Retirement???
It's a cold windy morning here at the PDX Airport and I was reminded about a letter I wrote back in 2004 to my Alma Mater with reference to "What are you doing now that you're retired?"
Friday, January 30, 2004
Retirement? What does that mean? A few years ago I heard a song about the fact that life ought to be run backwards. We should be born old and go to school as we get younger and then go to work until we are young enough to retire and at that point we can enjoy not having to work.
I guess I just must have figured that out long before the song. After leaving WPI in June of 1957 I headed West to get into the rocket business and then headed overseas for three years to install a weapons system and then got out of the weapons business and got into the rocket space business and then came east again. 14 years after graduation I finally settled down and got married BUT up till then I did anything I wanted to do, that I could afford, and went anywhere I wanted to go. Retirement. I raced cars, traveled throughout Europe, raised horses, trained horses and competed in horse shows, and chased women, while I was still able to run. Retirement!
And, you would have thought that after “settling down” that my life would have acquired some sort of regular pattern. Wrong! After four years of marriage and two kids I went west again to cowboy on a large cattle ranch in Oregon. That one year was enough for us to get the Pacific Northwest Bug and so one more child and a few years later we sold the farm in Connecticut and moved to Oregon, (right after Mt. St Helens blew her top) so that I could go to graduate school towards a Veterinary Degree. It is easier to get struck by lightening then to get into Vet School especially for a 44-year-old male with a degree in a physical science. However, my interest in the biological sciences lead me to a degree in Environmental Engineering from Oregon State University which eventually lead to a teaching position in New Hampshire.
Getting back to that song, boy was Graduate School at 44 a lot different than WPI at 19. When I left WPI I never looked back in fear that I would see someone from the school saying, “Wait, we made a mistake, you didn’t deserve the degree.” All of a sudden I was making grades I had never seen before. A? B? Unreal! I had a wife and three kids and a house and I had somehow acquired study habits that lead to good grades. The song was right; youth is wasted on the young.
Teaching! Boy did I find my niche. I was teaching drafting and associated ME type courses at a Voc-Tech in Manchester NH during the day and a Statics & Strength of Materials course at three other colleges in the evenings. It’s really hard to make a living teaching but the rewards are great. Unfortunately, I had to leave the area after three years for personal reasons and went back to Oregon and the engineering world. While I was in NH I did visit WPI often and even looked up some of my classmates so that I could bring my students for plant visits in Worcester.
Needless to say, I am still working. I’m an Application Engineer for York International in the Custom Air Handler division working on the design of HVAC equipment. It’s not Rocket Science. After a 20-year marriage and three children I am now with wife #2 and between the two of us we have five children and nine grand children. Just to keep our lives interesting we are also the legal guardians for our five-year-old granddaughter. Since I’ve worked for this company through three ownerships and long enough to warrant three weeks vacation I have already made plans to request time off to go to Worcester in 2007.
Back in 1994 I fulfilled a lifelong dream and bought my first Corvette. We now have two, our pride and joy being a 1995 Pace Car. After the 1953 Chevrolet, the 1957 Austen-Healey, the Mark V Jaguar, the 1959 Porsche, the 1938 SS100 Jaguar, the DB2-4 Aston and various and sundry “family” cars, I finally got “America’s Car”.
In order to stay within the modern era I am E-mailing this missile. I promise, the check is in the mail. See you all in 2007.
Peace,
Michael ‘57
Friday, January 30, 2004
Retirement? What does that mean? A few years ago I heard a song about the fact that life ought to be run backwards. We should be born old and go to school as we get younger and then go to work until we are young enough to retire and at that point we can enjoy not having to work.
I guess I just must have figured that out long before the song. After leaving WPI in June of 1957 I headed West to get into the rocket business and then headed overseas for three years to install a weapons system and then got out of the weapons business and got into the rocket space business and then came east again. 14 years after graduation I finally settled down and got married BUT up till then I did anything I wanted to do, that I could afford, and went anywhere I wanted to go. Retirement. I raced cars, traveled throughout Europe, raised horses, trained horses and competed in horse shows, and chased women, while I was still able to run. Retirement!
And, you would have thought that after “settling down” that my life would have acquired some sort of regular pattern. Wrong! After four years of marriage and two kids I went west again to cowboy on a large cattle ranch in Oregon. That one year was enough for us to get the Pacific Northwest Bug and so one more child and a few years later we sold the farm in Connecticut and moved to Oregon, (right after Mt. St Helens blew her top) so that I could go to graduate school towards a Veterinary Degree. It is easier to get struck by lightening then to get into Vet School especially for a 44-year-old male with a degree in a physical science. However, my interest in the biological sciences lead me to a degree in Environmental Engineering from Oregon State University which eventually lead to a teaching position in New Hampshire.
Getting back to that song, boy was Graduate School at 44 a lot different than WPI at 19. When I left WPI I never looked back in fear that I would see someone from the school saying, “Wait, we made a mistake, you didn’t deserve the degree.” All of a sudden I was making grades I had never seen before. A? B? Unreal! I had a wife and three kids and a house and I had somehow acquired study habits that lead to good grades. The song was right; youth is wasted on the young.
Teaching! Boy did I find my niche. I was teaching drafting and associated ME type courses at a Voc-Tech in Manchester NH during the day and a Statics & Strength of Materials course at three other colleges in the evenings. It’s really hard to make a living teaching but the rewards are great. Unfortunately, I had to leave the area after three years for personal reasons and went back to Oregon and the engineering world. While I was in NH I did visit WPI often and even looked up some of my classmates so that I could bring my students for plant visits in Worcester.
Needless to say, I am still working. I’m an Application Engineer for York International in the Custom Air Handler division working on the design of HVAC equipment. It’s not Rocket Science. After a 20-year marriage and three children I am now with wife #2 and between the two of us we have five children and nine grand children. Just to keep our lives interesting we are also the legal guardians for our five-year-old granddaughter. Since I’ve worked for this company through three ownerships and long enough to warrant three weeks vacation I have already made plans to request time off to go to Worcester in 2007.
Back in 1994 I fulfilled a lifelong dream and bought my first Corvette. We now have two, our pride and joy being a 1995 Pace Car. After the 1953 Chevrolet, the 1957 Austen-Healey, the Mark V Jaguar, the 1959 Porsche, the 1938 SS100 Jaguar, the DB2-4 Aston and various and sundry “family” cars, I finally got “America’s Car”.
In order to stay within the modern era I am E-mailing this missile. I promise, the check is in the mail. See you all in 2007.
Peace,
Michael ‘57
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8:07:00 AM
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