West Coast Tour to Assume the Presidency

 

This trip was a logistics marvel.  Fly into San Diego for 4 days to visit family and meet my newest grandchild of 4 months. What an amazing young bambino! My 7th nipote! 

 Fly to Sacramento to visit my brother and sister in the Sierra foothills and see a different way to retire on 25 acres. Scenic and peaceful, but not for me. 

I visited my father and mother's grave for the first time. Gravestone already showing signs of aging. Little weird to think there bodies are in a box below decaying.  Meaningless, meaningless.  All we are is dust in the wind. 

Drive to my alma mater, Univ of California, Davis to give a talk about SFTE to a dozen graduate students and faculty in the Department of Aeronautics.  My old grad school professors, Prof. Karnopp, and Prof Margolis were still there in the same offices!  90+ and still doing bond graphs!  Many others had died, some with their names on a building.  The new professors were young!  Steve Robinson, a former astronaut had his own lab, to do NASA research and one of his grad students had some interest in STPA.  I could get involved but I am too busy. 

Then driving to Ukiah for my 54th high school reunion.  The high school shootout poster was again on display. Steve Presley and Valerie Pittman were there. The other shootout "gangsters, I didn't remember. My best friend from high school, and hunting partner Kim Presson came.

Old friends were unchanged in many ways except for their physical appearance. Finally, I learned about the life of my high school crush Janeanne Brown.  She is happily married with 4 kids and never left the area. I am happy for her.  Our lives were shaped by our goals.  One to stay and one to sojourn. I knew that from the start and knew we would take different paths.  

I visited my old home where I grew up (4 thru college) on Glenwood Drive.  Looked much the same with the big fir tree in the back and the cherry and peach tree my dad planted in front.  I wanted to go knock on the door but didn't. Spoke with the neighbor who was living in Dr. Curtis's old house across the street from my house.  (Dr. Curtis was the surgeon who late one night drove me to the hospital after my mother insisted he come see me and took out my appendix).  The neighbor had grown up on a nearby street and stayed in Ukiah.  He knows what happened to many of my old neighbors. It was a fantastic place to grow up.  Wouldn't have been a bad life to stay there and raise a family. But not for me. I didn't have a "girl" and the ones who stayed were too shallow.  The cost to my children of my decision to leave- they will never appreciate the country and forest the same way as they have no incentive to come visit there without me living there.  Oh well. 

Drive to Oakland to catch a plane to Seattle for the SFTE symposium.  The action there was non-stop as I assumed the Presidency and led a double life with Tiffany at the symposium.  I love the Presidency role, but in my personal life, there is a change in the wind.