many restaurants and concluded that our hotel was the best place to have dinner.

Back in our room, I tried to do emails and check out news on the web but couldn’t get a Wi-­‐Fi connection.

I went down to the lobby and did it there. Wi-­‐Fi is very spotty in a lot of the hotels and you have to find out where the signal is strong enough. At dinner, Mary had fettuccini and salmon. I had fettuccini and shrimp. We shared a large salad with Parmesan cheese, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. We were tired and returned to our room around 10 o’clock. We slept in late (May 8th) and headed for Beysehir after breakfast. By now we were pretty familiar with Old Town, and I was able to exit it without any problems.

The drive was about three and a half hours. Along the way, I discovered that the rental auto did have a horn. It was on the end of the turn signal lever. Now I was on an equal footing with the locals.

We stayed at the Anadolu Penta Hotel near Lake Beysehir. The hotel was fairly new, but somewhat spartan. Beysehir is in the middle of nowhere, and I regretted not proceeding to Konya to stay there.

Since we had a reservation that was not an option. We researched restaurants and decided on the Groker. Beysehir has a few attractions and we set out to find the Groker and visit one. By now I had discovered how to use my iPad to do some limited navigation and had downloaded the area map. We were able to navigate to Groker’s street, but no Groker. I saw a well dressed man and thought he might speak some English. He seemed to understand me and motioned that the way to Groker was down the street and to turn left. He then summoned a fellow nearby. The fellow got in the back seat and motioned for us to turn around. He was going to take us to the Groker. Five minutes later he directed me to park.

We got out and walked a half block to the entrance of a large building. It was the emergency room of a hospital. I thanked the fellow and he left us. I went inside on the chance the receptionist might speak English and tell us where the Groker is. No luck there. We returned to our car and decided to have dinner elsewhere. Lesson learned. Never ask for directions unless you first establish if the other person has at least a smattering of English. I suppose Groker must sound like hospital in Turkish. We had dinner at a restaurant down the street from the hotel that the receptionist recommended. It was good and reasonable. We encountered our first rain of the trip while at dinner. It cooled down quite a bit. The next day (May 9th) we will dress warm for our drive to Cappadocia.

After breakfast we headed for Urgup where we had reservations at the Urgup Inn Cave Hotel for three nights. Urgup is in Cappadocia, a region of Turkey where Mount Erciyes erupted eons ago. Ash and lava formed soft rocks covering a region of about 7,000 square miles. Over the centuries the softer rock was eroded by wind and water, leaving the hard cap rock on top of pillars. This resulted in unusual formations that have become known as fairy chimneys. In the 4th century, Christian inhabitants realized that these soft rocks could be easily carved out to form houses, churches, and monasteries. After the iconoclastic period, 725 to 842 AD, new churches were dug into the rocks, and they were richly decorated with colorful frescoes. Cappadocia is one of the top attractions in Turkey.

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We stopped at the Goreme Open-­‐Air Museum about 10 km from Urgup, and spent about two hours exploring the many “cave” churches there. The place was packed with visitors of all ages. It was fascinating. We were able to find our way to the hotel without getting lost and checked in around 5 o’clock. Our host invited us down to share some homemade wine he had just bought. He helped us with tour arrangements and we booked a tour that included a castle, a walking tour, and a tour of an underground city. It also included lunch and would occupy most of the day. We were within five minutes of a major street with shops and restaurants. We found a nice restaurant. Our dinner was huge. It cost $17 for the two of us. We returned to our room, which was up several flights and difficult for Mary to climb. Our host was concerned about her and asked if we would like a room on the ground floor. We eagerly accepted. He was mindful that the temperature in the morning would be somewhat chilly and told us that we could have breakfast inside near the kitchen. There was only one small table there. The rest of the guests would eat in the courtyard’s open-­‐air dining area. Interestingly, our host was the Director of Tourism for Cappadocia, and his receptionist was fluent in a number of languages: French, English, Russian, and of course, Turkish. He said he could understand German but was not fluent in it.

We had a great breakfast. It was Mothers Day, May 10th. The kids sent Mary happy Mothers Day text messages. I had brought a card with me and gave that to her as well, and we were picked up at 9:20 by the tour van. About nine people were in it, and another couple joined us after the walk. Our first stop was near the Orathisar Castle, which is the tallest fairy chimney in Cappadocia. It overlooks the whole region. In the Byzantine times it was used as a fortress and has since been used by various civilizations as a shelter. We took some pictures and then proceeded to Sunset Point for the trek to Cavusin through the Zelve Open-­‐Air Museum. The walk was up and down and went through some fascinating scenery and by a lot of “cave” homes and churches that were part of a monastic retreat. They were occupied until 1952 when they were deemed to dangerous to live in.

Many of the homes had pigeon roosts with holes in the walls for the pigeons to return to their coops.

There were a lot of small vineyards scattered throughout the valley, which were maintained by the locals.

It was a very enjoyable walk that took several hours. We then headed to a restaurant in Pigeon Valley and had a wonderful buffet with an endless choice of everything imaginable. Next, we went to the underground city of Kaymakli, one of 36 in the area. It is the largest and widest with eight stories, four of which are open to the public. The underground cities in the area were excavated as early as Hittite Orathisar Castle

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times, nearly 4,000 years ago, and expanded over the centuries as various marauding armies roamed the area. It was used by the Christians to hide from the Arab Muslims since 7th century AD when

Prophet Mohammed founded the Muslim religion. There were many living quarters, churches, storage bins, areas for livestock, copper smelting, and making wine. It seemed like every family had Cappadocia Cave Homes—Note Pigeon Roosts its own church. Tall vertical shafts provided ventilation. Large stone wheels were strategically located so tunnels could be quickly blocked to prevent passage of hostile intruders. Low ceiling tunnels interconnected everything, even to other underground cities.

We returned to the hotel around 5 o’clock and found that we had been moved to the best room in the hotel. It had been a church and had a high-­‐vaulted ceiling. It was nicely furnished and exotic.

Blocking Stone Wheel We did some laundry and then went to the courtyard to do emails and have some wine and beer. I asked the host where he bought the homemade wine. He told me that a friend of his made and sold it and offered to take me there. I took him up on it and bought a bottle. We spent some time talking to other guests, mostly from Turkey.

Almost all of them had, or were going to take, a hot air balloon ride. Cappadocia is world famous for this.

Every day, weather permitting, 100 to 200 balloons carrying up to 20 passengers each fly over Cappadocia.

It is quite an experience. The people in our hotel had to get up and be ready for pickup at 4 o’clock. The price is around $200 to $250 per person. We didn’t do this, as I had flown in a balloon over the Serengeti in 1997 during the animal migration. No way would Mary do it. We went to another restaurant nearby.

In the morning (May 11th) we had breakfast and did a self-­‐drive tour of a string of six little towns in southern Cappadocia, from Mustafapasa to Soganli. Our first stop was at a monastery near Cemil. We toured that with another couple from New Zealand. We then went to the ruins of a Roman outpost that 329

had been established to collect taxes. It had an elaborate spa and was undergoing renovation. This was a recent revelation as it was previously thought that Romans didn’t have a presence in Cappadocia. When we got to Soganli, we visited several of the six churches. By this time, we had been “churched” out and decided we had seen enough of the ancient “cave” churches, as they are all pretty similar to one another.

Since we had an early flight in the morning and had to drop our rental auto off at the Kayseri airport, we had dinner early. We ate at a small outdoor café and had pizza. When the waiter brought it to our table, I thought it was breadsticks. He told me that is how Turkish pizza is made, bread sticks with fillings of spices and other items. It tasted good.

We were up at 2:30 in the morning and arrived at the Kayseri airport around 4:30. It was a rainy drive.

The signage directed us to a parking lot for rental autos in front of the terminal. There wasn’t anyone from Auto Europe to check us in. I parked and went to the parking lot attendant at the exit. I managed to explain that I wanted to drop the car off. He managed to tell me to lock it up and give him the keys. I was a little nervous about what we both might have understood about this. Our flight left at 6 o’clock and flew to Istanbul’s SAW airport where we changed planes for Trabzon on the Black Sea. We arrived at 9:40. Our destination was Batumi, Republic of Georgia, and we took a taxi to the bus stop for transportation to the Turkey-­‐Georgia border. We bought our tickets and had to wait 45 minutes for the bus. In the meantime I tried to find a place nearby to buy some food as we only had a few cookies to munch on, and wouldn’t be able to have a meal until we got to Batumi. No luck with that. A young lady was on our bus. She worked for a Turkish company in Samsun and was relocating to Batumi for two years. She spoke excellent English.

The bus trip took three and a half hours and it rained most of the way. The road hugged the Black Sea and the views would have been great except for the rain. The bus was comfortable and had Wi-­‐Fi, which enabled me to catch up on emails and do some research on things to do in Batumi. We got off at the border, collected our bags and went through Turkish passport control. We then proceeded to Georgia’s border and cleared passport control and customs. The entire process took about 30 minutes.

The lady from Samsun had a lot of luggage and hired a local porter to help her get through the border checks. She told us she was being met by representatives from her company and invited us to ride to Batumi with her. It was a 30-­‐minute ride. The driver didn’t know how to get to Hotel Luxor where we had reservations for three nights. He called a taxi driver friend. We met and transferred our luggage. I didn’t have any local currency and had him stop to change money. They didn’t charge exchange commissions or fees. The rates vary a little. The taxi driver didn’t know where the Luxor was and couldn’t find it even after I gave him the reservation that had a little map on it. He called the hotel. After a lot of driving he found it. I don’t know how much of this was legitimate, or if he was just running the meter. We checked in, and the receptionist spoke no English. We were to be on the third floor, but were switched to a room on the first floor after they saw Mary having difficulty climbing the stairs. The room was much nicer, and they didn’t charge us extra for it. We had dinner at the Fish Point restaurant that evening. We did laundry before we went to bed. We had a time zone change to 10 hours ahead of CST. After breakfast (May 13th) we headed for the tourist information office to get more information about local attractions. It was raining, and we had our umbrellas. We stopped for lunch at a crowded restaurant and got the last table. We shared a medium pizza. It was more food than we needed. The tab came to $8, including a beer and glass of wine. The pizza was really good, but almost everyone in the place 330

smoked, which is quite common. Mary needed to use the restroom, but it only had a squat toilet, which is a porcelain fixture in the floor without a seat. You squat down and go. She didn’t even try it. Imagine that. A lot of public places only have squat toilets, but fortunately most have squats and the regular sit-­‐ down kind. At times I had to use an outside toilet with a squat facility. They were really gross and smelly and usually didn’t have toilet paper. If you weren’t prepared, you might have to do without. I had done my homework, and we brought a roll from home for such occasions. Next, we headed for The Batumi Archaeological Museum. It was quite close to our hotel and had exhibits with early hominoid specimens from excavations throughout Georgia that were dated to 1.8 to 1.7 million BC. Other exhibits had materials excavated in Georgia from the Bronze Age to Medieval times. The museum was a nice supplement to the Antalya Archeological Museum.

When we returned to the hotel, I spent a lot of time trying to determine where I would pick up the rental auto from MiMiNo, the local auto rental agency. When I made reservations, I opted to pick the car up at their office in Batumi to avoid the extra charge for picking it up at the Batumi airport. I sent an email to Dana at the agency. She responded with an address within a 10-­‐minute walk from our hotel. I decided to make sure and walked to it. There was no one in and no MiMiNo sign or any other indication of who occupied the office, not a good feeling. I called Dana, but it was impossible to understand her. Her accent was terrible. I emailed her requesting a map. Instead, she offered to meet me at the Sheraton hotel near her office. By this time, I wished I had used another agency, but not one had cars available during the dates I needed. I was stuck with MiMiNo. That evening we went to dinner at a restaurant near the hotel.

We were seated next to a large table with a group of men who had been drinking. They were feeling no pain. One of the guys came over to our table. He didn’t speak much English but kept telling us how much he loved Americans, over, and over again. He ordered us two vodka drinks, straight up. We had already ordered wine and I offered a brief toast with my wine. He must have realized we didn’t like vodka and ordered us a sweet lemon flavored drink, UGH!!

Every so often he would get up and proclaim his love for Americans. A street vendor made her way through the restaurant selling roses.

He bought three and presented them to Mary.

The guys finally left, but not before our newfound Batumi Beach Attractions friend said his goodbyes and kissed Mary’s hand profusely. Back at the hotel, Mary tried to give the roses to the hotel owner. Instead, he brought Mary a vase. When I unwrapped the roses, I discovered that the stems had been cut, and then bound together to make them seem like long stem roses.

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In the morning, we spent some time after breakfast mapping out our drive the next day to Vardzia, and then to Gori where we would spend the night. We left the hotel at noon and walked to the art museum about four blocks away. It was under renovation on the first floor and we were charged half price. After that, we walked to the beach and took in the attractions there. We stopped for lunch on the way back and had pizza. Tomorrow we leave before breakfast so we stopped in a grocery store and bought some cookies to munch on. We packed our bags when we returned to our room. I left around 6 o’clock to pick up the rental car and went to the Sheraton to meet Dana. She wasn’t there.

When I called her she tried to explain how to get to her office, but Lunch with MEA I couldn’t understand her. We went back and forth like this for half an hour. Finally she showed up to escort me to her office. It was just down the street at the same address I had been to yesterday. There was not an indication that it was associated with MiMiNo. The rental auto was there, and we had to fill out the paperwork. Dana cited some obscure law where I had to pay an extra 2%. I protested that she didn’t disclose it when she quoted the price. I was already paying an extra $10 per day because they charged that to anyone over 65 years old. I had to prepay everything in local currency, except for the $100 damage deposit, which I would get back if the car was returned without damage, had the same amount of gasoline in it, and was as clean as when I took custody of it. Oh, one more thing, if I got a ticket, or a speed camera photographed me violating the limit, the fine would be taken out of my deposit. I knew I would not get the damage deposit back. I was dealing with some shady folks. I drove back to the hotel around 8 o’clock and we headed for dinner at a small fast food place nearby.

We left our hotel around 8:00 in the morning (May 15th) for Vardzia, a top attraction. It is a cave monastery site in southern Georgia, excavated from the slopes of the Erusheti Mountain. The main period of construction was the second half of the twelfth century. I had programmed the auto GPS to go there, but it gave me directions using a northerly route. It indicated it would take five and a half hours. I knew that wasn’t right and started navigating with the iPad map that I downloaded. The distance was less than 150 miles. I was able to drive the route, but the further I got from Batumi, the rougher the roads.

Strangely, the small villages we went through had more potholes than the roads leading to them. We kept hoping that the roads would improve, but they kept getting worse. Each successive village had more and deeper potholes. It was like driving through a minefield. Finally we came to a village where the asphalt had been completely stripped away. Construction was going on, and the road had been wetted down. It was like a sea of mud. I just knew that this would get better once we left town. I forged ahead and started to go down a hill where I encountered several minibuses headed towards me. The road was too narrow to accommodate both of us, and they were not going to yield. I started backing up. Luckily, I made it to the top without sliding into the ditch. We decided to skip Vardzia and backtracked to Batumi.

We went back to our hotel and used their Wi-­‐Fi to download maps to take us to Gori. Fortunately, the roads were in good shape and we made good time. Some of the roads were being replaced with 332

freeways. The rental auto GPS didn’t recognize them and kept telling us to turn around. As we were nearing Gori, I detected the car engine bogging down. When I accelerated or went up a hill it would falter.

The longer I drove, the worse it got. I knew we couldn’t go beyond Gori (assuming we were lucky enough to make it there). We finally arrived and were able to get the auto GPS to show us the way to Guest House Nisia, our hotel for the night.

Lia, the hostess, was wonderful. She didn’t speak much English, but her two daughters and son did.

Daughter Maria also spoke Russian and French. As soon as we got settled, I checked my email. Dana had sent me a blistering email telling me that she had tracked our locations on the GPS and that I had violated the rental agreement. She insisted that I turn the car in at their Tbilisi office immediately. I was not supposed to drive the car except on paved roads. I checked the fine print on the back of the agreement and discovered a paragraph in English explaining this. It was below the terms and conditions section, which was in the Georgian language. I rarely read any standard agreement’s fine print and hadn’t read this one. Dana didn’t call this obvious restriction to my attention either. I solicited Maria’s help in discussing our car problem with Dana. As usual, I couldn’t understand Dana and turned the phone over to Maria. She told Dana about the problem with the car. Dana told her that she would have someone evaluate the car within the next two hours. Maria told me she couldn’t understand Dana either and had her speak Georgian. Mary and I left for dinner at a restaurant recommended by our host. It was a five-­‐ minute walk. We ordered more food than we could eat. I was curious about some food that other people had ordered and asked about it. The next thing I knew, the waitress brought two platefuls of it to our table. It turned out to be stuffed dumplings. They were good and didn’t cost much either. We asked for a carry out and took the leftovers back to our hotel. We offered them to Lia and her kids. They readily accepted and offered us some wine to drink. Afterwards, Lia offered us homemade dessert.

