May 3, 2001:
07/24/41 - ??/??/20??
A Life Recalled (partially)
Since 1959, I remained in Bradenton only until
graduating from Manatee Jr. College in 1961, working nights at various
service stations while going to school during the days. Weekends were
adventurous if uneventful. Summers during & since high school found
me working in a lumber yard in Pennsylvania while visiting relatives.
I attended FSU in Tallahassee via a National Defense
Loan Program that supported students majoring in sciences (oceanography
for me) considered critical to U.S. interests in the aftermath of
Sputnik. After graduating (respectfully, but not notably) during the
summer of 1963, I went to work for the Florida Board of Conservation
(later the Dept. of Natural Resources) instead of going to graduate
school at the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences where I had been
accepted, but without any immediate financial support.
It was the better opportunity. I met my first bride in
St. Petersburg when I finally stopped traveling around Florida doing
field work, living in my car or in a series of waterfront motels. After
a brief stint as Laboratory Manager of the St. Pete. Lab. & its
numerous field stations, my first bride and I relocated north to the
"other Florida." I left that agency in 1980 having spent 5
years in Tallahassee as Director of Research.
My second bride and I moved to Atlanta, Georgia, after
our wedding in Williamsburg, Virginia. I embarked there upon a career
outside of government service, ending up in Athens, Georgia, as
Associate Director of the Georgia Sea Grant Program (it was then that I
last got together with y'all for the 1984 MHS Reunion.) Tiring of the
relaxed pace of academia, I obtained a degree in Journalism at UGA in
1985 and entered the business world as Communication Services Manager
for Fannie Mae Software Systems in Norcross, Georgia (a suburb of
Atlanta).
When Fannie Mae realized it understood the mortgage
lending business better than it did the software development business,
it cut our company looses and I was back peddling my business
communication skills in the heady environmental awareness environment
following the Exxon tanker, Juan Valdez, oil spill in Alaska. Just
before that I again celebrated nuptials in Lower Slaughter, England, (no
pun, please, about sacrificial rights, etc.) - for the third time.
Not three years hence did I do what I was sure I would
never do--return again to government service. I became one of a few
grant management specialists with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service,
helping state fish & wildlife agencies receive funds to augment
their hunting & fishing license revenues. These grants support those
resources enjoyed by hunters and fishermen who raise the excise tax
revenue through purchase of equipment and fuel used in such outdoor
recreation (that's a long way to say it is a user pays, self-supporting
government program rather than one which relies on everyone's tax
dollar.) This allows me to hold my head high while condemning excessive
federal spending.
After nine years of rewarding service to various
southeastern states and the Caribbean Trust Territories, I moved to the
Front Range, about as far as a former marine biologist can get from the
sea. I now pay $3 to snort salt water as dry nasal relief, a consequence
of the climate on this arid side of the Rockies.
Oh yes, my fourth wedding was in Charleston, South
Carolina, in 1997--less than two years before this decision to motor
west. I'm now here in Colorado with my 4th bride and adopted daughter,
looking forward to retirement in just three more years. The work has
come around in an interesting spiral too. I am part of a very small team
("Never have so few done so much for so many with so little,"
to paraphrase Winston Churchill) that supports grant record keeping
software used to provide those afore mentioned grant funds to the state
grantees and track what was accomplished via the expenditure. Fiscal
accountability in government--what a novel concept!
If you have been keeping score gentlemen, I have
survived four (4) weddings And, ladies, after more than 33 years with
the same bride I have learned one thing, practice every decade lets you
appreciate that adage about fine wines--marriage only improves with age.
I'm looking forward to seeing y'all in June 2001.