For the Cullen Grandchildren

I had just graduated with a master's degree and got my first job as an Environmental Engineer for Trihey and Associates. I was driving the company vehicle from Concord, CA through Yosemite to set up trasects in the streams of Lee Vining Creek and Rush Creek on the East Side of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. As I drove through the astoundingly beautiful scenic Yosemite I began to laugh with joy! I was being paid to drive through Yosemite National Park!!! Laughing gleefully I came around the corner of the winding two laned, narrow mountain road and saw a boulder the size of a very large microwave in front of me! I had some choices. I could swerve into the towering wall of stone on one side, I could vere off a 200 foot drop on the other side or I could go over the boulder and hope for the best. I plowed over the boulder! The truck rolled over it and the boulder lodged itself under the truck wrecking the differential gears on the back axle. I was flying... 45 mph with only...

When I was in first grade my teacher's name Mrs. Hiller. One day she announced that her cat had had kittens and would anyone like one? She had them in a basket in the classroom. OF COURSE I WANTED ONE! I took the kitten home to my mother who said, "Humina Humina Humina". I thought it was a boy so I named him Sam. Sam was black with white socks and a white chest. Then one day Sam was pregnant and gave birth to a LOT of kittens. My mom said that was too many kittens and we'd have to give Sam to the Davis cousins so SHE could live on the farm and I could keep ONE male kitten and he would have to be neutered. I chose the little black one and named it "Blackie". Blackie lived to be 18 years old.

Nothing momentus happened from the time I first took a step until my first day of Kindergarten. You know, just all the usual stuff: eating, sleeping, etc. My mother walked with me to kindergarten at Summit Lane Elementary School in Levittown, NY. It was a ten minute walk and we had fun conversations along the way. I was excited to be going to kindergarten and I thought my mother was going to be with me. We were introduced to the teacher and some of the classmates and then my mother left. OH how I howled and cried! I had never been away from my mother before. In retrospect, it seemed like some socialogical experiment akin to Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World". My crying lasted for about 20 minutes until I found the sand box. Yes, a REAL sandbox in the kindergarten classroom. Even though it was loaded with bacteria, I had a great time playing in it and I'm sure I added much of my own bacteria into the petri dish of sand.