MiMiNo’s rep showed up and examined our car. He confirmed that the problem was with the car and that we hadn’t damaged it driving on the rough roads. He had driven a replacement vehicle for us to continue our trip. No mention was made of returning the car to Tbilisi. We stayed up past midnight talking to Lia and her kids. They were quite talented and academically accomplished. We really enjoyed their company.

In the morning we enjoyed the best breakfast of our trip and then headed to the museum that portrayed Joseph Stalin’s life. He was born in Gori, and the Soviets had built the museum to portray him as a great leader. Stalin was born and lived as a boy in a house on the museum grounds. Georgia successfully extracted itself from the Soviet empire April 9, 1991. Since then the museum has taken steps to portray Stalin in a more factual light, but not completely. The guide told us plans were underway to provide more information and exhibits about the atrocities and crimes against humanity commited by Stalin and the Soviets. The museum was very interesting. We returned to the guest house and said our goodbyes and headed for Sighnaghi. Our hotel for the night is the Guest House Maria.

We planned on driving through the Tbilisi National Park on our way to Sighnaghi, but the road appeared to be washed out as we got close to the park. Fortunately, an alternate route didn’t add too much time. Our troubles continued. We were making good progress, when suddenly a concrete barrier blocked our lane.

We were forced to detour to the right on a rough road. There were some large trucks ahead and behind us, causing us to think that this was just a short detour. We quickly determined that it was a road to nowhere. We backtracked to the concrete barrier and went around it to get on the highway. There were 333

stretches of road where the pavement was completely washed out, and very rough. This was a main highway with a lot of heavy truck traffic. We finally got to Sighnaghi at 5 o’clock. It is a quaint little town in the hills and in the heart of Georgia’s wine country. Our GPS was no help finding our hotel and the iPad map didn’t show it either. We ended up calling the hotel and, they sent someone to escort us. It was located up a steep street near the town square and overlooked a large valley, a very beautiful setting.

Our host was Maria. No one with the guesthouse spoke English. They had a neighbor who handled English-­‐speaking guests who telephoned, and another who escorted lost guests. Our room was quite nice.

Unlike the one the night before, it had a bathroom we didn’t have to share. As we hadn’t had lunch we were famished, and asked Maria to fix us dinner. She prepared an enormous meal and served both white and red home made wine. Another couple and their two year-­‐old-­‐child joined us. The husband was from France and had worked in Tbilisi for the last four years. His wife was a native of Georgia. He was an IT specialist and she taught English to three-­‐to five-­‐year olds. We enjoyed their company and conversation.

We finally got to bed at 10:30.

In the morning (May 17th), we discovered several more guests had checked in. One was an American who had married a Georgian. He had been there 6 years and explained that his wife would not visit or move to the U.S. Georgia people are very family oriented, and she did not want to leave her family. After breakfast we headed for David Gareja Monastery, one of the top attractions in Georgia. It is a rock-­‐hewn Georgian Orthodox monastery complex located in the Kakheti region of eastern Georgia on the half-­‐desert slopes of Mount Gareja, some 60 to 70 km southeast of Tbilisi. The complex includes hundreds of cells, churches, chapels, refectories, and living quarters hollowed out of the rock face. Part of the complex is located in the Agstafa region of Azerbaijan and has become subject to a border dispute between Georgia and Azerbaijan. When we were planning our trip, I wanted to do a short one-­‐ or two-­‐day trip to Azerbaijan, but gave that idea up when I found that getting an entry visa was a major time-­‐consuming process. We successfully navigated our exit from Sighnaghi and made good time for a while. All of a sudden, our road became filled with potholes, deja’ vu. The auto GPS was giving reliable directions as we confirmed with the maps on our iPad. We were within about 30 km of our destination when the auto GPS directed us onto a side road, which became progressively difficult to drive on. We finally gave up and backtracked. We decided to give it one more try and continued on. We encountered a local couple who spoke some English. They showed us a road to take. We followed it for 10 to 15 minutes. It turned into the road from hell. Enough!! We headed for Tbilisi to find our hotel and turn our rental car in.

Our hotel, the Guri Hotel, is centrally located in Old Town. We were able to get close to it, but the auto GPS kept sending us in circles. We pulled into a parking lot and asked some of the people how to get there. They didn’t speak English and tried to explain in Russian. Finally, one of the fellows got in the back seat and signaled the way. We thanked him. He got out and walked a few blocks back to the parking lot.

We located the address, but it wasn’t the Guri. I went inside and the receptionist explained that the Guri was just around the corner and summoned someone to show it to us. The people who owned this hotel also own the Guri. It is newly renovated and didn’t even have a sign on it. We checked in and headed for the MiMiNo rental office. We had an address, but the GPS wouldn’t allow me to enter it. We found the street, but couldn’t find the address. I called the office and a young lady gave us directions. She was just like the GPS, sending us in circles. I finally asked her if she could find us on her computer. She could and was able to direct us to a parking lot near the office. As in Batumi, there was no indication it was a 334

MiMiNo office. The person who guided me to the parking lot seemed to be doing the rental car work part-­‐time. It was really a shoestring operation. I asked for my deposit and she told me they would send it in ten days. HA!!

As it happened, the rental office was within a 10-­‐ to 15-­‐minute walk of the Guri. There were a lot of nice restaurants nearby and we had dinner at one frequented by the locals. It had a microbrewery and a great, reasonably priced menu. It was packed. We sat next to the kitchen and could watch our meal being prepared. Mary had a chicken casserole in a bread bowl, and I had meat and beans, also in a bread bowl.

I had a beer and bought a bottle of wine for Mary, the remains of which we took back to the hotel for consumption that evening. Our hotel was just across the river. We crossed the bridge and walked to it. I talked to the hotel owner and asked her to reserve a car taxi to take us to Yerevan, Armenia, in the morning. I had researched this, and had the phone numbers of two car taxi companies. A Mercedes with driver would cost about $50 for the two of us, but might do it for $40. Also, there might be two other passengers to share the ride. The drive would take about four to six hours. The owner was able to confirm that a car would pick us up at 9 o’clock, but the price would have to be $50. I had attempted to find an auto rental agency that would allow us to drive from Tbilisi to Yerevan, but no agency allowed their cars to enter Armenia. The car taxi seemed preferable to taking a mini bus. We would be dropped at out hotel and not have the hassle of dealing with going to and from the bus station and hotels. Just before we went to bed, I discovered that the water had been shut off and notified the front desk receptionist. He called someone and retrieved a couple bottles of water for us. We went to bed.

Sometime during the night I got up and checked the water. Thankfully, it was on.

We had our breakfast in the morning (May 18th) and were packed and ready to go at 9 o’clock. It was 9:45, and no car taxi. I asked the owner to follow up. She did, and they promised to be there in 20-­‐ minutes. Forty-­‐five minutes later the car taxi arrived. The driver told us that he had to pick up two more passengers, but could leave right away if I would pay double. In reality, he was trying to tell me he didn’t have any other passengers booked. He loaded our luggage, and we drove off. I was surprised when he pulled into a large parking lot and put a sign in front that had Yerevan on it. It finally sunk in that we would have to wait until two other people showed up to go to Yerevan. I complained that his company shouldn’t have committed for $50. He called someone, and another taxi driver showed up and offered to take us for $80. By this time it was getting late, and I didn’t want to waste any more time. I agreed, and our luggage was transferred. We were on our way. I think this happens when they are short of passengers. If you don’t agree to the full price, you get this treatment. What a bait and switch scam.

The drive to Yerevan was around four and a half hours. We stopped at the border to clear passport control. Our driver spoke no English and seemed to have a chip on his shoulder. He had no trouble finding the Hin Yerevants Hotel, our hotel for the next five nights. It was a two-­‐room hotel that was owned by a doctor and his wife. He spoke enough English to carry on a limited conversation, but his wife didn’t seem to understand much. They had two sons. The oldest was a mathematician and had married an American. They moved to Armenia following their wedding in New York. The youngest, Artur, had graduated in economics and was studying to become a lawyer. Both spoke excellent English. The hotel was next to the owners living quarters and shared a common open-­‐air courtyard. Our room was huge with a large sleeping and sitting area, kitchenette, and bathroom. It had a balcony that came in handy to 335

dry our laundry. The wife was an accomplished pianist and gave lessons. She also owned a laundry and tailoring business, which she operated out of their home with about 12 employees. The Doctor was retired. His grandfather was the original owner of the home and hotel. It has been in the family ever since, probably 80 years.

We went for a walk to get familiar with the area and do some shopping. Yerevan is the capital of Armenia and has a population of a little more than a million, 35% of the country. It is one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities and was founded in the 8th century BC. We were in a central location on one of the major streets, Mashtots Street. There were a lot of parks and restaurants nearby within easy walking distance. When we returned to the hotel, the doctor was sitting in the courtyard and invited us to have tea and refreshments. We met his daughter-­‐in-­‐law and she gave us some good recommendations on sightseeing. The doctor told us the hotel had a car and driver at our disposal. The rates were in the information package in our room. If we wanted to book it, I was to call Artur to arrange it. We went to dinner at a little pizza restaurant we saw during our walk. It had a sign that proclaimed, “The best Pizza in Yerevan, if you don’t think so, you don’t have to pay”. The pizza was the best we had of the trip. The restaurant was dimly lit, and the music very loud. I noticed quite a few young men sitting with customers, especially young women. They seemed to be part of the restaurant staff and didn’t appear to have a particular job. They took turns taking care of customers. I was curious and asked one of them about the bartender who seemed to be in charge. He told me no one in particular was in charge and that it was owned by a group of young men who had left Syria to get away from the civil war there. They just came in when they felt like it and helped out. What a business model. I wanted them to turn down the music and asked if they could play something from the Flaming Lips, a band from Oklahoma City. He did. I’m not sure if it was the Flaming Lips, but it wasn’t as loud as what had been played. Our dinner tab was $9, pizza, beer and wine included. When we got back to the hotel, we took a look at what tours were available and decided we would visit some monasteries enroute to Lake Sevan. I called Artur and booked the hotel’s car for pickup at 10 o’clock.

Breakfast was served in our room, and we had been given a menu to select from. We were told that the hotel receptionist went on vacation just before we arrived. In the meantime, Artur and his mother were sharing his job. She cooked the breakfast and delivered it to our room on a small pushcart. It was an elegant presentation and quite good. Our driver was promptly on time. He didn’t speak English, but pointed out areas of interest and stopped a number of times for us to take pictures. Our first visit was to the Temple of Garni. It is the best-­‐known structure and symbol of pre-­‐Christian Armenia. King Trdat probably built it in the first century AD as a temple to the sun god Mihr. After Armenia's conversion to Christianity in the early fourth century, it was converted into a summerhouse for Armenian royalty. In the 7th century, a church and Roman bathhouse were built nearby. The bathhouse featured intricate mosaics depicting the Goddess of the Ocean. We spent two hours there.

Our next stop was Geghard Monastery, about five miles from Garni. It is a site of rich and extensive interest, with several churches and chapels within the complex. Some chapels were built into the rock itself. We reached the complex by foot from a parking lot along a slippery cobblestone road. Geghard means "the Monastery of the Spear", and originates from the spear that had wounded Jesus at the Crucifixion. Allegedly, Apostle Jude brought it to Armenia. It is now displayed in the Echmiadzin treasury.

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After two hours, we headed to Lake Sevan, the largest lake in Armenia and one of the largest freshwater high-­‐altitude lakes in the world. It is 6,200 feet above sea level and covers 340 sq. mi. We visited the Sevanavank monastery near the town of Sevan on the northwestern shore. We had a lot of steps to climb to reach the monastery, but were rewarded with a fantastic view of the lake and its surroundings. On our way down the steps, Mary had her first symptoms of diarrhea. Luckily there was a toilet nearby. We spent two hours at Lake Sevan and then headed for the Haghartsin monastery located near the town of Dilijan. It was built between the 10th and 14th centuries and has three churches. The surrounding area is known as the Swiss Alps of Armenia. We spent about a half hour there and then drove back to Yerevan.

With the help of Artur, I bought some Imodium for Mary’s diarrhea from a pharmacy near the hotel. That seemed to work. Interestingly, the pharmacy asked me how many capsules I wanted to buy. I told him and he took a scissors and cut out the requested quantity. We went to a wine and pasta restaurant for dinner and then went to bed.

In the morning (May 20th) our breakfast was delivered at 8 o’clock. We spent most of the morning relaxing, and Mary got caught up on our trip diary. We walked about 20-­‐minutes to the Cascades. The Cascades is a major focal point in Yerevan, and its architecture resembles a series of seven structures and garden terraces cascading down a long hill. Each of the levels is connected with an escalator. It has a tremendous display of modern outdoor art and sculptures and houses a world-­‐class art gallery. We were surprised to see a display of glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly. He has a major permanent display in Oklahoma City’s Art Museum. We spent about two hours there. We then stopped at a Baskin Robins for ice cream. We walked to the Yerevan Museum of History. We traversed a pedestrian shopping street lined with high-­‐end retail stores. I was impressed with this area of Yerevan. The architecture is appealing and modern. Like Turkey, and most of Georgia, there was no graffiti or litter. It seems that the shopkeepers were obsessed with keeping any debris off the area near their shops. During our trip, I did not see one beggar in Armenia or Turkey. However, they were prevalent in Tbilisi. In addition, there was a notable absence of people in any of the countries we visited that were sporting tattoos. Traffic in Armenia is in sharp contrast to Turkey and Georgia. Armenian drivers for the most part observe speed limits and are respectful of pedestrians crossing the street, slowing down and stopping, even if they have the right-­‐of-­‐way. In Turkey, they drive fast, but safe. You don’t loiter when crossing the streets there. In Georgia, the driving by the locals borders on the reckless. If you cross the street on foot, it’s as if you are a target to be maimed. We spent three hours at the History Museum. It had remnants of prehistoric mankind dating to 1.7 million years ago. They had been unearthed in Armenia. The museum focused on Armenia’s history from 2,400 BC to present day. We would have spent more time, but had to leave at closing.

On the way back to the hotel we walked through a neighborhood and saw a parked Lada. It had lots of rust on it, a rack on the top for transporting everything imaginable, and lots of dents . . . a perfect example. Lada is a Soviet marque brand manufactured in Russia. They were popular in Russia and Eastern Europe, especially former Soviet bloc countries. They are still prevalent in Georgia and Armenia. Over 20 million units were sold. It was the highest-­‐selling automobile produced without a major design change. It is the ultimate personification of communism. I took a picture of it.

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The neighborhood near our hotel had a lot of high-­‐rise apartments made of bare concrete blocks that had been built during the Soviet occupation. Typical of central planning, these apartments were all cookie cutter duplicates, depressingly dull and drab, without any redeeming architectural features. I took some pictures to remind us how lucky Americans are. That evening we ate at a sidewalk café in Freedom Square, about a block from our hotel. We shared a pizza and had beer and wine. There was live music and the tab came to a little over $7. We returned to the hotel, and Mary did her nails before we went to bed.

We got up at 6:30. Our breakfast consisted of an omelet with sausage, bread, fruit and Juice. We made our own coffee. Our first visit was to the Matenadaran–The Museum of Ancient Manuscripts, which is Armenia’s national archive of manuscripts. It holds one of the world's richest depositories of medieval manuscripts and books, spanning a broad range of subjects ranging from history to philosophy, to medicine, literature and art history in Armenian, and many other languages that date to the 5th century.

It has a tremendous collection of illuminated bibles and manuscripts. The museum was named after the first Armenian publisher in the 17th century. We spent two hours there. It was a real find.

We then took a taxi to the Museum of Armenian Genocide, a 20-­‐minute ride that cost about $4. When we first arrived in Yerevan, we saw a lot of banners and signs proclaiming, “Never Forget 19.15”. It took a while for me to understand it’s meaning. It referred to the 1.5 million Armenians who died under the genocide campaign instigated by the Muslim based government of the Young Turks during the death throws of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 to 1918, (WW I). 2015 marked the 100th anniversary. In many ways, the campaign was similar to Hitler’s attempt to exterminate the Jews. The Armenians were heavily concentrated in Eastern Anatolia, Turkey. The campaign effectively killed or uprooted the Armenian population there and elsewhere in Turkey. Their property was confiscated, and the survivors settled outside Turkey, mostly in Armenia. The Genocide Museum gave an exhaustingly detailed account of the mass slaughter, mutilation, torture, rape, and starvation of the Armenians and other Christians. Many women and children were forcibly converted to the Muslim religion and were sold or given to other Muslims to become a wife or part of their family. The “converted” had to give up their Christian names and could not speak in their native language. They had to learn Turkish and were forbidden to pray except to Allah. Especially telling was the manner in which children and pregnant women were tortured and slaughtered. ISIS atrocities pales in comparison to what happened to the Armenian people.

