60th REUNION

REUNION
In our mail yesterday, was an envelope that caught my eye. On the front of the envelope - in large -bold gold letters was “Your 60th”. This rang a bell, even before I checked the return address - University of California - Berkeley. February - 2009 marks the 60th anniversary of my graduation from Cal! It can’t be! Where did all the subsequent years go? While Chancellor Birgeneau did congratulate me, the main purpose of his letter was to solicit funds. This is not the first letter I’ve received from the University. It seems that I hear from them weekly, asking for a donation. I haven’t contributed in all those 60 years, yet the University hasn’t been discouraged. My contribution would be more amenable if they spent some of their endowment funds on better causes. They have a huge fund - even after recent -large losses from their poor investment decisions. One would think that they would use some of their funding to subsidize needy students with their high tuition and text book costs!
“A lot of water has gone over….”, during the past 60 years! I will try and recall some of the major events:
1949 was not the best of years to complete college. There were 18,000 students at Berkeley and most of us were veterans from WWII, studying with big help of the great G.I. Bill. I started out at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I was in pre-engineering as an Aeronautical Engineer. Having been a pilot in the Air Corps, I thought that would be a good career combination. But there were more students in the field than there were jobs available. Unless we were an “A” student, we were counseled by the University to change our majors. So, I graduated from Cal with a BS in Business Administration. I wanted to be an Industrial Engineer, so I had to take a couple of additional classes at Cal, after I graduated.
It was tough finding a job in 1949, with all of the veterans in the job market. I looked around the local area, as well applying for jobs in the Los Angeles area and the Northwest. I thought about applying to the airlines, but they had more pilot applications than they knew what to do with. Too, I would have started as a co-pilot, and they were being paid around $200 a month. So, I scratched that idea.
I was accepted by U.S. Steel in Pittsburg (CA), in their Production Planning Department. My starting salary was $200 a month. My wife Marie, who supported us while I was going through school was earning $275 a month at the time. She quit her job at California Research the day I graduated. I told her that she could have waited until I got a job. Her reply, “I wanted to give you more incentive”. Then, she complained that I wasn’t keeping her in the manner that she kept me!
I was recalled to Active Duty by the Air Force during the Korean War. I was based at Mather Field in Sacramento. Our first child (Anne) was born in Sacramento on October 17, 1951.
I returned to U.S Steel in January, 1953, living in Antioch. We built a new home there in 1955. Mary was born on January 17, 1955 at Kaiser in Walnut Creek, as was Beth on January 25, 1957.
I accepted a job offer from C. Brewer, of Honolulu, in 1957, and we flew over in a United Air Lines DC-6 (prop job) on January 15, 1958. We had high- head winds and it was a 13 hour flight - with three small kids! I was an Industrial Engineer at Olokele Sugar Company on Kauai. Our plantation set the Hawaiian-yield record of 14 tons of sugar per acre. Today - 50 years later - the plantation has been sold and the new owners are raising the cane to produce ethanol!
Joan was born in Waimea Hospital on April 20, 1959, as was Sue on December 7, 1961. In June, 1962 we returned to the Mainland on a DC-8 ( a jet), in 5 hours! The four and a half years that we spent in Hawaii was interesting. Besides making new friends, we got to experience Hawaii both as a Territory and also as a State.
We moved to Vallejo (CA) which was a short commute to Crockett, where California and Hawaiian Sugar refinery offered me a job, as an industrial engineer. I was assigned to the C & H Sugar corporate office in San Francisco in 1969, where I retired in 1983 as Manager of Internal Auditing.
We continued to live in Vallejo (two different places) in retirement until April 2008 when we moved to Quail Creek - an assisted living facility - in Fairfield.
RCL - 1/27/08