Hi Everybody!
It's Dennis. (Over the years I've grown accustomed to my friends calling me "Dock.")
And I'm so excited about getting down there and seeing you guys, I can hardly STAND it! [Is anybody else getting as excited as I am?] Eye Speck 2B arriving at the Langford sometime late tomorrow afternoon or early tomorrow evening, in case anybody wants to get in touch...
Phil's recent bulletin to all of us suggested maybe zooting some email off to our Steamed Colicks before we meet this weekend. I think it's a gravy idea, so here's my little contribution:
So: What have *I* been doing for the past 37 years and change? I'll try my best to keep this part under a page, but no rash promises! Some of you likely remember how much I used to love to talk and write! [Over the years I HAVE learned to listen a little bit better...]
Waal, for most of the past 25 years I've been working and playing as a math professor at a place called John Abbott College, which is located on the western tip of Montreal island. Around the time of the "Thirtysomething" reunion [which I really really tried to get to, but I just couldn't manage to pull it off], I was out on the Left Coast enjoying what turned out to be a one-year sabbatical working at a place called Monterey Peninsula College and soaking or gobbling up all the natural beauty I could hold of Northern California and the Central Coast. Big Sur is a rilly nifty place to bicycle in and hang out! And, given my active participation in auto racing (For the past dozen years or so, I've been what's variously known as a Flagger, Cornerworker or Course Marshal -- Among this crowd, I'm actually rather famous!), I was in Some Kinda Heaven living less than five miles from Laguna Seca. That's one of the most gorgeous racing venues I've ever worked at -- and *certainly* the most beautiful track I've ever hot-lapped!
More or less directly after graduating from HHS, I went to FSU, where I finished up in December 63 with a BA in math and minors in physics, philosophy, German and English. [I used to be extremely indecisive in those days, only now I'm not so sure...] Then I went to UF, where I ended up with a MA and a PhD in math and a philosophy minor. (I guess I wasn't smart enough to do physics or German or English.) I really liked living in Gainesville. All my life, wherever I've lived, I've always been from somewhere else; prolly Gainesville is the nearest thing to a Hometown I can lay claim to (or vice-versa). Beginning in September 69, I taught graduate and undergraduate math courses (and also did what was laughingly referred to in those days as "research") at Western Kentucky University for three years, and then a place called Alfred University (in upstate NY) for a year, before emigrating to Canada and relocating at John Abbott in September of 73.
In 62, Alice Musgrave (also HHS, Clash of 1960, for those of you who didn't know her then) and I married each other, and had ten or twelve really good years out of the 15 we were married. We're on good terms these days. She lives in a Montreal suburb (I for one am really quite surprised she never moved back to Florida), and was herself thinking of going to the Thirtysomething Thang, but she couldn't put it together, either. Our one daughter, whom we adopted as an infant in 1968 when we were living in Gainesville, is currently single, pushing 29, and living in England. We're very close, and I'm exceptionally proud of her.
Back in the Fall of 1988 [Actually it was on October 22 at about 7:35 PM, but who's counting?] I fell asshole-over-rollbar in love with with somebody I met while both of us were working at John Abbott College. Her name is Judy Smyth [In Quebec, it's the law that both partners retain the surname of their birth when they marry], and this coming Sunday when I'm hanging with you guys, we will be celebrating our 104th monthaversary. On our 47th monthaversary (September 22, 1992), we married one another, and we're still an item at the College! Last November, one of Judy's daughters had a Boah in San Francisco, and I figure that makes me a granpappy. And I'm LOVIN it! My grampa name is Papadock, and I gather that both Bryce and his parents are too young to have any negative associations with that name. Judy's out west (in Heaven) Nana-ing, and wont be accompanying me this weekend.
So that's what I'm up to these days: Bein a papadock.