By the time we left the museum, it was to late to see anything else and we took a taxi back to the hotel.

The driver was waiting in a taxi line outside the museum. He drove right past the hotel. I called that to his attention. He went through a series of unnecessary turns and back tracking. It was obvious that he was running the meter. I told him to just stop and we would walk to the hotel. I asked him how much and he responded with $8, double the fare we were charged to get to the museum, which was about the same distance. I handed him $4 and told him that was all he was entitled to. He meekly accepted. We got out and walked to the hotel. We repacked when we returned to the room. The next day we would return to Tbilisi. I visited the pharmacy and bought some more Imodium as Mary was still dealing with diarrhea. I had Artur make reservations with a car taxi company to pick us up at the hotel in the morning at 9 o’clock.

The cost was around $70, and we were to be the only passengers. I paid for the hotel with a credit card and the rest of my Armenian currency, except for the car taxi fare. I didn’t want to leave with any local 338

currency, as it is closed and can’t be exchanged outside Armenia. That evening we had dinner at the Camelot next to the hotel as it accepted credit cards. We had a nice dinner. When the bill came, I presented a credit card for payment. They told me that credit cards weren’t accepted, only cash. I walked to the front door and pointed to the sign that showed the various credit cards they accepted. After much discussion and bickering, the manager reluctantly brought out the credit card reader. I paid the bill, needless to say, without a tip.

In the morning (May 22nd) we were up early and had breakfast at 8 o’clock. Our car taxi arrived and our host, hostess, and Artur came out to say goodbye and see us off. The driver didn’t speak much English, but he was a lot more considerate and friendly than the driver we had coming from Tbilisi. He drove a more easterly route and we covered some of the same territory we did during the tour with the hotel’s car. We drove to Lake Sevan, then to Dilijan, and proceeded along the Azerbaijan border. We stopped for a potty break. He bought some snacks and refreshments and shared them with us. We crossed the border and cleared passport control without incident. We arrived Tbilisi around 3 and checked back into the Guri Hotel where we had reservations for 3 nights. We talked to the receptionist and learned he was new to his job and had recently moved back from Moscow, Russia, where he played professional football (American style). He and a friend had just gotten government approval to establish a professional football league in Georgia. The Olympic Committee had recently approved football as a sport. He wanted Georgia to be able to participate . . . very interesting. He recommended a restaurant that he thought was the best.

It was nearby, just across the bridge. Mary and I went for a walk to find a Catholic church, as she hasn’t attended church since we began our trip. We headed for Saint Trinity Church. It was the closest and one of the largest in Tbilisi. It was up a long hill. We knew something was going on as a lot of families with little babies and small children were headed there also. When we got to the church, it was packed with people who were there for the mass baptism. On our return walk, we noticed several fountains with bubbling water and saw a number of people stop for drinks. The bubblers were available throughout the city. We found that the water everywhere we went, including Turkey and Armenia, was potable and free of chlorine taste. We returned to our hotel for drinks and then went to dinner. We had the name of the restaurant the receptionist had recommended. We found it and discovered that we had eaten there before we went to Yerevan. After dinner we walked back to the hotel and did laundry before we went to bed.

We slept until 7:30. After breakfast we crossed the bridge near our hotel and went to the tourist information office. We discussed various attractions and obtained a map. We decided to walk through Old Town and visit the Georgia Museum of Ancient History. About 15-­‐minutes after we left the information office, I discovered I had left my book on Georgia and Armenia there. I didn’t want to go back for it then, and decided we could pick it up on our return. At the museum we were surprised at one exhibit that claimed Tbilisi was the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, 6000 years or more.

Today, Tbilisi has a population of 1.5 million, about a third of the total Georgian population. It seems there is a rivalry between Georgia and Armenia, as I have read that Yerevan claims to be the oldest city, being founded in 8000 BC and continuously inhabited since then. There also seems to be a dispute on who and when each other’s alphabet was originated. Interestingly, Turkey has 29 letters, Georgia has 33 and Armenia has 38. Each has a distinctly different appearance in their characters. One of the major museum exhibits was about the Soviet occupation of Georgia from 1921 to 1991. It had detailed 339

documentation of the communist suppression of Georgian people and the elimination and murder of its major politicians, cultural leaders and intellectuals. After the history museum, we went to the museum of fine arts and toured it. When we returned to the tourist information office, the woman I had talked to denied having seen it. I didn’t believe her. That evening we went across the bridge to have dinner. We ended up at a nice restaurant that had outdoor seating. We sat next to a table of six American marines who were there to train Georgian army personnel for an upcoming deployment to Afghanistan. They were all very friendly, and we enjoyed our conversation with them. Mary was fascinated by some of the diners who were sharing a hookah (water pipe). It reminded me of the one and only time I had indulged in one. It was around 40 years ago in Tehran. We returned to the hotel around 9 o’clock.

This was our last full day (May 24th) in Georgia. We leave the next day for Istanbul. We had breakfast, and were on our way by 10:30. Our first stop was the Metekhi Church, about five minutes from our hotel.

It is on a bluff overlooking the river and is where Tbilisi was founded. It was crowded with visitors. We then visited Pike Park, another five-­‐minute walk. We had an excellent view of the Presidential Palace and walked on the architecturally unique Peace Bridge. I took a lot of photos of the beautiful landscaping and the views from the park. The aerial tram was located in the park and we took it to The Narikala Fortress, which overlooks Old Town and the Botanical Gardens, a stunning view. We visited the huge Mother of Georgia statue nearby. It was erected in 1958, when Tbilisi celebrated its 1,500th anniversary. Prominent Georgian sculptor Elguja Amashukeli designed the 65-­‐foot figure of a woman in Georgian national dress, symbolizing the Georgian national character. In her left hand is a bowl of wine to greet those who come as friends, and in her right hand is a sword for those who come as enemies. We returned on the tram and stopped for ice cream. I exchanged all but 25 GELS for US currency, as I did not want to leave Georgia with any local money. Like the Armenian DRAM, the GEL is a closed currency. We returned to the hotel and packed for our flight to Istanbu. As we were going to and from our hotel to cross the bridge, we had noticed a nice little restaurant close to our hotel. It took credit cards and we decided to have dinner there our last night. We arrived around 5 o’clock and it was packed in the front area, but had seating available in the back. There wasn’t a hostess to seat us, so we headed for a table. We quickly learned that the restaurant was closed as they were hosting a private party. I would have thought that a closed sign would have been posted and told the guy in charge accordingly. He just blew us off. We went to a restaurant across the bridge. Mary took her shower before we went to bed. Immediately afterward, the water went off. I informed the receptionist and five minutes later it came on for a few minutes and then turned off. It didn’t come back on until sometime after midnight. I was awake before our alarm went off at 2:45 a.m. and already in the shower. Our taxi arrived 20 minutes early, and we were at the airport a little after 3 o’clock with time to spare before our flight at 4:30.

We arrived at Istanbul’s SAW airport and took the Havatas bus to its stop near Taksim Square. We changed time zones to be nine hours ahead of CST. I had been communicating via email with Soner Dusan, owner of the Literature Flat that we had reserved for three nights. I found the flat on AirBnB. It was located less than half a mile from Taksim Square, and Soner was to meet us at 9 o’clock at a restaurant adjacent to the bus stop. We had breakfast before the appointed time and then left with Soner for his flat. He walked slowly, pointing out interesting places and recommending shops and restaurants. I appreciated him highlighting landmarks to help us remember the way to his place. We arrived early, before the cleaning lady had completed cleaning the apartment. Soner told us that he was 340

close to earning his PhD. He has two other apartments and has been using AirBnB to book them since last year. This was the only accommodation of our trip we had reserved through AirBnB. With the exception of the Kari Pension on Lake Bafa, the rest had been arranged through booking.com. They generally have the best prices and don’t require prepay. The apartment faced a well-­‐lit street lined with five-­‐ to six-­‐story apartment buildings. Our apartment was on the second story, and the building entrance was only accessible with a key. The apartment had a large living room, kitchenette, private bath, and a bedroom with balcony. The kitchen was fully furnished with cooking utensils and dining ware. The living room had a large screen TV, which we didn’t care about since we haven’t watched any TV for more than 30 minutes the entire trip. Soner spent a lot of time with us making recommendations on places to visit and sights to see. In one of my emails, I had asked him to recommend a guide for one day to see the popular tourist sights in the Sultanahmet region. Soner told us that he would be happy to spend the day showing us the main sights. He explained that he wasn’t certified as a guide, but as a historian, knew the history well and was quite familiar with them. He would only charge us 50 Euros ($55), about half of what a professional guide would charge us. We agreed and would do the tour our last day.

We decided we would take a cruise on the Bosphorus that afternoon. Soner walked us about five minutes to the main street to catch a taxi to the Eminonu Docks where boats that cruise the Bosphorus depart.

They are located along the southern end of the Galata Bridge. We had the taxi drop us near there and went looking for a restaurant to have ice cream. We then walked to the docks and opted to take the short two-­‐hour cruise. Our boat had about 30 passengers. Most of them sat outside. Mary stayed inside and I went topside to take pictures. The Bosphorus Strait is a narrow body of water that connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, which connects to the Aegean Sea. It eventually becomes the Mediterranean Sea. These bodies of water touch many other countries and Istanbul has a lot of shipping traffic from them. After the cruise, we took a taxi to Taksim Square and did some shopping before walking to the flat.

I went to a neighborhood store and bought fruit, juice, cookies, instant coffee (surprisingly, we seldom had any brewed coffee throughout our trip), and some wine and beer. We had dinner at a small cafeteria near our flat that Soner recommended. When we got to bed, we were surprised how loud the Muslim call-­‐to-­‐prayer was. A muezzin or an imam chants ezan from the mosque six times daily, traditionally from the minaret. It summons Muslims for mandatory worship. A second call, known as Iqama, then summons Muslims to line up for the beginning of the prayers. The first ezan is two-­‐hours before dawn, and the last when the last light of day disappears. There is an ezan at dawn before the sun appears, one at midday, one in the afternoon when the shadows cast by objects equals their height, and one at sunset when the sun has disappeared below the horizon. There are 10,000 mosques In Istanbul, which serve the population of 19 million. Turkey’s population is approximately 75 million (98% are Muslim). Each mosque broadcasts ezan live or by recording. No wonder it was loud. It was Memorial Day in the US. We woke up at seven o’clock and had a breakfast of coffee, fruit juice, strawberries, bananas and cookies.

I spent some time planning our day. We decided to first visit the Sultan Ahmet Mosque, popularly known by tourists as the Blue Mosque, but needed to get there before the midday ezan as the mosque is closed to non-­‐Muslims during prayer. We took a taxi and were let out a short distance from the mosque. As we were walking towards it, a young man approached us and told us he would show us the way. His name was Umit Aslanhan. He spoke excellent English and was vey personable. He escorted us to the Blue Mosque and helped us navigate our way to the long line of tourists who were queued to see it. We were 341

not certain if we would be able to get in before it was closed for prayers. Umit acted as our guide and stayed with us the entire time. He owned a number of businesses and requested we visit his carpet store and have some tea. I knew that this was going to turn into a sales pitch, but since he was so nice, I thought we would humor him. The mosque was very beautiful and interesting. We had to remove View of Bosphorous and Istanbul

our shoes and carry them with us in a little plastic bag that was provided. Mary had to put on a headscarf, which she had brought with her for the occasion. Women were not allowed to go in unless their arms and heads are covered. Shorts for men and women were not allowed. Umit escorted us to his carpet store and had tea and water served while his salesman showed us an impressive array of beautiful silk carpets. They quickly ascertained we were not interested in buying. They then offered to take us on the elevator to their restaurant at the top of the building to see the beautiful view there. You could see the Bosphorous and a panoramic view of Istanbul. Afterwards, Umit ordered a taxi for us.

While we were waiting, Mary ventured into his jewelry store. It was very high end. The taxi arrived, and Umit gave clear instructions to the driver on our next visit, the Panorama 1453 History Museum. We waved good-­‐bye and sped off. What a classy gentleman.

Before we went in the museum, we had some ice cream from a sidewalk vendor. The museum was established in 2009 and houses a huge panoramic painting depicting the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman army of Sultan Mehmed II. It measures about 125 feet in diameter and had an incredibly realistic and detailed painting depicting the final battle of the seven-­‐week siege. It took eight artists five years to complete. They used 10,000 live models. The resulting 3-­‐D effect coupled with the accompanying soundtrack of battle cries, cannon blasts and military marches made us feel as though we were witnessing the battle in real time. The scene depicts the moment the Ottoman troops broke the Byzantine defenses of the city, thereby defeating Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos. After the fall, the 21-­‐year-­‐old Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II gained the title of Fatih (conqueror). One thing that struck me was that Mehmet was a wise ruler. He offered sanctuary to both Christians and Jews. They preferred to live under his governance even though he was Muslim. The painting covers an area of over 25,000 square feet. The museum also has over 100 exhibits depicting the time line that led up to the conquest, a real jewel. We took a taxi back to the flat. That evening we had dinner and sat in the outside area of a restaurant near Taksim Square. Mary had chicken fettuccini and wine. I had fish and chips, and a beer.

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May 27th was our last full day in Istanbul and Soner joined us to serve as our guide. We got up early and I went to check emails, but couldn’t find the iPad. As I was looking for it, I noticed that my wallet, watch, and camera were also missing. All items had been in the living room. Someone had managed to break into our apartment. Before going to bed, I left the front window open to get air circulation. It was on the second story and faced the street and I thought it was too difficult to reach, but it wasn’t. Soner arrived at 9 o’clock to take us on a tour. I told him that we needed to report the theft to the police. We took a taxi to the nearest station. The police then met us back at the flat and fingerprinted the window and surrounding area, Soner, and us included. The total loss was about $1300, including $200 cash. Fortunately, I had the passports in the bedroom.

We then left on the tour. It included Suleimanie Mosque, Beyazit or Soner's 2nd Story Apartment Freedom Square, The Grand Bazaar, lunch at Corlulu Ali Pasa Medresesi, Hagia Sofia, Gulhane Park, and Topkapı Palace Museum (we spent a lot of time there).

Grand Bazaar

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Various Mosque Scenes—Sooner & MEA Left

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Various Mosques

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Topkapi Palace Museum

At the Grand Bazaar I warned Mary to avoid eye contact and not point or stare at anything, as it would be interpreted as a buying impulse. We were encountered by a number of people who would rush up to us and offer to sell us large packages of Chanel No. 5 Perfume for $15. In the US, ¼ of an ounce costs around $100. Those counterfeits really looked like the real McCoy. One carpet vendor approached us and said, “You look like you want to buy a carpet”. Soner waved him off. On the other hand, I wondered why I was always being singled out to buy a carpet. We took a taxi back to the flat. I tried to pay him for his guide services and the lunch he bought, but he refused. He was ashamed that his flat had been broken into and we had lost so much. We said our goodbyes, and Soner assured us that he would order a taxi for us to go to the airport in the morning. It would be there at 6 o’clock.

We walked about 10 minutes to a narrow street that was lined with restaurants. We sat outside. Mary had penne pasta and vegetables, and I had linguine and shrimp. Our waiter had recently moved back to Turkey from the U.S. to take care of family matters. He was anxious to return but was having difficulty.

We got up at 4 o’clock and got ready. We were surprised when Soner showed before the taxi arrived. I think he was nervous it might be late or not show up. In addition, I think he wanted to let me know that he was going to have iron bars installed on the windows to prevent break-­‐ins. Soner told me he would send the pictures he took of Mary and I on the tour. Our taxi showed up a little early, and we said our goodbyes once again and headed for the airport. We flew Turkish Air to Geneva and connected on a United flight to Washington DC. It was a 9-­‐hour flight and we had a six-­‐hour layover there. We arrived in OKC at 8 o’clock and Brian was there to take us home.

Overall, this was a great trip. I thought being away for four weeks would have made us impatient to get home earlier, but we could have been away longer. The major regret was losing nearly all of the photos taken on the trip. I had some that were on my iPhone, but the 300+ I took with my camera are lost forever. Some of the pictures in this section were taken by Soner who sent me the ones he took on the last day.

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2015 Lake Placid and Adirondack NY, July 28th to August 1st Brian took us to the airport. Our departure was at 6:00 a.m. on Delta from OKC. We flew to Detroit, changed planes and arrived in Albany, New York around noon. We picked up our rental car and headed for Lake Placid, taking the western scenic route. We checked into the Marriott Courtyard where we stayed three nights. The next morning we were up early and had a nice breakfast at the nearby Farmers Café. We then visited the Lake Placid information center and planned our itinerary. The lady at the center was very helpful and helped us spend our time better.

