Posted by Jim Rivera '61 (72.235.66.215) on February 21, 2006 at 02:31:37:
What has happened to me since June of 1961
A lot. I have had a full life and retired. Here's some of what happened.
First, I made it through the sixties in one piece. I went to Duke University for a number of years. (1961--66). I started out to be a composer, and fortunately learned to play the tuba. Then the bad news was that I got drafted. The good news was that I was able to get into the US Army Band in Washington DC and spent some time in the Army (1966-69) playing concerts & ceremonies on the White House lawn,
I got out of the Army and finished up my BA at Duke. Then I went to Yale for my MM degree as a tubist. It was a wonderful time to be there. After I finished that degree I went to live in Chicago for a year, after which I decided that I had to eat and went back into the Army Band again (1973-79).
Then I got interested in software. Some of you may remember that I was sort of a techie type at Buxton, and I never lost the itch. I got into it when it was an adventurous and exciting area. I was kind of a pioneer there, as I had a PC in 1977 as an early adopter. I played around with computers for a while, went to school and in 1979 I got really bummed out with the Army, got out, moved to Chicago, and and got a job as a programmer.
After a while I moved to the Pacific Northwest; first to Portland, then eventually settling in Seattle. The Pacific Northwest is a really nice place if you don't mind the rain, although actually it doesn't rain that much-both Portland and Seattle do have a lot of rainy days in the rainy season though. I had a number of different software jobs in different areas over the years; hardcore software guy, multimedia developer, system administrator, database specialist, etc. Also along the way I got married in 1994 - my wife and I have no children but we do have two dogs. I stuck with software until February of 2005, when I got laid off from my job. At that point I had already decided to retire, so it was not such a bad thing, it just moved the date up a bit. My wife and I packed (almost) everything up and moved to Hawaii. We live near Kea'au, on the Big Island of Hawaii. This is a wonderful place to live, and in my opinion should be on everybody's list of neat places to be. When I got married in 1974 my wife & I went to Maui for our honeymoon, and that plated a seed, I remember on the plane going back we sort of said "we'll be back", not realizing it would work out the way it has. The weather here is wonderful, the people are nice, the food is good enough so that you have to watch your waistline. And yes, it really is a tropical paradise. It's kind of like a club in that most of the people here moved here because they like it relaxed. There's a permanent happy tropical haze, and after a while you just go with the flow and swim with the other folks.
What am I doing now? I have to admit I haven't quite figured that one out - I have a recorder student and I like teaching so I might try music teaching but there are other possibilities too.
So if there is anyone from my time at Buxton (late 1950s/early 1960s) just drop me an email sometime. Or if you get to Hawaii my phone is 808 966 9895,
Jim Rivera, '61
jamesrw@att.net
PS my email address with change in the next few weeks, the new one will be:
jamesrw42@verizon.net