Hello Jones Classmates,
Thanks to a lot of diligent work by Rob, I am no longer one of the lost classmates. I got a letter from Rob in 2000 asking if I was the Glen Walker that was a Jones alumnus. How timely that was, as I was about to write to the school to see if I could find out about any plans for a reunion.
Since I responded to Rob, I have been another of the silent ones, just reading the mail and enjoying all the reminiscing. I guess its time to put in a few words. The discussions of the fun and the old neighborhood in Falcon country have been fun to read. Its bringing back memories of things we did that I haven`t thought of for years. Even little bits of knowledge about the history of things like the story behind the local McDonalds. Thanks to Betty Smith Barrett for filling in "the rest of the story" for me. I Always remembered the name as McDonalds but was didn't know why there were no golden arches. I remember that I liked their burgers better than the "real" McDonalds any way.
I was born in Glendale California, and lived nearby in Temple city until the family moved to Houston when I was in the third grade. I attended Garden Villas Elementary from 3rd grade until the 5th. We moved to the Longview Greggton area and I finished the 5th and 6th grade at Pine Tree Elementary and 7th grade at Pine Tree Junior High in Greggton. We returned to Houston and I resumed the 7th grade at Hartman Junior High.
I didn't socialize a great deal with Jones kids, for a couple of reasons. I lived out of the district and was supposed to go to Steven F. Austin as my older brother had, but Jones was a new school and my folks thought it was a better environment than Austin. Judging by the experiences my older brother Ken had at Austin, I am glad I went to Jones. Most of my extracurricular activities at Jones amounted to spending time outside Mr. Mills’ or Mr. Yarbrough's office for being late to class, getting caught (again) wearing noisy taps on my shoes, or some other, infraction.
My interests were in boats and model airplanes and not school or sports, so I spent my free time building and flying model airplanes and water skiing with the boat I bought with my paper route money. I also spent considerable time with the Sea Scouts sailing and spending weekends at the Houston Yacht Club helping the yacht club with sailboat racing regattas. I also first learned about racing sailboats which came in handy later. The friends I ran around with for fun with boats, water skiing, and model airplanes went to Milby. John Pace (Jones '61) had been a friend since Hartman days, Jim Kuykendahl (Milby `61) and Dick Warriner (Milby '62), Ernie Butcher (Milby '63) were guys I hung out with most of the time. Jo Ann Toth (Jones ‘63) and I went steady during most of my senior year and until I moved to the Northwest in October 62.
I have lived in Washington State, since the fall of 62. Most of that time in the Port Orchard and Bremerton area, except while I was in the Navy. I went to junior college for two quarters, and still could not get too interested in school. I started working at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in 63 as a steel worker (Shipfitter Apprentice). I then took time out for a Navy tour from 65 to 67 and spent some time in Viet-Nam. I returned to the shipyard in 67, and became a journeyman Shipfitter in 69. In '74, I was promoted to Loftsman. In 76, I advanced to Shop Planer and was specializing in buying steel working production machinery. In 1980, I began working with computers for automating the manufacturing of steel parts for the structural shop, and became a mostly self taught computer professional. I worked for Naval Sea Systems Command from 1988 through 1992 as a shipbuilding manufacturing systems consultant, while spending half of my life working in Washington DC during that time. I returned to the shipyard when that project was complete and returned to a CAD/CAM systems manager position. I was then promoted to Computer Aided Design Support Section Branch Head, the position I held when I retired. I took an opportunity to retire early from the shipyard with 33 years of combined federal service in 1996. I wasn't ready to quit working yet, but just wanted to take the opportunity to work somewhere different for a while at a lower stress level. I am now Lead Computer Support Technician for the Information Services Department of the local county government.
I settled down a little in 1970 and married my loving wife Paula (Brock), a local Port Orchard Washington girl. Paula also works for county government and is secretary to the County Assessor. Our son Brock, was born in '71. He has earned a BA in Production Lighting Design, and is now a freelance professional graphic artist and set designer. Brock and his wife Pam, live in Venice Beach California. Pam is pregnant with our first grand child and due in October. Brock plays blues and rock guitar and composes music for fun. Our daughter Carlee was born in 73, and works for the County as a traffic statistician. She is an avid autocross racer and races her own stock sports car and co-drives a fully race prepared car with another sports car club member. She also does some professional belly dancing and instructing. She lives here in Port Orchard with her husband Steve.
Do you notice a trend here, I work for the county, Paula works for the county, Carlee works for the county... Ah yes, nepotism is alive and well.
For fun through the years, I have been interested in and participated in a wide range of things. In my early twenties I had a modified '63 Corvair that I raced withe some success at the drags. In my mid 20's I spent most winter weekends in the mountains snow skiing. When there was no snow in the mountains, I was riding dirt bikes. I owned three of them from a 175 cc Yamaha to a 650 cc Triumph desert racer. During that period I did a lot of off-road motorcycle riding for fun and a little motocross and desert racing too. After recovering from a broken back while practicing for a desert race, I still rode dirt bikes for a while, but then in about ‘72, I decided a little family oriented fun was in order, so I got back into boating.
In my thirties and forties, sailboat racing, sail cruising and SCUBA diving occupied most of our leisure time. Paula and I have owned three sailboats over the last 27 years. We raced all of our sail boats for a lot of fun and considerable success at the finish line. For about four years I raced my boat Aquila with Paula and an all woman crew. That was a lot of fun and always made my fellow skippers jealous. We spent may summers family cruising in the San Juan Islands and the Canadian Sunshine Coast. Beautiful scenery, great wildlife viewing, and wonderful times.
Now, through our fifties (ugh, almost completely though the fifties!), Fly-fishing while RV camping has been a major interest for us. In an effort to not miss anything fun, I am now taking flying lessons and working toward becoming a private pilot. If not flying, or camping beside some lovely trout stream for relaxation, we take off to Hawaii to vacation for about 10 days or so each November. Hmmmmm, that is looking a lot like a good place to spend some serious relax time when I retire again. Whoa, what a great ride, how did all that happen in such a short time.
See you all at the reunion,
Glen Walker
gwalker@hurricane.net