Our first stop was John Brown’s farm. He was an abolitionist who stirred up strife against slavery. He was tried and hung in 1859. We visited his farmhouse and barn. A guide in the farmhouse provided a lot of information about Brown that was very interesting. The farm was located near the Olympic ski jump. We then drove to White Face Mountain, taking a 45-­‐minute drive on Hwy 86 and Hwy 431. We arrived at the tollhouse where we paid the $19 per person admission fee to drive the Veterans Memorial Highway, a five-­‐mile long highway that climbed to the top of the 4,867-­‐ foot high White Mountain. We parked our car and rode an elevator 27 stories to the weather station at the mountaintop. We were rewarded with a fantastic panoramic view of Lake Placid, lakes and forests stretching from Canada to New Hampshire.

John Brown's Home

John Brown's statute

Views from White Mountain

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We then returned to Lake Placid and drove around Mirror Lake. We stopped at a restaurant that overlooked the lake and had lunch. That evening we had dinner at the Pub & Brewery Restaurant. We parked on a street that had a sign posted that parking after 8 p.m. was not permitted. I thought we had enough time to eat before then, but when we came out of the restaurant it was past that time and the cops were writing tickets. When I got to the car, there was one stuck on the windshield. The fine was $25. I decided against paying it.

Lunch at Mirror Lake

In the morning we had breakfast at another restaurant and then headed for the Adirondack Museum near Blue Mountain Lake. It was 65-­‐miles southwest of Lake Placid on Hwy 30. It was raining when we arrived.

The museum was huge and consisted of 24 buildings on 32 acres. Its exhibits featured the history and culture of early settlers in the Adirondacks from the early-­‐1800’s to mid-­‐1900. We spent three and a half hours there. It was very interesting and enjoyable. On the return drive we retraced our route to Long Lake and had lunch there. We then drove east on Hwy 28 to I-­‐87 and then north to Lake Placid, arriving at 5 o’clock. We had dinner at a pizza place. We avoided the major restaurants, as prices are sky high.

We left early and headed for Elizabeth Town, thinking we could have breakfast there, but nothing was open. We finally found the On-­‐The-­‐Way café in Crown Point. It was packed, cheap and good . . . a real find. Our destination was Fort Ticonderoga on the way to Albany. We arrived there about 11 a.m. Each year Fort Ticonderoga tells a new story from a historical interpretation. This year it was 1756 from the French perspective. The guides were dressed in attire of that period and were extremely knowledgeable.

We toured the fort and the Kings Garden. We were glad that we did Fort Ticonderoga.

Fort Ticondoroga & Kings Garden

We then headed to Albany, arriving at our hotel around 5 p.m. We had an early dinner as our flight departed at 6:45 a.m. and we had to turn the rental car in.

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The hotel accommodated my request to provide access to the kitchen before they served breakfast. I took a couple of fruit cups and some pastries to our room and we had breakfast there before we departed for the airport. Soon after we boarded, the captain announced a short delay. That delay turned into an hour and we would miss our connecting flight in Minneapolis-­‐St. Paul. When we arrived there, we were informed that we had been booked on a flight to Atlanta where we would connect on another flight to OKC. We were flying Delta using a free companion ticket for Mary. I was surprised that Delta had upgraded us to first class on the MSP to ATL flight. Originally, we were to have arrived in OKC at noon, but with the changes we arrived at 5 p.m. Brian was there to drive us home.

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2015 The Baltics & Finland, August 25th to September 19th Brian stayed with us the night before we left and took us to the airport to catch our American Airlines flight at 5:05 a.m. When we checked in the woman at the counter told us that we had too many flight segments and she didn’t think we would have our baggage when we got to our final destination. She spent a lot of time finding a different set of flights. We flew to Chicago and then to LaGuardia, where we collected our bags and took a bus to JFK. Once we cleared JFK security we went to the AA Admirals club and had snacks and complimentary drinks. We then flew to Helsinki, Finland on Finnish Air. We had breakfast at the Finnish Air lounge and then flew to Tallinn, Estonia where we started our tour. Our flight arrived at 12:25 p.m. the next day. Total time from takeoff to landing was 23 hours. The time difference MEA with Moose was eight hours ahead of OKC. We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel, Three Crowns Residents, in Old Town where we stayed two nights. After we checked in we went for a walk to explore the area. We had some ice cream and picked up some wine and beer. We returned Street Scene Near Hotel to our room and took a nap. That evening we had dinner around 7:30 p.m. and walked around the neighborhood before returning to the hotel.

Three Crowns Residents was a nice little boutique hotel centrally located to most of the attractions we wanted to see.

Breakfast was included in most of the hotels we stayed at in the Baltics. The breakfast at the hotel consisted of eggs, sausage, rye bread and a little cake-­‐like bread. After breakfast, we walked to the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

nearby tourist center and planned our itinerary for Tallinn. We did a walking tour that took us to the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, which is a

Torture Paintings of Nazi & Soviet Occupiers

Russian orthodox church, Toompea Castle, and the Estonian parliament building. We then toured the Museum of Occupations, which covered the occupation of Estonia by Nazi Germany in 1941 until 1944 when the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic States until its collapse in 1991. We spent an hour there and learned a great deal about the horror inflicted by the occupiers on the Estonians. We then visited the Estonian History Museum, the Tallinn City Museum and the Maritime Museum, spending about an hour in each. We topped off the tour by visiting the rooftop café at the Maritime Museum and having ice cream 350

while enjoying the view of Tallinn Harbor and the city. That evening we visited the Town Hall Square for dinner. It is a vast square with many open-­‐air sidewalk restaurants. It was a bit chilly and the restaurants provide blankets for the customers to keep warm. Open-­‐air restaurants are very popular in the Baltics and Finland.

In the morning we ate breakfast and had a taxi take us to the Budget auto rental place. It was raining a lot and the taxi ride took 20 minutes. When we got there we discovered that Budget hadn’t been there for over two years. Neither the taxi driver nor the building receptionist spoke English. The receptionist figured out what our problem was and looked up the address for Budget. Our taxi driver wanted nothing to do with this and left.

Luckily, another taxi dropped off Tallinn Harbor View someone and the receptionist told the taxi driver about our problem. The new Budget location was close by and the taxi driver agreed to take us.

Five minutes later we were there. She declined to charge us for the ride. Budget and Avis had merged their local businesses and they were on the fourth floor. We filled out the paperwork and inspected our rental car, a mini Renault. It could hold four Tallinn Scenes passengers, or two passengers and two small bags. We managed to make it work, but there was no room in the back seats, as they had to be folded forward to make room for the bags. The Renault was a strange little car. It had a dual transmission, manual and automatic, which was very user-­‐unfriendly. I ultimately figured it our, but not without a lot of cussing and stalling.

Tallinn Harbor View

café at the Maritime Museum and having ice cream while enjoying the view of Tallinn Harbor and the city.

That evening we visited the Town Hall Square for dinner. It is a vast square with many open-­‐air sidewalk restaurants. It was a bit chilly and the restaurants provide blankets for the customers to keep warm.

Open-­‐air restaurants are very popular in the Baltics and Finland.

In the morning we ate breakfast and had a taxi take us to the Budget auto rental place. It was raining a lot and the taxi ride took 20 minutes. When we got there we discovered that Budget hadn’t been there for over two years. Neither the taxi driver nor the building receptionist spoke English. The receptionist figured out what our problem was and looked up the address for Budget. Our taxi driver wanted nothing to do with this and left. Luckily, another taxi dropped off someone and the receptionist told the taxi driver about our problem. The new Budget location was close by and the taxi driver agreed to take us. Five minutes later we were there. She declined to charge us for the ride. Budget and Avis had merged their local businesses and they were on the fourth floor. We filled out the paperwork and inspected our rental car, a mini Renault. It could hold four passengers, or two passengers and two small bags. We managed to make it work, but there was no room in the back seats, as they had to be folded forward to make room for 351

the bags. The Renault was a strange little car. It had a dual transmission, manual and automatic, which was very user-­‐unfriendly. I ultimately figured it our, but not without a lot of cussing and stalling.

We headed for Saaremaa Island where we had reservations for two nights at the Arensburg Boutique Hotel & Spa in the little town of Kuressaare. Along the way, I took a wrong turn and we got lost. I finally remembered that my iPhone had been set up to access the Internet and was able to use it to navigate without any more problems. When we were in the Middle East, I couldn’t access it, but in the interim, I learned how to configure the phone settings for European data access . . . problem solved. We arrived at the island just in time to drive our car onto the ferry for a 10-­‐minute crossing. Our hotel was a 45-­‐minute drive away. We checked in around three o’clock. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast and went to a restaurant and had lunch. We picked up some wine and beer before returning to the hotel. We took a nap before going to dinner at a small restaurant near our hotel and shared a small pizza.

The hotel was very upscale and would have been beyond our budget had it been high season. It had a tremendous breakfast buffet. We Kaali Meteorite Crater stopped at the tourist info center before we set off to see the island’s sights. We headed north and visited the Kaali meteorite center, famous for its 4,000-­‐year old meteorite crater. Continuing north for about15 km, we visited the Angla windmills, five wooden windmills that are

Angla Windmills

Panga Cliffs Views

Bishop Castle

adjacent to the highway. We stopped and took pictures. Just north of the windmills is the little seaside town of Leisi where we took a road that was close to the sea. We headed west to the Panga Cliffs that overlook the Baltic Sea. The view was worth it despite the very strong winds. We then turned south and visited an old church in Kaarma before returning to Kuressaare where we toured the Bishop Castle, the highlight of the day. We spent two hours there. That evening we had dinner at a nearby restaurant. We each had a different pasta dish and shared our desert of ice cream.

In the morning we were on the road after breakfast and arrived at the ferry terminal just in time to board the ferry. We then headed for Riga, Latvia, taking the highway that hugged the coastline much of the way.

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When we crossed the border we encountered some serious highway construction, with single lanes every several miles. We had to wait for the oncoming traffic to be cleared before we could proceed. This delayed us about two hours. We finally arrived at our hotel about three o’clock. We spent three nights at our hotel, the Islande Hotel, which was located on an island. It was a 20-­‐ minute walk across the adjoining bridge to Old Town. We had a late lunch at the hotel’s open-­‐air Terrace Restaurant located on the 10th floor. It started raining before we were served. Our table was under a roof overhang so we didn’t get wet, just cold as it was chilly. Mary had a salad and I had chicken liver pate.

The rain stopped as we left the restaurant. We returned to our room and did some laundry. We had a late dinner at the Dinner at Terrace R estaurant Terrace Restaurant. It was quite chilly and our waiter provided us with blankets to keep warm.

We slept in and arrived at the breakfast buffet in the nick of time. The staff is very punctual about adhering to breakfast deadlines. They immediately started closing the serving line down at 10 o’clock.

We were barley able to fill our plates before then. We then went to a nearby shopping center and bought a two-­‐day public transportation pass for each of us. We wanted to avoid driving in Riga, as parking is very expensive. Our hotel provided complimentary parking, but most of the hotels we looked at online charged $15 to $30 per day. A bus stop was within several minutes of our hotel and its next stop was at the edge of Old Town. We bought some cookies, wine, and beer and returned to the hotel.

Around one o’clock we took a bus to Old Town and walked around to get oriented. We visited

Central Market

the tourist information center and then headed for the Central Market, a collection of five, large, co-­‐joined Old Town buildings that housed hundreds of shop owners selling everything imaginable—spices, meat, produce, clothing, cooked food, etc. . . . overwhelming. We spent about an hour and a half there and had some ice cream.

We then toured the Occupation Museum, which depicted the atrocities inflicted on Latvians by the German Nazis and Soviet Union communists. We had an early dinner at an open-­‐air restaurant and bar.

We then caught a tram to return to our hotel, but when we reached the end of the route found out the 353

tram didn’t stop anywhere near our hotel. We were misinformed by the tourist information center. We rode the tram back to the point we caught it and then walked to the bus stop and rode it to the stop near our hotel.

We got an early start in the morning. It was raining and we decided to take the car as we expected there would be ample parking available since tourist traffic would be light. We decided to keep dry and focus on museums and art galleries. We parked in an underground lot near the History of Medicine Museum and the National Art Museum. The medicine museum was in an old five-­‐story building and we spent about three hours there. It was fascinating. We then walked to the art museum, but it was closed for renovation . . . bummer. We returned to the hotel and had dinner there. The Terrace Restaurant had just closed for the season, so we ate at an inside restaurant that the hotel opened up when the outside restaurant closed for the season.

The next day we had breakfast and headed for Ventspils, Latvia, around 9:30 a.m. Along the way we wanted to visit an out-­‐of-­‐the-­‐way attraction near Sabile, Talsi Municipality. The Pedvale Open Air Museum had unusual sculptures from around the world. We used my iPhone to navigate. It directed us to take unpaved country roads and we ended up driving in circles. It started raining and we stopped at a farmhouse for directions. We managed to get directions to Sabile, the closest town to the museum. We found a tourist information center there, but decided to write Pedvale off since the rain was coming down really hard. We then headed for Mesrags, a small village on the Baltic, and take the scenic drive along the coast to Ventspils. The drive to Mesrags was OK, but not very scenic, mostly farmland. We had lunch in a tiny restaurant in Mesrags and then headed for Kolka, a little village on the tip of Cape Kolka. The highway was not very close to the Baltic Sea and we didn’t have many views of the water. From Kolka, we proceeded down the coastline to Ventspils where we stayed the night at the Portross hotel. Our host was most helpful and offered suggestions on what to see in Ventspils. We were within a 20-­‐minute walk of the harbor where many of the attractions were. We walked to the harbor and toured the recently restored Livonian Order Castle, originally a medieval fortress that later became a Tsarist prison. It is now a museum of the city’s history. The castle’s grounds were well landscaped and very beautiful. We took our hosts recommendation and had dinner at Ostas Str 23, which is both the name and the address of the restaurant. The food was good and the price was Livonian Order Castle half of what we paid in Riga. We walked back to the hotel and requested an early morning breakfast at 7:30 a.m., as we wanted to get to our next destination, Klaipeda, Lithuania, early.

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In the morning it wasn’t long before we realized I had left my backpack at the restaurant the night before.

It had my camera in it. After having lost my last two cameras on trips, I had taken the precaution of downloading my pictures onto my iPad. At least, I could salvage those if I lost the camera. We told our host about our plight and he made several phone calls and located the restaurant owner. They had discovered the backpack and would open up for me to retrieve it at noon . . . so much for an early start.

Our host served us a great breakfast and then recommended that we take an interesting walk while we

Ventspils Harbor & Beach Scenes

were waiting to pick up the backpack. We drove down to the beach and strolled along it and a long pier lined with heavy concrete structures that served as wave breakers. By the time we returned to the hotel it was 10:30 a.m. We paid for the room and headed for the restaurant. The owner was there and he met me at the door and gave me the backpack. We were impressed with Ventspils. It is a nice clean little city with attractive landscaping and family oriented parks with playgrounds and equipment.

We headed for Klaipeda at 11:30 a.m. Our host told us that the drive would take two hours as long as we ignored the speed limit and drove with the traffic. We started out making great time, but halfway to the border we ran into heavy construction that closed down one of the two lanes intermittingly, forcing opposing lanes to take turns driving the single lane. The drive to Klaipeda took four hours. We checked into our hotel, the Pajurio Vieskelis, and then headed for Old Town. We wanted to see some of the sights there and to make sure we knew how to get to the ferry terminal that we would use in the morning to get to the Curonian Spit, a 97 km long narrow strip of sand that was only 4 km at its widest spot. We toured an old sailing ship, the Meridianas that had been The Meridianas in Klaipeda restored and is now a restaurant. The ship was built in Finland in 1948 and given to Lithuania as a ship for training sailors. She fared badly under the Soviet Union occupation, but was restored after Lithuania gained independence in 1991. That night we ate at the restaurant adjacent to the hotel.

The next morning we had breakfast and I started loading the car. I wanted to check my iPhone to make sure that the little town of Nida on the Curonian Spit was in the contact list so I could use it to navigate. I couldn’t find it and searched our room and the dining room thoroughly to no avail. I used my iPads app, 355

“find my phone”, and could tell that the phone was in or near the hotel. I turned on the audible alarm feature and went to the car to see if it had been misplaced in the luggage. When I opened the hatch, I heard a faint beep. It was coming from the passenger’s side door. When I put the maps in the door storage pocked, I inadvertently put the phone there. I need another system for keeping track of my phone and camera.

