Usually, I don't look backwards and therefore, reunions are special.

It doesn't seem possible that it was forty-four years ago when a group of us met at the Burlingame Train Depot to cross the railroad tracks and proceed through Washington Park towards BHS for our first day of school in September 1951.

For sure, we were afraid of being hazed. I remember being assigned a locker on the second floor near one of the entrances to the upper part of the auditorium and that the combination to my lock was 37-15-27. How can I recollect this number when I can't remember where I went or who I met yesterday?

I took everything between 1951 and 1955 pretty much for granted. After all, didn't everyone have a high school located next to a beautiful park, tennis club and recreation hall where live music was provided for dancing after football games?

Didn't all kids have trips to the snow, class outings to the California Missions, and a YMCA facility staffed and dedicated to teenagers? If only our children could have enjoyed these facilities and have participated in the innocence of the 1950s.

The subsequent years have been good too. Four years at Whitman College, two years in the military and a year and a half of graduate school passed quickly. In the early 1960s I started my insurance career with the St. Paul Insurance Company's Montgomery Street office, married Judy Walton in 1965 and moved to Auburn a year later. Can you believe that we have stayed in the same home and I have worked for the same insurance agency for twenty-nine years?

Our two children are almost raised..... Becky, 25, is in court reporting school and Andrew, 20, is at Western State College, Gunnison, Colorado.

Over the years, the insurance agency business has been like riding a roller coaster. Ours traveled into a deep canyon in 1987 when the agency was close to bankruptcy and rose to a mountain peak on January 1, 1994 when we sold the firm.

Fortunately, between these two times, we acquired a lot and built a cottage on Lake Michigan. Last summer, we purchased a sailboat in Chicago and sailed it 250 miles to our cottage. The sudden death this year of our long time, good friend, Bill Key, further confirmed that we are on the right track in planning for an early retirement.

Looking forward is exciting! We will be spending summers in upstate Michigan and the balance of the year in Auburn. And I will be leaving the insurance business, January 1, 1996, which is approximately 96 days from our reunion.....but then who is counting?

Since the 40th class reunion, not a great deal has occurred for us. The biggest changes I can think of is a reduction in our net worth because of the stock market crash and the loss of my California drivers license number when we became Michigan residents in 2001. Of the two, I believe giving up a driver's license number which I have had since February 1953 was more traumatic.

We continue to enjoy our two lives......summers in Omena, Michigan and winters in Auburn, CA … and both Judy and I play lots of tennis and relish the fifty or more days we sail our 34 foot boat on Lake Michigan.

Although our bodies ain't what they used to be, we both are fortunate to have good health for which we are very grateful.

April 2005 – Bio Update for 50th Reunion

Since everyone is interested in health issues these days, I am sure you will be excited to know that both Judy and I are fortunate to be in good health all things considered. Well, pretty good health since our conversations usually start with: "will you repeat that or Judy, have you seen my glasses".

We continue to spend half the year at our Shangri La in Omena, Michigan where we enjoy sailing, playing tennis, hiking and just being with a fun group of people. We return to our home in Auburn where we have resided since 1966 and where we have established very deep roots. Living in two neat places was a dream which has far exceeded our expectations.

Our children continue to love us ..... Becky and husband John live in Prescott, Arizona and Andrew in Auburn.

I retired from the insurance business in 1996 and from my position as a continuing insurance education lecturer in 2004. It was on one of my teaching assignments that I received a "reality check" as to my relative importance. In 1994, shortly after our 40th reunion I was teaching a class at the Red Lion Inn, Costa Mesa, CA. Having lunch in the hotel, I spotted Pete Ueberroth entering the dining room with an entourage of hotel employees following behind him. Since we had talked at the recent reunion, Pete recognized me and asked what I was doing in the hotel. He asked how the hotel was treating our group and even introduced me to the person in charge of booking the many commercial rooms downstairs. At this point the light went on: While I was making a few bucks teaching a class in the basement, Pete was on his initial appearance as one of the principal owners of the Red Lion Hotel chain which he recently had purchased.

Infamous or not, I definitely am planning to attend The Seniors' Ball in October, and I am looking forward to seeing all of you.