I am not a Boomer, being born 1942 as many fathers, including mine, were overseas during WWII. My wife and little sister were and are, however, Baby Boomers, arriving after the war was over. This might not seem like an important event, but it led to my sister and my wife Trudy being college classmates at Michigan State University in East Lansing at the same time I was working for Oldsmobile in Lansing. In the very traditional sense, my sister introduced us, and in the also traditional scenario, one thing led to another and our marriage a few years later in 1970. And more traditionally still, our son, Phil was born in Lansing.

Trudy was born, lived grew up in and was educated and married in Michigan. Nothing to indicate that she would lead a nomadic life. My background was slightly more diverse, being born in northwest Pennsylvania, one of the first in my parents’ families to actually be born in a hospital instead of the family farm. Although I was a part of an extended family during the war years, my Dad moved the family to far off, small town, Illinois where I was a part of the now traditional nuclear family consisting of Mom, Dad, younger sister, a dog and miscellaneous cats.

The only thing for me that was not a part of what now seems to be a normal ‘50s childhood was our move to a mid-sized Kentucky town on the Ohio River in the middle of my fifth grade. My new school was ironically named Lincoln Grade School, located just a few blocks away from Dunbar Grade School. The idea that there had to be two schools located so closely together, but so far apart was my first real view that it was not a perfect world.

But really I was still isolated and in a cocoon, not realizing the magnitude and diversity of the world and its citizens. Catching back up to the top: born in Pennsylvania, grew up in small-town Illinois and somewhat larger town in Kentucky, college in Indiana (Purdue), interrupted by a few years in the Army, working and married in Michigan, where Trudy and I thought we would retire. Our dream was to spend the “golden years” in an A-frame on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Instead, we moved to Texas where we worked for a few years, both of us spending time running projects in various places around the country. It was then that I had my first of several assignments in South America. And it was in Venezuela that I learned among other things that “good service” was not bringing the check until asked, as opposed to rushing through a meal, out the door and turn the table.

Later we both had work assignments in Europe, Trudy the more so. One year Philip came from college in Minnesota, met his mother in Germany for Thanksgiving, while I joined them from Argentina. Our nuclear family was living on three different continents, a far cry from our backgrounds but it seemed natural at the time. Later we moved to East and Southeast Asia for a couple of years and then to Adelaide and Sydney Australia. By the time we returned to the States, we soon realized that we no longer felt comfortable in the US, leading us to retire and move to Lakeside. Trudy and I have now lived longer in our house here, than anywhere either of us have lived anywhere. Our golden years are now filled with virtual gold, except for the few aches and pains of maturity. And our diverse experiences have given us a broad and deep perspective of the world and our place in it.

January 2021