The ferry ride was less than 30-­‐minutes. We disembarked and drove about 45-­‐minutes south to the Kaliningrad border to take a picture. Kaliningrad is a federal subject of Russia on the Baltic Sea with no land connection to Russia. Up to this time, the closest I had gotten to Russia was just beyond the 12-­‐mile territorial limit when I was on Curionan Spit Ferry board the Vandenberg just off the shores of Kamchatka Peninsula. I took a picture of the border crossing station and then backtracked to Nida, a charming little town. Mary had to use a toilet and we went to the bus station. A sign was posted on the door that it would cost one Euro. The only Euros I had were larger than 10 Euros. I Nida Small Sail Boat Regatta asked the bus station attendant for change.

She scowled at me and pointed to a bank next door. I was able to get the Euro changed and Mary used the toilet.

The attendant continued to scowl at me the entire time. Her unfriendly demeanor made me realize that there is a difference between the Baltic States people. In Estonia, people are friendly and helpful, in Latvia, a little less so, and in Lithuania many people avoid MEA & CFA on Curonian Spit Kaliningrad Border Crossing

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Curonian Spit Sand Dunes

eye contact and encounters with strangers, especially the older Lithuanians. I conjectured that it has to do with the treatment they experienced by the Soviets. We visited the famous sand dunes south of Nida and had some ice cream before we headed for the ferry. We arrived just in time to drive on board. We then headed for Jubarkas where we had reservations at the Hotel Jubarkas, the only hotel in town.

Jubarkas is an industrial town without many amenities. We ate at the only café in town. It was surprisingly good. The hotel was built by the Soviets and in badly need of repair and restoration. The elevator must have been built in Russia many years ago. It was really quirky. The hotel doesn’t provide breakfast so we went to a supermarket and bought fruit, pastries and juice for breakfast, which we had the next morning along with coffee we brewed using the hotel room’s electric pot and coffee. The booking service I used for reservations indicated that credit cards were accepted, but when I attempted to pay for the room, the owner told me that the cc machine was not working. I paid cash. Our motivation for Lazdijai Catholic Church

only hotel reasonably close to Lazdijai, a small town in southwest Lithuania where Samantha’s forebears lived before they migrated to America. It is within five to 10 miles of Poland and Belarus. We wanted to visit Lazdijai to see the area. It is a fairly prosperous town surrounded by well-­‐kept farms. We visited the church

staying in this outpost was that it was the Lazdijai Town Square

and took some pictures.

We then headed for Trakai to see the restored Island Castle, a fortress that was built on Galve Lake by Lithuanian dukes in the 14th century. It is the only island castle in Eastern Europe and one of the main attractions in Lithuania. Trakai is 25 km Trakai Island Castle west of Vilnius and once served as the capitol of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

The tour of the castle was interesting. We had ice cream before we headed for Vilnius. We arrived at our hotel, the Alexa Old Town Hotel, where we stayed for three nights, mid-­‐afternoon. I parked the car in the 357

hotels gated parking lot, where it would remain for the duration of our stay. We checked in and did our laundry. We then set out to explore the area and walked to Old Town. Its entrance was a short walk away. We stopped at the tourist information center and learned that a walking tour started the next morning at 11 o’clock. We had dinner at a pizza restaurant and walked back to the Alexa. It was raining and we had forgotten to bring Lithuania Folk Dance Competition the umbrellas. Mary and I sheltered under the arch entrance to Old Town while we waited for the rain to let up.

In the morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and set out to explore Old Town and to take the walking tour. We left at 9:30 a.m. We joined the walking tour at Cathedral Square where there were a lot of competing groups performing folk dances in traditional costumes. It was part of an annual

celebration that lasted three days. There were a lot of street vendors lining the streets selling food, books, art, crafts, etc.

Vilnius Walking Tour Scenes The tour cost 20 Euros for both of us. Our guide was new to this job. His day job was as an environmental engineer for the city. Apparently, guiding is more rewarding as he aspired to do it fulltime. We didn’t think we got our moneys worth out of the tour, since he mostly read his prepared script and couldn’t answer a lot of the questions posed by our group of about eight. At least he spoke fluent English and covered all of the places he was supposed to. The tour crossed a bridge and we saw numerous padlocks with engravings on them attached to the bridge. Our guide explained that sweethearts who wanted to get married would lock the padlock on the bridge and throw the key in the 358

stream below. The tour lasted two and a half hours. We had lunch at an open-­‐air café and then headed for the Lithuanian Genocide Museum, also referred as the KGB museum. The building was built in 1899 to serve as a city courthouse and was taken over by the KGB during the first occupation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union in 1940. It then served as headquarters for the Gestapo when the German Nazis took over in July of 1941 until 1944 when it reverted to the Soviets. The genocide word in its title refers to the suffering of Lithuanians under the Soviet rule. No mention was made of the Nazi genocide against Jews during World War II. Particularly chilling was the basement where the KGB incarcerated and tortured their prisoners. It has been maintained just like it was prior to 1991. One exhibit concerned the life style of KGB personnel. They enjoyed many perks and benefits not available to other Soviet citizens. They were well compensated and had access to shopping for luxury goods. They were able to enjoy housing that was beyond the means of normal citizens and they had access to lavish vacation dachas. These perks resulted in unshakable loyalty to the KGB by its personnel. We left the museum when it closed at 5 o’clock. The annual celebration was in full swing despite the on-­‐again, off-­‐again-­‐rain. Every other block or so, there was a covered stage with performers playing live music. We stopped occasionally to take it in.

We had some ice cream and then walked about 40-­‐minutes to the hotel Alexa.

The next morning we had breakfast and headed for the tourist information center for ideas on things to do. Since it was Monday, most of the museums we wanted to visit were closed. We walked to the Bernardina Garden. It was beautifully landscaped and had numerous water fountain displays. We had lunch at the Town Hall Square and then headed for the Jewish Tolerance Museum. Along the way we stopped and bought some amber earrings for Samantha. Amber jewelry is very popular in the Baltic States. The Jewish Tolerance Museum tells the tragic story of Lithuania’s Jewish community. It is a government-­‐funded project that collects, restores and exhibits Jewish spiritual artifacts and objects from the Holocaust. By the time we finished touring the museum, it was to late to see the Holocaust Museum. We walked back to the hotel.

Free Library

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The next morning we had an early breakfast and set off for the Hill of Crosses, 225 km north of Vilnius. It is in the open countryside 12 km from the small town of Siauliai. The “hill” may have been the site of pagan worship in pre-­‐Christian times that has evolved over the centuries with pagan totems being replaced by crosses. During the rebellions of 1831 and 1863 the hill was transformed into a major focus of remembrances with locals planting crosses there. The Tsarist rulers wouldn’t tolerate a display of such sentiment in an urban setting. During the 1950’s another round of cross planting by Lithuanians took place in remembrance of those who died or disappeared as a result of the mass deportation to Siberia by the Soviets. In a futile effort to discourage religious or patriotic sentiments, the Soviet authorities bulldozed the site repeatedly during the 1960’s. Each time the locals responded by planting new crosses. We parked the car and walked a quarter of a mile to the hill. It was overwhelming.

We then drove to the Rundale Palace, 67 km northeast of the hill. Rundale Palace is one of the Hill of Crosses architectural wonders of Latvia and is a monument to 18th century aristocratic excesses. The Duke of Courland built it as a 138-­‐room summer hideaway. It fell into disrepair. Restoration started in 1972. Approximately a third of the rooms are open to the public. The

Rundale Palace, Latvia

rooms are fully furnished with Rococo furnishings popular in the 18th century. The palace overlooks a beautiful large well-­‐landscaped garden with fountains.

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We spent about one and a half hours there and then headed for Ozolniek, Latvia, where we had reservations for the night at the Agate Hotel. The town was quite small and didn’t even have a gas station. We had dinner at the hotel’s restaurant.

We went to breakfast at 7:30. Our table was already set and we were promptly served. We set out to explore the Gauja National Park and drove to Sigulada. We stopped at the tourist information center and they recommended visiting a number of attractions. We first visited the Sigulada Castle Complex, originally built in 1207 as a fortress and later as a type of convent. We then drove about five km outside Sigulada to the Turaida Museum Reserve, the most visited museum in Latvia. It has expositions on archaeology, culture, and art that chronicle 1000 years of history. The museum had an unusual collection of large outdoor sculptures.

Sigulada Castle Complex

Outdoor Sculptures at Turaida Museum Reserve

We spent two hours there and then returned to Sigulada. While we were at the tourist information center, I asked where we could get the best ice cream in Sigulada and was told it was in a little store across the street where the ice cream was homemade. We visited the store and bought a small container.

We asked the woman who made it if she could give us a spoon. Initially she said she didn’t have any, but then looked around and found one. I told her I would pay for it, but she refused. We ate the ice cream in a sitting area nearby and then returned the spoon to her. She was grateful and we thought the ice cream was great. We then headed for Cesis where we had reservations at the Hotel Katrina. Along the way we detoured six km to see the quaint little village of Ligatne. We had dinner at a nice little restaurant near our hotel.

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We had breakfast at the hotel and were on the road by 9:15 a.m. Our destination was Trartu, Estonia, but first we wanted to visit the small town of Rogue. It had been heavily promoted in our travel book as famous for being Estonia’s most picturesque village. It was off the beaten track, but we were able to use my iPhone to navigate to it. The problem was that when we found it, we didn’t think we were there and drove around for it. We discovered signs indicating that we were in it . . . a huge disappointment. It was drab and dreary. We then headed for Otepää, known as Estonia’s winter capital. We stopped at the bus station where the tourist information center was located and got advice on what to see there. They recommended visiting the statue Energy Mainstay that symbolizes the positive energy heaving from the land in Otepää.

The location of the statue was picked by esteemed sensitives and was between two oak trees. The idea was to gain energy through meditation and touching the ground or oaks and imagining energy rushing through you. We must have been imagination challenged— it didn’t work for us. We then drove to a hotel overlooking a lake and had some ice cream. We arrived at our hotel in Tartu, the Carolina Guesthouse, mid afternoon and checked in. The host met us at the door and asked us to remove our shoes.

Energy Mainstay in Otepaa, Estonia We were not allowed to have shoes on in the hotel. That was OK with us, but a little inconvenient when it came to unloading and loading our car.

Tartu is a college town and has the most prestigious universities in the Balkans. We decided to tour Old Town and have dinner there. We stopped at the tourist information center and obtained a walking tour map. We saw a lot of points of interest, including the Town Hall Square and Botanical Gardens. We competed most of the walk, which took us two and a half hours. We then had dinner at a sidewalk open-­‐ air café on the town square and were back at our hotel by 7:30 p.m.

Tartu Old Town Walking Tour Scenes

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We left Tartu after breakfast at the hotel and headed for Lahemaa National Park on Estonia’s north Baltic Sea Coast, a two and half hour drive. We stopped at the Palmse Visitors Center for recommendations and more detailed maps. The center had an interesting exhibit on Estonia’s national parks and trails. We first went to Kasmu on the tip of Kasmu Bay and took a short walk to see the boulders that were semi-­‐submerged in the Baltic.

We next drove up the east coast of the Parispea Peninsula and then headed for Tallinn where we visited the Estonian Open Air Museum. The museum depicted agricultural peasant life in various areas of Estonia in the 1800’s through early 1900’s. There were a lot of farm buildings that had interesting exhibits. We spent a little over an hour there and then drove to the Budget Auto Rental office and returned our rental car.

We took a taxi to our hotel, Tatari 53 (also its address). It was located north of Old Town. A tram stop was near the hotel that was within two stops of Old Town. The hotel gave us a 10% off coupon for the Tommi Grill, which was across the street.

Boulders on Baltic Sea's Kasmu Bay

Estonian Open Air Museum

We had dinner there. It was happy hour and the drinks were double at half the price. I ordered a beer and Mary had wine. The beer came in a large one-­‐liter stein. Mary had chicken kabob with pasta and veggies. I had pork chops with veggies and fried potatoes.

The total tab was $21. I couldn’t finish the beer and asked for and got a take away cup. We went back to the hotel and did our laundry.

We planned to see the history and art museums and walked to the tourist information center after breakfast. We learned that the history museum was closed for renovation. The art museum is located several miles from Old Town and we inquired about how to use the tram. We then proceeded to a nearby kiosk and bought two 24-­‐hour passes ($5 per person) that could be used on any public transportation service. We boarded a tram that would drop us off near the Kumu Art Museum, which focused on art by Estonians. We were amazed at the art. We then rode the tram back to our hotel and got ready for our trip to Finland the next day. That evening we rode the tram back to Old Town and had dinner at a restaurant on the Town Hall Square 363

Kumu Art Museum Exhibits

While we were at the tourist information center we MEA on the Tallinn to Helsinki Ferry inquired about getting to the ferry terminal the next morning, as we would take a ferry to Helsinki, Finland at 10:30 a.m. There was a marathon in Tallinn then and its course more or less circumnavigated Old Town. The terminal was south of Old Town and the ferry booking service had sent me several text messages warning me that there would be a lot of traffic congestion. We had to be at the ferry boarding area an hour before it sailed. We had the hotel book a taxi to pick us up at 8:30 a.m. We had an early breakfast and our taxi arrived promptly. It took about 10-­‐minutes to get to the ferry terminal—hardly any congestion at all. The ferry sailed on schedule and docked in Helsinki at 12:30 p.m.

We had reservations a the Omena Hotel Helsinki, but couldn’t check in until 4 o’clock as the hotel had no receptionist and hotel entry as well as the room was accessible only with a code that had been emailed to me. It wouldn’t be activated until 4 o’clock. We took a taxi to the train station and stored our luggage in a locker and then walked to the Finland History Museum, a few blocks away. We had lunch in the museum’s restaurant and then spent two hours touring the exhibits, which were very interesting. We then returned to the train station and retrieved our luggage and walked to the hotel, which was a 10-­‐ to 15-­‐ minute walk. After we got in our room, we went across the street to a small grocery store and bought fruit, pastries and juice for breakfast, as the hotel didn’t serve breakfast.

There was a pizza restaurant next to the hotel and we ordered a take-­‐out and had pizza for dinner in our room. We went to bed after 9 o’clock.

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We were up at 7 o’clock, had breakfast, and planned our day. We then headed for the tourist information center, about a 20-­‐minute walk. We picked up information on places to visit in Helsinki as well as other places we Market Square planned to visit during the Helsinki Cathedral, Senate Square two days we would have an auto rental. We first visited the Senate Square a short walk away. Various government functions had offices in the square. The most prominent landmark there was the Helsinki Cathedral (Lutheran). It had a statue of Alexander the 2nd prominently displayed in front of the cathedral. I thought he was a Finish ruler, but later learned that he was a Russian who succeeded his father as ruler during Russia’s occupation of Finland. We then toured the Helsinki City Museum which free and very interesting. We were surprised to learn that Finland had prohibited alcohol consumption much like the US did, and at the same time. We then went to Market Square, which is an open-­‐air market that sells produce, fish, crafts and prepared food. We had lunch there. Mary had a delicious fish soup with bread and I had a reindeer hot dog. We then took a ferry to the Suomenlinna Maritime Fortress, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The fortress was built on six islands and is now part of the city of Helsinki. The Swedish crown commenced the construction of the fortress in 1748 as protection against Russian expansionism. In the Finnish war, the fortress surrendered to Russia

Ferry & Suomenlinna Maritime Fortress

on May 3, 1808, paving the way for the occupation of Finland by Russian forces in 1809. We walked the main island and visited the military museum. It covered the Finnish military activity from WW I through the present time. We were surprised to learn that Finland was an ally of Nazi Germany 365

during WW II. We spent two and a half hours there and wished we had more time, but the ferry schedule didn’t allow it.

We returned to the hotel and went out to find a restaurant for dinner. As we were leaving, we met an Australian woman who had reservations at our hotel. She had not received the code to the hotel and her room. I told her to call the hotel, but her phone was dead. I called the hotel on my phone and gave it to her. She learned that the hotel had cancelled the reservation because her credit card was rejected. She provided an alternate card and they confirmed that her reservation had been reinstated and the access code would be emailed to her. We let her into the hotel so she could charge her phone while she waited for the email. Mary and I then left to find a restaurant. We didn’t find one nearby and decided to have a pizza in our room. While we were waiting for the pizza, the woman we helped was there and thanked us profusely. We picked up our pizza and had it in our room. We then did our laundry, hoping that was the last batch we would have to do before we get home.

We got up early, as I had to walk to the SIXT Auto Rental office in the Hilton Hotel, a 20-­‐ to 30-­‐minute walk. I had

Porvoo Scenes

requested the vehicle be available for pickup at 9 a.m. and left after breakfast at 8:30 a.m. The car was a Ford and somewhat larger than the mini Fiat we had in the Baltics. I returned to the hotel at 9:30 a.m. We loaded our luggage and set off for Porvoo, a small seaside village about an hour east of Helsinki. We wanted to see the Old Town there and took a walking tour that was described in a brochure we picked up in Helsinki. We had lunch and then headed for Turku, which is two and a half hours northeast of Porvoo. It was raining when we arrived and the iPhone navigation app directed us to a parking lot. I couldn’t locate the hotel and called it.

The owner told me that the hotel was nearby and gave me directions to it. I still couldn’t find it and called the owner again. He had his receptionist come out to the area where we were parked. I saw her. The problem was that the hotel was in a building and its sign was small and inconspicuous. We checked in and went shopping for breakfast groceries and to have dinner.

In the morning we had breakfast and went to the tourist information center where we picked up maps and discussed sightseeing options. We decided to spend the day exploring the Turku Archipelago. We headed for Naantali and drove the northern part of the archipelago to Teersalo and then backtracked and drove the Small Archipelago Trail to Roola at the southern tip. We then returned to Turku and headed for Pargas Parainen and drove the road to several islands that were linked by ferries. The town of Korpo Korppoo was the end of the drive for us and we returned to Turku for dinner. It was a long day of driving, but well worth it.

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Turku Archipelago Scenes

The next morning we got up early and headed for Helsinki to return our rental car. Before we turned the car in we stopped at the Helsinki Open-­‐Air Museum, which is located on a beautiful green island just a few kilometers from the heart of Helsinki. The museum was closed for the winter, but the trails were open for walking. We circumnavigated the island and spent several hours there. The museum displays traditional Finnish way of life and has cottages, farmsteads and manors of the past four centuries that have been relocated from all around Finland. It was very interesting.

Helsinki Open Air Museum

We then went to the tourist information center to find out the best way to get to the airport, as we would be leaving in two days for the US. We had a late lunch in the Market Hall and then headed for the Omena Hotel Helsinki where we had reservations for the next two nights. I had been given a code to get into the hotel and our room, but when we got to the second floor where out room was supposed to be, the room was not there. I called the hotel and 367

learned that the room was in another building adjacent to the one we were in. I complained that I should have been notified of this. When we went next door, I checked to see if there was signage on it. There was, but it was not visible from the street. I decided I would avoid hotels in the future that didn’t have people to assist guests . . . enough of “Robot Hotels”. I returned the car and walked back to the hotel. Along the way, I scouted for restaurants near the hotel. We had dinner at a very crowded, but expensive Mexican restaurant. We had two small hors d’oeuvres, a beer and a glass of wine for $35. The food was good. We stopped at the small grocery store across the street from the hotel and bought groceries for breakfast.

The next day we had breakfast in our room and then walked to the Ateneum Museum. It was directly across from the train station where a large crowd was participating in a labor union strike protest that was scheduled to end at 3 a.m. the next day. The public transportation workers were on strike and a few businesses were closed in support of the strike. We were worried that we might have trouble getting to the airport on time the next morning. Luckily the strikers were peaceful. We toured the museum for about two hours. It’s exhibits were about early Finnish art. We then stopped at a deli and bought sandwiches and returned to our hotel where we had lunch. I called a taxi company that the tourist information center had recommended Transportation Workers Strike at Train and booked a taxi for pickup at 4:20 a.m. We had dinner at a Station Chinese restaurant and packed our bags for the next morning’s flight at 6:40 a.m. on Air Berlin.

Our taxi was prompt and we learned that the taxi drivers welcomed the strike as they got a lot of extra business since they were not unionized. Our driver was not sympathetic to the union guys and bemoaned how Finland’s socialism had created a large taking class. I found that interesting. Our flight was on time and we flew to the Berlin Tegel airport to connect on another Berlin Air flight to Chicago. We had to leave the terminal building and walk to the departure building. When we went through airport screening, my backpack was hand checked and the screener found the laundry soap container, which was nearly empty. Despite having cleared security in Helsinki with it, they would not allow me to keep it and it was confiscated. The laundry soap was manufactured in Germany. I bought it there 20 or so years ago. It was perfect for travel as it only takes a drop or so to wash a bathroom sink full of dirty clothes. That soap has done laundry in over 40 countries. Oh well, I found it online and can have it delivered from Germany. The brand name was, andstill is Saptil. The flight to Chicago and the American Airlines flight to OKC were on time and uneventful. Brian met us at the airport and drove us home. Overall, the trip was very enjoyable, except for the high cost of mediocre food in Finland.

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2015 Eastern Oklahoma, October 27th to 30th Mary and I drove to Fayetteville, Arkansas and met Doris and Bob Sherrick for a three day trip to enjoy the fall foliage and visit American Indian points of interest in eastern Oklahoma. We stayed in a motel in Fayetteville the first night and then began our journey the next morning. Doris and Bob had driven from Peculiar, Missouri and they left their car at the motel, as we would be returning there a day later. We took the trip in my car and were on the road by 7:30 a.m. We headed for the Spiro Indian Mounds Archeological Center near Spiro in eastern Oklahoma. It is an important Mississippian archaeological site. Between the 9th and 15th centuries, the Spiro people created a powerful religious and political center based on the model of Mississippian Culture that thrived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries during that period. Spiro is considered the western-­‐most outpost of Mississippian culture. The museum had excellent exhibits portraying the living conditions during then. We took a walk around the mounds that were used for burials and homes for the elites.

We next headed for the Heavener Runestone Park and Historic Site near Heavener, Oklahoma. It is the site of inscriptions in stone thought to have been carved by early Viking explorers more than 1000 years ago. The inscriptions were characters used by Teutonic tribes of northwestern Europe from the fourth to the 13th centuries and probably signified a claim of property by the Viking who

Talimena Scenic Drive Scenery

made the carving. The inscriptions were on a large boulder accessible by a trail that went down a steep ravine. Luckily the trail had stone steps. The inscriptions were protected from vandals by a clear plastic barrier. We then had a picnic lunch with sandwich material Doris had brought. The picnic area overlooked the valley below and we enjoyed the view of the fall foliage. It was an interesting little park.

Our next destination was Mena, Arkansas where we started the Talimena Scenic Drive, which is a National Scenic Byway in southeastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas spanning a 54-­‐mile stretch of Arkansas Highway 88 from Mena to Talihina, Oklahoma. The weather was clear, but the fall foliage was not as vivid as we had expected. From Talihina we drove to Robbers Cave State Park, five miles north of Wilburton, Oklahoma. The park contains the cave used by Jesse James, Belle Star and other outlaws as a hideout. We had to climb up a steep hill on a rocky trail to get to the cave. I could see 369

why it was a popular hideout as it was well hidden and difficult to find. We then headed for McAlester, Oklahoma where we had reservations at the Happy Days Hotel. The hotel featured an Elvis Presley theme and had memorabilia from that era displayed throughout. We had dinner at Pete’s Place in nearby Krebs. We were seated in a small-­‐ enclosed private room, as all of the guests were.

Our dinner orders were served home-­‐style. The

Robbers Cave & Doris

restaurant brewed Choc beer on the premises.

Everyone enjoyed Pete’s Place . . . somewhat pricy, but good and worth it.

The next morning we headed for Muscogee and visited the Five Civilized Tribes Museum.

The museum holds an extensive collection of traditional art produced by artists of Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Robbers Cave State Park Seminole descent. Exhibits featuring various aspects of the tribe’s lives, history and culture were on display. It covered the period from 1830, when the tribes were forcibly removed from their traditional lands primarily in the southeast and relocated to Oklahoma, to 1907 when Oklahoma was admitted as a state. Many members of the tribes, mostly the children and elderly, perished during the harsh journey. We then drove to Tahlequah, taking the scenic route, and visited the Cherokee Heritage Center. We had a picnic at Tahlequah State park and arrived at the center just in time to take a guided tour of the outdoor museum, which portrayed the way Cherokees lived from the 1700’s. We also toured the indoor museum. It was troubling to learn the manner in which the US Government treated the Cherokees. We spent about two hours seeing the exhibits. We had dinner at a catfish restaurant near Fayetteville and returned to our hotel. Doris and Bob were up early and drove home. We left for home and had rain for most of the trip.

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Appendix

CFA Birth Certificate

MEA Birth Certificate

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372

Marriage Certificate

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Family Travel Log 1966 Canada (Weekend w/Barb & Steve Nemesi); Summer 1967

Mexico Honeymoon: Mexico City, Taxco, Acapulco; 4/18-­‐~27

1967

NW US & British Columbia: Crater Lake, Cascade Mountains, Coastal Drives, Mt Hood, Mt Rainier, Columbia River Gorge, Vancouver, Lake Louise, National Parks of Banff, Kamloops, Kootenai, and Jasper; September thru December

1968

Back to Minneapolis from Portland: California coast, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Sullivan; 2/23-­‐ 3/~17

1969

Western Trip Met parents, Doris & Bob in Cheyenne WY for Frontier Days Rodeo, visited Nichols in Ontario, OR, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument; 7/17-­‐~30

1971

Missouri to show off 6 week-­‐old Baby Jennifer to relatives; June 8 days

1979

Europe: Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy (Business & Pleasure on Co.); 6/7-­‐7/5

1980

Far East: Japan, China, Hong Kong, Hawaii; (Business & Pleasure on Co.); 10/25-­‐11/20

1984

Hawaii: October 10 days

1984

Disneyworld, (Bill & Mary Kruse) New Orleans with family; 12/20-­‐29

1985

Western States with family: Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico; 5/31 to 6/11

1986

Santa Fe & Angle Fire, New Mexico with family; March ~6 days

1986 Rolla MO Harvey House College Roommates Reunion; Summer 3 days 1986

Hot Springs Arkansas with family; Summer 6 days

1987

US Virgin Island St. Croix with family; Spring Break ~7 days

1987

Europe Germany (Hoffman Family), Switzerland, Italy, Austria with family; 6/18 to 7/5

1987 San Antonio TX Expense Paid Trip For Malcolm Baldridge Quality Award Fall` 4 days 1988

Moberly MO with family for Grandma Alexander’s 90th BD

1988

Minnesota Camping in St. Croix State Park and canoeing down St. Croix river with family, Steldt’s and Hoffman’s; Summer 7 days

1988

Gulf Port (Red Neck Riviera) Christmas in a Condo on beach; 4 to 5 days 374

1990

CO, ID Green River Float Dad, Doris & Bob; 6/16-­‐25

1990 Oregon to buy Portland lot for retirement; August ~ 5 days 1990

San Antonio TX Christmas with Family; ~4 days

1993 Canada, Alaska cruise on inside passage; 8/19-­‐30 1993 Albuquerque NM Hot Air Balloon Festival with O’Leary’s; Fall ~ 5 days 1994

Boston for Theresa and David’s Wedding (Business & Pleasure on Co.); Summer ~6 days

1994 Australia; 11/20-­‐12/9 1995 N Ireland (Eric & Barbara Mayne), Ireland, England; 6/20-­‐7/8 1995

Oregon; Summer 8 days

1996

San Francisco Liz Baird’s wedding at Fairmont Hotel; Summer ~ 5 days

1996

New England Fall Leaf Peeping with Bill & LuAnn MA, ME, NH, VT; ~ 6 days

1996 New Zealand, Australia; 11/22-­‐12/9 1997 CA Lake Tahoe, Yosemite (Business & Pleasure on Co.); Summer ~7 days 1997 CO Rocky Mtn Nat’l Park (Business & Pleasure on Co.); Fall ~6 days 1997 Africa Kenya, Tanzania, England; 9/3-­‐20 1998 East Europe: Berlin, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, London; 6/11-­‐28 1998

Austin 9/12 Jennifer & Mike Wedding; ~ 5 days

1999 Scotland with Barbara and Eric Mayne, Wales, England; 9/2-­‐20 2000

New Orleans; 4/7-­‐9

2000 Alaska; 7/9-­‐24 2001 Spain, Andorra, Gibraltar, Morocco, Portugal, France; 8/24-­‐9/17 2001

Atlanta 11/11, then Austin for Mike’s memorial

2002 Mexico Family trip; 6/15-­‐22 2002

Sullivan MO visit before Dad’s passing on 10/22; 10/18-­‐21

2003 Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, London with Peg & Al; 6/20-­‐7/5 2004 Scandinavia: Sweden, Norway (Ray & Brit Fergestadt), Denmark; 8/26-­‐9/11 375

2005

Katy Trail with Doris & Bob

2005 Charleston, SC; 10/~8-­‐~13 2006

Neosho, MO with Doris & Bob; 6/24-­‐25

2006 Alaska, Seattle, Whistler, Vancouver; 7/16-­‐30 2007

Illinois: Springfield, Peoria with Doris & Bob; 6/9-­‐13

2007 Canadian Maritime Provence’s with Bill &LuAnn: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, St. Johns,

Newfoundland, Quebec, Boston; 6/28-­‐7/14 2007 Utah Family Skiing; 12/20-­‐25 2008

Iceland, Boston; 6/25-­‐7/4

2008

Flint Hills, Kansas with Doris & Bob; 7/12-­‐14

2008

Costa Rica; 11/15-­‐25

2009

Ireland; 7/5-­‐15

2009

Boston & the Cape; 8/28-­‐9/2

2009

Peru, Ecuador & Galapagos Is.; 9/23-­‐10/14

2010

NV (Mark & Ruth Brenner), CA Coast, OR, WA (Jennie Steldt Wedding); 7/21-­‐8/1

2010

CO, NM, Train ride to Leveta with Doris & Bob; 9/30-­‐10/4

2011

ID Falls (Nick & Joan Nichols), Grand Tetons, Yellow Stone, Central ID, UT; 6/26-­‐7/11

2012

Sullivan, MO (Blesi Cousin Reunion); Summer

2012 Washington DC; 11/2-­‐6 2013 CO, ID Green River Float (Jennifer, Samantha & Brian); 6/7-­‐16 2013

San Juan Is, WA; 10/7-­‐12

2014

Chile, Argentina, Brazil; 4/19-­‐5/1

2014

Sullivan Class Reunion, Memphis, New Orleans, Austin; 10/24-­‐11/2

2015

Turkey, Republic of Georgia, Armenia; 4/30-­‐5/28

2015

Lake Placid, NY; 7/28-­‐8/1

2015

Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania), Finland; 8/25-­‐9/19 376

2015

Eastern Oklahoma and Western Arkaansas with Doris & Bob; 10/27-­‐30

377

Century Travel Club Log • USA o Lower 48 counts as 1 country, any state o Hawaii and Alaska each count as 1 country • Landing in a country’s airport and not clearing customs counts for that country • Honor System governs countries counted • 75 countries visited constitutes Honorary Member • 100 countries visited constitutes Full Membership in Century Travel Club • Countries claimed must be listed on Century Travel Club web site

Countries Visted

378

Year

1941 1965 1966 1966 1967 1967 1967 1974 1974 1974 1974 1974 1974 1974 1974 1974 1974 1976 1976 1976 1976 1976 1976 1976 1976 1978 1978 1978 1978 1978 1979 1979 1979 1979 1979 1981 1981 1981 1986

Times V isited 9 12+ 10 3+ 2 1 13 1 1 17+ 14+ 11 2 10 2 6 15 5 6 4 1 2 1 3 7 1 1 1 1 4 8 1 6 1 1+ 4 5 6

Qualifying Country Order of first visit USA Canada Hawaii Japan Kwajalein Mexico Johnston Island Iran Beirut, Lebanon Airport Damascus, Syria Airport England France Italy Vatican Switzerland Greece Holland Germany Austria Slovenia Croatia Serbia Hungary Romania Turkey-­‐Istanbul Brazil Thailand Karachi Pakistan Airport New Delhi Airport Lichtenstein Peoples Republic of China Hong Kong Macau Portugal Azores Is. Airport Wales Norway Sweden So. Korea 379

Non-­‐Qualifying Country

Near Kamchatka, Russia Eni Wei Tak, Roi Namour

CFA

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

MEA

1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1986 1986 1986 1986 1987 1987 1990 1990 1990 1993 1994 1995 1995 1996 1997 1997 1997 1998 1998 1998 1999 2001 2001 2001 2001 2001 2003 2004 2008 2008 2008 2009 2009 2014 2014 2014 2015 2015 2015 2015 2015

4 2 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Taiwan Singapore Malaysia Finland Virgin Is San Juan, Puerto Rico Airport Monaco Indonesia-­‐Java Jakarta Airport & Bali Crete Alaska Australia Ireland-­‐Eire & Arayn Is No. Ireland Belfast New Zealand Tanzania Kenya Belgium Czech Republic Poland Slovakia Scotland Spain Andorra Gibraltar Ceubic Spanish African Territory Morocco San Marco (Italian enclave) Denmark Iceland Costa Rica Nicaragua Peru Ecuador & Galopagas Is Chile Argentina Paraguay Republic of Georgia Armenia Estonia Latvia Lithuania Total Countries Visited

380

Berlin, E Germany

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 80

1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 58

Résumé of Chuck Alexander Summary-­‐ Extensive experience in business with a number of companies in a variety of senior positions; specializing in business transfers, marketing, business management, business development, operations management and product development. Have significant international experience.

CF Alexander & Associates, LLC−Owner

December 1999−Present

Provide professional services to individuals and companies in business transfers, buying and selling businesses.

Decorative Arts International−Owner

August 2009−June 2013

Acquired this 40-­‐year-­‐old family-­‐owned and operated business that manufactured and wholesaled mid-­‐to high-­‐end framed wall décor. Modernized company infrastructure and acquired leading technology to publish art for framing. Implemented robust web site to sell over 2500 different product items to the Home Furnishing, Hospitality, and Interior Designer Industries.

Cherokee Data−President.

April 1995−November 1999

Doubled revenue for this international wholesaler of computer storage equipment. Established key supplier relationships with industry leading manufacturers. Instrumental in development and installation of networked inventory management system Delta Marketing International−Owner

February 1991−March 1995

Provided Clients with consulting relative to marketing, product strategy and planning. Key Clients included Digital Equipment, Quantum and International Data Corporation.

Instrumental in startup of Digital Equipment’s OEM Disk Storage Business. Established and guided product planning process and provided competitive insight and market analysis.

Participated in market studies for International Data Corporation, including one that examined the impact of the emerging market of real-­‐time delivery of multi-­‐media on the storage industry.

Emulex Corporation−Director of Storage Product Marketing

June−October 1991

Responsible for product marketing and management of disk, tape, and optical storage subsystems for the DEC End User market. Functions included P/L management, advertising, product promotions, and tactical product planning. Annual revenue was $80 Million.

Seagate & Control Data Corp−Director of Various Functions

(Seagate acquired CDC’s Disk Drive Subsidiary in October 1989) Director of Marketing

381

January 1986−January 1991

Responsible for marketing high performance disk drives for the worldwide OEM and distributor markets, development of marketing strategies, product planning, product launch, public relations, advertising, sales training, and key customer strategies.

Increased annual product line revenue from $200 Million to $700 Million. Worked closely with Novell in pioneering NetWare Ready Disk Drives. Led Far East manufacturing site selection effort, providing assessments of various alternatives. Singapore was selected, which resulted in significantly reduced product cost.

Control Data Corp (CDC) Director of Product Line Management (PLM)

June 1980−January 1986

Responsibilities included program and product management of disk-­‐drive products with annual revenue of $350 Million per year. PLM organization consisted of 40 personnel in a variety of functions including Product Line and Program Management, Customer Account Management, Factory Scheduling, Finished Goods Asset Management, Pricing and Contracts, and Long Range Business/Product Planning.

Established PLM functions within CDC’s European disk drive manufacturing facilities in Germany, Portugal, and the UK. New Business Development, CDC’s Peripheral Products Company

May 1974−May 1980

Responsible for negotiation and establishment of new business ventures and licensing agreements for this $1 Billion plus company. Developed significant business relationships with entities in Brazil, Slovenia, Peoples Republic of China and Iran.

Accomplishments included: • Negotiated and established a Joint Venture with Government of Iran for development/ manufacture of plasma display terminals. Iranian Government contributed $20 Million R&D funding.

• Negotiated license agreement for transfer of minicomputer manufacturing to a Slovenian Company.

• Negotiated and developed partnership with a Brazilian company for the manufacture and sale of disk drives in Brazil.

• Negotiated and acquired license on behalf of CDC’s Tape Products Division for manufacture and sale of entry-­‐level magnetic tape drive product.

• Represented CDC in first USA trade delegation to Peoples Republic of China since normalization of relations.

CDC’s Terminal Systems Development Division−Manager December 1971 to April 1974 Established pre-­‐sales Systems Engineering and Analysis function to perform technical analysis of proposals involving custom terminal subsystems. Provided cost and schedule estimates of development, manufacturing startup, and recurring product cost and schedules. Supervised 10 systems engineers and analysts.

Also managed organization of 60 personnel that developed and manufactured custom terminal products for a $20 Million Air Force inventory control project.

Established program plan/team for the development of a terminal subsystem based on Intel’s first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 8008.

382

Managed Terminal Development organization of 40 software, firmware, and diagnostic development personnel.

CDC Computer Systems Division−Manager

April 1968−November 1971

Supervised systems managers responsible for systems integration and obtaining customer acceptance of CDC super computers having contract value in excess of $4 Million.

RCA International Service Company

July 1966 to March 1968

Missile Test Project−Computer Lead Engineer Supervised 9 engineers, programmers, and technicians aboard an Advanced Range Instrumentation Missile Tracking Ship responsible for maintaining and operating a real-­‐time navigation and signature data acquisition computer system. Responsibilities included mission planning support, software development, and equipment modification.

UNIVAC Defense Systems Division−Systems Design Engineer

January 1966 to July 1966

Participated in the design of an advanced radiation hardened ICBM guidance computer.

Control Data Corporation

June 1964 to January 1966

Special Systems Engineering Division−Engineer Specified, designed, tested, and installed numerous special computer input/output equipment Education • • • • •

Business Brokerage Educational Courses & Seminars−BBN Equipment/Machinery Appraisal and Brokerage Courses−NEBB Institute MBA−University of Minnesota o Additional Graduate Level Finance and Accounting Courses Executive Marketing Management Program−Columbia University BS Applied Mathematics−University of Missouri Science and Technology

383

Résumé of Mary Alexander

Over 20 years of extensive experience in editing and proofing a variety of material, including both Oklahoma Senate and House legislative documents. Have detailed knowledge of the Engrossing and Enrolling process. Accumulated seventeen years of experience in directing the day-­‐to-­‐day work of session employees.

OKLAHOMA STATE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Assistant Supervisor, 1992 to June 30, 2009

This position involved editing and proofreading of bill drafts, checking citations, and proofing all versions of bills, including any Senate amendments, to ensure that everything was correct. Renee Decker and I worked as a team to verify floor amendments, current status of bills, and check the accuracy of the authors. We final proofed the session employees’ work and made sure the bills were in compliance with the Journal before releasing them for distribution. The position also involved supervising the session employees and training the assembler/runner.

In the interim, we removed the strikeouts and underlines for codification. We proofed draft statutes from West Publishing to ensure that they were accurate before publication. We edited and proofed Session Highlights and other legislative material and responded to requests from other departments and legislators.

OKLAHOMA STATE SENATE Session Employee, 1989 – 1991

Performed numerous editing, proofing, and computer tasks involving the Engrossing and Enrolling process. Served as the assistant to the Supervisor of E&E for two sessions.

CONTROL DATA Technical Editor, 1968 – 1971

Edited hardware and software documentation for the Computer Division and other divisions that required a secret clearance.

HONEYWELL Assistant Editor, 1965 – 1967

384

Edited and proofed classified technical proposals for the Ordnance Division. Held a secret classified clearance from 1965 to 1971.

CIVIC ACTIVITIES (VOLUNTEER) Bulletin Editor for the North Oaks League of Women voters, 1977 – 1981

Wrote and compiled information for the local League bulletin and had total control over the publication.

Edmond Task Force for Youth, 1984 – 1988

Past president and treasurer. The Task Force worked with community leaders, school personnel, and parents in determining programs needed for youth. Started the After Prom Party in Edmond, OK. Edmond Family Counseling, 1983 – Present

Board member, past president, and treasurer. Edmond Family Counseling is a counseling centerfor youth and families.

EDUCATION BA English, University of Minnesota 1965

Additional postgraduate classes.

385

Mary’s Mothers Family Genealogy

John McGaughren, husband, born April 1835, died April 3, 1907, no record Margaret Rowan, wife, born 1843?, died 1879, no record Children Patrick McGaughren, born July 1, 1861, died February 8, 1923, Heart disease Margaret McGaughren, born circa 1865 Anna McGaughren, born January31, 1868, Died June 26, 1920, Chronic Tuberculosis and Chronic Myocarditis Elizabeth McGaughren, born March 18, 1870, died August 11, 1955, Cerebral Thrombosis Kathryn McGaughren, born February 22, 1877, died August 29, 1957, Acute Cardiac Decompensation Nicholas McGaughren, born May 1880, died March 3, 1926, Cerebral Embolism William McGaughren, born August 2, 1882, died April 3, 1964, Stroke – Pulminary Edema Patrick McGaughren, Husband, born July 1, 1861, died February 8, 1923, heart diseas Bridget Harden, wife, born October 28, 1870, died April 13, 1928, Angina Pectoris Children Earl McGaughren, born June 24, 1892, died July 1, 1950, Heart Attack Margarite McGaughren, born September 2, 1894, died January 31, 1897, convulsions William McGaughren, born October 6, 1895, died August 16, 1896, Gastro-­‐enteritis Helen McGaughren, born July29, 1899, died November 12, 1992, Congestive Heart Failure Bernice McGaughren, born October21, 1900, died January 7, 1987, CVA Leonard McGaughren, born February 19, 1904, died November 13, 1953, Heart Attack Dorothy McGaughren, born July 15, 1906, died January 3, 1990, Natural Causes (many strokes) Robert Allard, husband, born November 29, 1904, died July 7, 1988, Artherosclerotic Cerebrovascular Disease 386

Dorothy McGaughren, wife, born July 15, 1906, died January 3, 1990, Natural Causes Children Robert William Allard, born May 14, 1937 John Allard, born March 20, 1939, died April 23, 2003, Diabetes Mary Allard, born November 29, 1942 Jim Allard, born July 8, 1944 Medrick Allard, father of Robert, born July 9, 1864, died June 7, 1941, Carcinoma of stomach Lucille Winifred Allard, sister of Robert, born October 15, 1903, died May 26, 2004, Congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, Femur fracture, right

387

Christmas Letters • Christmas 1998 Seasons Greetings to all, We hope you and your family are well and are having a great year. We had a fantastic year!

The most exciting thing for us was Jennifer’s wedding to Mike Kuvlesky on September 12. The wedding was at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Austin Texas, and the reception was at the Austin Club. We also had a reception on October 3 at our home in Edmond for those people unable to get to Austin.

Charlie and I are still traveling around on our frequent flyer miles. We went to San Francisco in February to visit some friends we met while in Africa, Bill and Nancy Barnard. It was like taking a private tour as Bill knows the area and wine country so well.

We toured Eastern Europe in June. We flew into Berlin for a few days, then we took a train to Prague. It is lovely city. We rented a car there and drove through various cities in the Czech Republic. We drove into Krakow, Poland and to the Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps. Krakow was one area not bombed in the war, and it is a pretty city. After Poland, we headed over the Tatras mountain range into Slovakia and then Hungary, ending up in Budapest. The Hungarian countryside is really gorgeous. We enjoyed the beautiful old cities but found it somewhat difficult to get around in the countryside as they speak little or no English. We soon learned hand gestures and to guess at what we were eating. The prices in Eastern Europe were very reasonable; our cheapest hotel room was $15 in Slovakia. Charlie says he has never been in so many churches and government buildings.

In November Charlie and I went to Las Vegas. I hadn’t been there in 30 years. We had a great time seeing all the casinos and shows, and we didn’t lose much money.

Charlie is still president of Cherokee Data, and the company is doing well. I am still working for the Legislature and am starting to panic as the state is installing a new computer system, which is not yet installed. Session begins in February.

Jennifer and Mike bought an older home in Austin just before the wedding and are now doing all the repairs, raking etc., all homeowners do. Jennifer was just promoted to management as Budget Coordinator for the mass transit system. Mike is a Program Manager for Motorola.

Brian moved back to Austin from Houston in November and is currently living with Jennifer and Mike. He is doing freelance work as a graphic designer while looking for a permanent job. He is also thinking about going back to school.

The kids were all here for Thanksgiving (plus Mindy, the dog), and we were delighted to have our friends, Peg and Al Steldt and daughter, Jennie here from MINNESOTA. Jennie is now pilot training at the Air Force base in Enid, OK. Wishing all the best to you this holiday season.

388

•

Christmas 1999

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family

This has been a good year for the Alexander’s. In July we traveled back to Minnesota to see family and friends, and we canoed down the St. Croix River with Peg and Al Steldt. The trip that used to take eight hours when we had the kids with us, took only two hours. We drove to Duluth to visit my 96-­‐year-­‐old Aunt Lucille. She looked wonderfully healthy and is as sharp as a tack. Her eyesight is failing, but she “reads” by listening to books on tape.

In September, we visited Scotland and Northern England. We flew into Glasgow and later drove toward Edinburgh, staying in the pretty little town of Dunfermline. We spent some time traveling around the Scotish Highlands, and, after a few days, met our friends Barbara and Eric from Northern Ireland. We had a great time touring with them.

After four nights seeing the area West of Glasgow, we headed for the English Lake Country and the beautiful Cotswolds. We even happened on a foxhunt on one of the no-­‐name roads. It was an enjoyable trip except for the $280 worth of tires we had to buy. If you ever drive in the UK, begin on something larger than a one-­‐lane road.

Brian is now the Graphic Designer for Eakin Press in Austin, doing all of their Computer art. He is also doing some illustrating for children’s books on a contract basis.

Jennifer and Mike are enjoying their home and jobs. They celebrated their first anniversary while we were in Scotland. He gave her a skydiving lesson; she took him to the ballet. Jennifer is now a 2nd degree black belt in Tae-­‐Kwan-­‐Do. In November, Charlie resigned from Cherokee Data as he felt that the challenge was gone. He is busy evaluating a number of different options to pursue.

Mary is still working at the State Capitol. The House Chamber is now being restored, and the Research director is writing a book on the history of the House since statehood that we are now editing. It is interesting to read about the fights, impeachment’s, and Wild West antics that went on back then.

In November we drove up to Enid to see Jennie Steldt get her wings. While there, we were able to “fly” in a simulator. What fun!

We all spent Thanksgiving with Mike’s family in College Station, TX, and we had a wonderful time. We are looking forward to having the kids here for Christmas.

Have a happy and blessed Christmas and a great 2000.

389

•

Christmas 2000

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family.

Our exciting news this year is that Jennifer is due to have a baby girl on February 5. We are absolutely delighted about becoming grandparents. Mike and Jennifer plan to name her Samantha Dorothy. Jennifer started a new job in July; she works as a financial analyst for Tivoli, which is a wholly owned company of IBM. Mike is still with Motorola and often travels to China. He brought back a beautiful Oriental rug for our dining room.

Our other good news is that Brian moved back to Oklahoma over Labor Day weekend. He had interviews set up when he got here, was offered a job on Friday of that first week, and moved into an apartment two weeks later. He is the Art Director for the Oklahoma Press Association, and he hopes to buy a house here within the next year.

In January, Charlie started a new business as a Business Broker, helping people buy and sell their businesses. He is really enjoying this new venture. Brian is currently developing a web site for Charlie’s new business.

Mary is still working for the Legislature. Brian’s office is just down the street from the Capitol, so she gets to see him every now and then. Session starts on February 5, but she hopes to be in Austin greeting her new granddaughter.

Jennifer, Mike, and Mindy, their German Shepherd, and Charlie’s Dad and Boy, his Cockapoo, were here for the Thanksgiving holiday. Mike’s parents, his sister and family, and his brother and wife had Thanksgiving dinner with us. We had thirteen people who really enjoyed the meal and two dogs that did not like each other.

Charlie and I spent four days in April visiting New Orleans and had a great time. Our major trip this year was to Alaska. That state is absolutely gorgeous. We took a small ship (about 60 people) from Juneau into the Glacier Bay area. We went kayaking among the icebergs and hiking in the rain forests for a week. We were very close to many glaciers, and every view was more beautiful than the last. After we left the ship, we took the train to Denali Park and were lucky to have a great view of Mt. McKinley. We visited Valdez and ferried across Prince William Sound. We finished our trip in the Kenai Fjords. Charlie caught his limit of salmon, and we are enjoying eating it.

Have a happy and blessed Christmas and a great 2001.

390

•

Christmas 2001

This year has been one of great joy and great sorrow. On February 12, 2001, our beautiful new granddaughter, Samantha Dorothy, was born. We are thrilled with our little darling and try to see her as often as we can. She is now 10 months old, crawling, and walking around furniture.

We had two family reunions in July. We saw the Blesi/Alexander’s in Missouri and met the families we don’t see often. Later that month, we drove to a lakeside resort near St. Cloud, MINNESOTA, for an Allard reunion. We had a great time at both reunions and enjoyed seeing everyone.

Brian took the plunge this year and bought a house. It is a cute little 1949 home with a fenced yard. He wasn’t in it more than a month when the sinks backed up because of the tree roots; we welcomed him to home ownership. A dog will be along soon.

We left in late August for a 3-­‐week trip to Spain, Portugal, and a bit of Southern France. We enjoyed all three countries (especially Portugal, N. W. Spain, and the Pyrennes mountains) and seeing old friends and meeting new. Only when we drove back to Toulouse, France, on September 11 did we find out about the horror back home. After two days of telephone tag with the airlines, we were finally booked onto an Iberian airline flight out of Madrid leaving in four days. We slowly drove back to Madrid, and we were happy to be back on American soil when we landed in Chicago.

Our sorrowful news is that our son-­‐in-­‐law, Mike Kuvlesky, passed away suddenly on November 11. Mike, Jennifer, and the baby were flying back from seeing friends in Jacksonville, Florida, when he died due to a heart attack. Mike was 37 years old, and he and Jennifer celebrated their third anniversary in September.

The flight made an emergency landing in Atlanta, and we flew there that day to be with Jennifer and the baby. Mike was a wonderful husband and a great dad. We miss him so very much. Please pray for Jennifer and baby Samantha. They will be here for the Christmas holidays.

Have a happy Christmas and New Year, and keep the service men and women fighting for our freedom in your prayers.

391

•

Christmas 2002

We are saddened this year by the deaths of Charlie’s Mom and Dad. Mom had been in the Alzheimer’s unit of the nursing home since May 2000. She passed away on June 4, 2002. Dad had a stroke on January 18 and was placed in the same nursing home. He continued to have seizures and died on October 22, 2002. The family encouraged Dad to record his life’s story several years before he had the stroke. He did, and the final version of his story is about 50 pages long. Copies of the story are at the Sullivan, Missouri library and the Masonic Lodge there. We had a memorial service for both or them in Sullivan over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Jennifer has returned to work part-­‐time in her old job as a Financial Analyst for IBM. She stays busy working and visiting family and friends. Samantha will be 2 years old on February 12 and has really grown.

She now talks a lot and can even sing the ABC song all the way through.

Brian is still the Art Director for the Oklahoma Press Association. He has been very busy this year doing ads for the elections. He has a Beagle named Eric, and we just recently met the girl he has been dating for the last few months.

All our immediate family went to Mexico for a week in June to visit Jennifer’s nanny, Yolanda, who moved back there after Mike’s death. We stayed with them in Queretaro and visited and . We flew into Guadalajara and spent a day in visiting before leaving for home. It was wonderful having our own tour guide, and we didn’t have any problem driving there.

We went to Minneapolis in August and stayed with Peg and Al Steldt. We visited friends there, and drove to Duluth with my brother, Jim, to visit Aunt Lucille who will be 100 years old in 2003. She is sharp as a tack.

Charlie had a scare on October 21. We had just returned from visiting his Dad, and he was having trouble breathing. He was in the hospital for five days with a blood clot on his lung, and he will continue taking blood thinners until the end of April. He is not allowed to lift weights but he is encouraged to walk. We must stop every hour when we travel.

We plan to spend Christmas in Austin with Jennifer, Samantha, and Brian. We will be glad to see 2002 pass and are looking forward to 2003.

Have a happy Christmas and New Year, and keep the service men and women fighting for our freedom in your prayers.

392

•

Christmas 2003

In late June and early July, we visited Italy, Croatia, and Slovenia. We met Peg and Al Steldt in Rome and spent five days touring that beautiful city. (The Pope was a no-­‐show; he was in Kosovo.) We then rented a car and stayed in the Sienna area visiting various towns in the Tuscany area. We drove down Croatia’s Istrian peninsula and up to Slovenia, visiting two beautiful lakes in that area, lakes Bohing and Bled. We dropped the Steldts off in Tarvisio, Italy, and drove through the mountains to Trieste. We flew into London for one night and saw “Chicago” (which was great).

In August, we drove to Colorado to visit Peg and Al at their new retirement home in Carbondale. We enjoyed being in the mountains and roaming around Colorado and New Mexico on our way down to Austin to see Jennifer and Samantha.

October brought us to Duluth, Minnesota, to celebrate with Mary’s aunt Lucille on her 100th birthday.

She was delighted to see us and really enjoyed all the fuss at her birthday reception. She is as sharp as ever.

Mary’s brother, John, died in April, and we flew to Minnesota for the funeral. He was only 64 years old, but he had diabetes and had been in a wheelchair for a number of years. We saw many family members we hadn’t seen for a long time.

Jennifer is working part time and doing software pricing for IBM. Samantha will be three in February and is really growing. She will enter a new day care/school in January and will be learning French and Spanish, as well as her letters and numbers.

Brian is still Art Director at Oklahoma Press Association. He has been dating Justine for more than a year now; we will keep you posted Charlie is still helping people buy and sell businesses, and Mary continues to work at the Capitol.

We plan to spend an early Christmas in Austin as Jennifer and Sammi are going skiing with friends over Christmas.

Have a happy Christmas and New Year, and please keep our troops in your prayers.

393

•

Christmas 2004

We have lived in Edmond for 21 years now, and we felt it was time to update our house.

We started in February, and we were sure we would be finished by June at the latest. Well, it is now December, and we hope to be finished by Christmas. It would have been easier to buy a new home!

In late August we headed for Scandinavia. We flew into Stockholm and spent a few days in that beautiful city. We took a train to Karlstad to meet Brith and Reidar Fergestad. We headed for their summer home overlooking a beautiful lake, and we stayed there for 3 days. We then drove the 2 hours to Oslo and saw that city with them. After two days, we rented a car and headed north to the fjords. We really missed being with the Fergestads, as they were wonderful hosts, and she is a marvelous cook. We worked our way back to Oslo, dropped off the car, and took an overnight ferry to Copenhagen. The scenery is just beautiful there.

Brian changed jobs this year. He is now working as a graphic artist for the University of Central Oklahoma here in Edmond. He loves his new job and plans to go back to school soon. He is still dating Justine; we will keep you posted (again).

We spent Thanksgiving with Jennifer and Samantha in Austin. Jennifer has been dating Tom for about a year now. He is a great guy and is wonderful with Sammi. We had all of his family over for Thanksgiving dinner. Tom, Jennifer, and Sammi will be here for Christmas.

Samantha will be four in February and is a little chatterbox. She loves school and is even speaking a little French now.

Charlie is now certified as a Machine and Equipment Appraiser to compliment his Business Broker’s business.

Mary Still works for the House of Representatives. The Republicans are now in power (the first time in 85 years), and everyone is worried about losing their jobs. They fired all the directors and also some other staff. We hope our department will be safe, as no one knows what we do exactly, and since we work in the attic, they can’t find us anyway.

Have a happy Christmas and New Year, and please keep our troops in your prayers

394

•

Christmas 2005

We finally finished updating the house and yard in June. It took 1 year and 4 months from start to finish (but you are never finished), and we are enjoying our “new” home.

In October, we visited Charlie’s sister, Doris and her husband, Bob. They live near Kansas City, and we drove toward Columbia to hike the Katy Trail. The Katy Trail is an old railroad bed that stretches 225 miles across most of the state of Missouri and follows the Lewis and Clark’s trail along the Missouri river. By the time we reached our starting point in Rocheport it was pouring rain, so we hiked 9 miles under umbrellas. Most people bike the trail, and the rain didn’t bother the bikers at all. We later met Charlie’s aunt and uncle for dinner at a restaurant overlooking the river.

In early November, we took a long weekend and flew to Charleston, North Carolina, a beautiful old city with a lot of history. We stayed in a B&B that was built in 1832 and is close to downtown. We visited the various islands and attractions surrounding the city.

The food, especially the seafood, was wonderful. We learned an incredible amount about the civil war from the Confederate viewpoint.

Brian is still working for the University here in Edmond, and he has gone back to school.

He won a design award from the Oklahoma College Public Relations Association this year.

Jennifer, Samantha, and Tom were here for Thanksgiving. We went ice skating while they were here, and once Samantha got the hang of it, she loved skating. Jennifer is now taking her to the ice rink in Austin. Samantha will be 5 years old in February.

Charlie is still a business broker and Mary continues to work for the House of Representatives.

Have a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Please keep our troops in your prayers.

395

•

Christmas 2006

Merry Christmas and happy new year to you and your family!

We missed not having any great Salmon to eat this summer, so we decided to travel and go fishing. In July, we flew into Anchorage, AK, and drove to Seward, AK. The next day we took a nine-­‐hour boat trip from hell on the Kenai Fjord. We were in a 10-­‐person boat, and the advantage of a small boat is that we could get close to the glaciers; the disadvantage is that when we were in open water, we were bounced around in 5 to 6 foot waves. Next, we went to Homer so Charlie could go Halibut fishing, and later we drove to Kenai for Salmon fishing on the Kasilof River. Mary went to museums and gift shops while Charlie fished. We headed back to Anchorage to meet Mary’s niece and her fiancé for dinner, and the next morning we flew to Seattle.

We rented a car and drove through Vancouver, B.C. to spend three days in Whistler. We did the circle drive to Lillooet and D’Arcy. This is a beautiful mountain area. While in Whistler, they had a Crank Worx bike-­‐ jumping contest just outside our room. We headed back to Seattle and spent some time at Pike’s Fish Market which is a must see.

Jennifer was recently promoted to market manager for some IBM software Products. Samantha will be six in February, and she is now attending kindergarten in a public school.

Brian won three state awards for the best website, most creative school bus design, and the most innovative design program. In January, he will give a presentation to the State Board of Regents on web design.

Charlie continues to help people buy and sell businesses. He is currently very busy with year-­‐end activities.

Mary is still working for the House of Representatives. She spent the interim scanning old documents (starting with the year 1897) into an electronic format for a permanent record of all legislation. We are currently very busy getting everything ready for the new session.

Have a wonderful 2007!

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Christmas 2007

Charlie continues with his Business Brokerage activity, and he has established a relationship with a New York City Merger and Acquisition Firm. He is doing more M&A now than brokerage and is quite busy keeping up with both areas.

Mary is still working for the House of Representatives. They are making changes in some of the programs, and we are busy adapting to them.

Jennifer is still working for IBM, and they have promoted her to Market Manager. She recently received a letter of recognition from the CEO of IBM. Our granddaughter, Samantha, is now 6 years old and in the first grade. She loves playing the piano and has been taking lessons for sometime now. She also sings in her church’s children’s choir, and she is a great artist.

Brian is still the Graphic Artist at the University of Central Oklahoma and loves his job. He won two States and one National College Public Relations Awards this year.

In mid-­‐June, we flew to St. Louis and met with Charlie’s sister, Doris, and her husband, Bob. We visited the Cahokia Indian Mounds State Park and took the Spirit of Illinois paddleboat up the Illinois river to the Starved Rock State Park. We visited the Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, MO, and we met with Charlie’s aunt Margaret in St. Claire, Missouri.

In early July, we flew to Boston to meet with Mary’s brother, Bill, and his wife, Luanne. We drove to Portland Maine to catch a ferry to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and toured the Maritime Provinces. We drove the Cabot trail and visited Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec City, and Montreal.

After returning to Boston, we visited some historical sites.

In October, we visited Charleston and Myrtle Beach SC. The Alexander family, including Brian’s girlfriend, Justine, will be skiing at the Solitude Resort in Utah over Christmas.

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Christmas 2008

Nothing much has changed since last Christmas, except that Charlie broke his wrist while we were skiing last Christmas. He is experiencing some slow down with his company because of the economy.

Jennifer enjoys her work for IBM, and she is traveling more now so Grandpa gets to babysit in Austin.

Brian still works for the University of Central Oklahoma and does free-­‐lance work for the city of Edmond. He is now involved with the Contemporary Music Academy, an internationally affiliated school, that UCO is setting up in Bricktown (downtown OKC).

Samantha is now 7 years old and will be making her first communion in May. She still plays the piano, does gymnastics, and is a great little artist.

We spent the end of June and the first part of July in Iceland. We visited my brother and his family in Boston before heading to Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland where most of the people live. We rented a car and toured the entire island seeing mountains, waterfalls, geysers, craters, volcanoes, and boiling mud pots. We also visited the peninsula where Jules Verne’s “Journey to the center of the earth” was filmed. We even visited a geothermal electricity generating plant. Our favorite restaurant was in Vogajas called the Cowshed Café which is surrounded by a cow milking and stable area. We had breakfast while watching the cows being milked in the area attached to the café.

In November we headed for Costa Rica. This was the first time we took a group tour. En route from the airport to the hotel, we saw police with guns everywhere. We later found out that the President of China was visiting. We visited Tortuguero National Park and saw many iguanas, herons, and monkeys. We visited banana, sugar cane, teak, orange, pineapple and coffee plantations. We had rain for most of the trip, but Costa Rica is very lush and green and the people are friendly. We had a great group on our bus, and we all got along well.

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Christmas 2009

This has been an unusual year. In June, Mary was informed that her position with the Oklahoma House of Representatives would become a session-­‐only job, and she retired on June 30. The House does not allow you to return to work for at least a year after retirement. This worked well, as we had trips planned.

Mary’s brother from Minnesota, Jim, visited us in late May and early June. We kept him busy visiting the major attractions in the area, including a visit to a local Casino. He didn’t lose too much money. He did suffer some loss of hearing as a consequence of us taking him to target practice at a gun range. We hope he has recovered.

In July, we met our friends from Northern Ireland, Barbara and Eric Mayne, in Drogheda, north of Dublin. Eric is a historian, and we saw many historical sites and unusual areas. We visited Ballynachan, Waterford, stayed in Dunmore East on the coast, visited Carrich-­‐on-­‐Suir and Cahir. We stayed in Kinsale and Glengarriff, toured the Ring of Beara, and stayed in the Dingle Peninsula, Adare and Dublin.

CFA was busy working when we weren’t touring. When we got back home, Mary found out that we had just bought the business he was helping to sell. The business is now called Decorative Arts International. They manufacture and wholesale fine art wall décor for hotels, resorts, furniture stores, and architects. Of course, he continues with his business brokerage firm.

In August, we flew to Boston to visit Mary’s brother and his wife, Bill and Luanne, in Sudbury Massachusetts.

Their son, Bob, and his wife, Gina, were visiting from Arizona and we were glad we could see them. Their other children, Terri and Dave and their kids, and Brother Dave live in Massachusetts. We visited Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard house and Salem, the witch town. We spent one day driving the Cape.

We visited Peru and Ecuador in late September and October. We flew over the ancient Nasca drawings in the desert, visited Colca Canyon, the Inca Valley and, of course, Machu Picchu. Mary had trouble with the elevation, but we took it slowly and everything was beautiful. We visited the floating Islands made of reeds on Lake Titicaca and rode in a reed boat.

In Ecuador we took a converted bus down the train tracks from Quito towards Cotopaxi, but before we got there, a man on horseback stopped us. We visited his hacienda, saw cowboys roping bulls, and played with the llamas. We spent time in the area of the Cotopaxi Volcano, and our guide was very excited that the clouds did not obscure our view of the snow cap. We visited the Galapagos Islands and shared beaches with Sea Lions, Flamingos, Herons, Iguanas, Boobies, and we watched Whales swim.

CFA’s sister, Doris, and her husband, Bob, visited us in November and were impressed with the Oklahoma History Center, especially the exceptional Native American display.

Jennifer is still working for IBM as a Product Manager, and Brian continues as a Graphic Artist at the University of Central Oklahoma. Samantha will be nine in February and is a very creative child.

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Christmas 2010

This has been a quiet year. The Senate asked Mary to work there during Session, December through May, but the Senate and House are cutting back this year, so Mary won’t be working in 2011.

On July 21, 2010, we flew out to Reno, NV, to visit our friends, Ruth and Mark Brenner. We visited the Crystal Bay area, Lake Tahoe, and drove along the coast. The next day we hiked the Carson Trail.

Everyone headed for Lake Winnemucca, but it was too elevated for Mary.

We left Reno on July 24 and drove along the California coast to Portland. We visited Mt. Hood and the Columbia River Gorge, and we stopped at Multnomah Falls on the way back from Portland. We headed for Seattle and saw Mt. Rainier and visited Pikes Market in Seattle. On July 31, we went to Jennie Steldt’s wedding at the Rose Garden in the Seattle Zoo. The reception was at a hotel overlooking the bay.

On August 1, we flew to Las Vegas for the furniture and art market. Our new business has a showroom there, and Brian flew out to help. We flew home August 4.

On September 30, we flew to Colorado Springs to meet Charlie’s sister and her husband. The next day we went to Chama, NM to visit a wool mill, some other areas, and the Ghost Ranch (artist Georgia O’Keefe).

We took a train ride from Alamosa to La Vita, CO. The Aspens in the mountains were at their peak color and beautiful. We went back to Colorado Springs, visited the Sand Dunes National Park, and then flew back to OK on Oct. 4.

Jennifer still works for IBM, and she is happy Mary is not working so she can babysit when Jennifer travels.

Brian still works for the University of Central Oklahoma. Samantha will be 10 in February, and we wish they were living closer.

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CFA Transcripts •

High School

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College-­‐MSM

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University of MN-­‐MBA 403

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US Army Discharge Certificate

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