Prologue: 1973

It’s all a dream we dreamed, one afternoon, long ago.”

— Robert Hunter
“Box of Rain”

In 1973, Skylab was in orbit.

The Vietnam War was winding down.

The military draft ended. Priority for being inducted into the army was assigned by lottery, with birth dates drawn in random order from 1 to 365. The draft lottery number for my birthday, December 24th, was 2.

The Vice President of the United States resigned amidst a scandal.

I bought my first car for $75. It had a bashed-in rear end and a 421 cubic inch V8 engine with a 4-barrel carburetor. It got 8 miles on a 32.9-cent gallon of leaded hi-test gas.

Nixon was on the ropes.

There was a Middle East War.

And an OPEC oil embargo.

There were gas lines, and speed limits were lowered to 55 mph.

In New York, the World Trade Center’s twin towers opened.

And I went to work as a chemical engineer, freshly graduated, in a building full of engineers on Rector Street in lower Manhattan, just a few blocks from the Towers. I figured I was pretty well set for life, and was certain I would remain in New York forever.

I remember riding a crowded B Train from my neighborhood in Brooklyn, heading for lower Manhattan, that first workday in mid-June. For the first time in my life I was no longer a student. I was entering the real world, and the possibilities seemed limitless.

Nothing turns out the way we expect it to. But if we knew exactly what we were in for, would we ever do anything?

Eight weeks of doing nothing-but-sitting-behind-a-desk later, bored out of my mind and aching to actually do something, I quit and went to work in the Plant Engineering Department at the U. S. Gypsum Company plant in Staten Island.

Eleven months later, in the midst of economic stagflation and with the plant’s contract to produce sheetrock for the World Trade Center completed, the plant closed its doors, throwing 400 people out of work. I was transferred to Philadelphia.

Four months after that the Philadelphia plant closed and I was transferred to Baltimore.

It was “Year 3 BC”.

3 years Before Chocolate.

Those 3 years were not going to be good.

It was a good thing I didn’t know that.

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Look out of any window

any morning

any evening

any day

Maybe the sun is shining

birds are winging

or rain is falling

from a heavy sky

What do you want me to do

to do for you

to see you through?

For this is all a dream we dreamed

one afternoon long ago

–Robert Hunter
“Box of Rain”

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At various times, beginning in my 20’s, I have committed thoughts and feelings to paper. I felt like Life after leaving school was the beginning of an adventure, and that there was a great, unfolding story to tell. But I also realized that I needed to experience more of life before I could truly understand the journey or tell the story in a meaningful way.

Now, having passed my 70th birthday, I am grateful for having preserved those pieces of my younger self and for the perspective I have gained from revisiting them. In one form or another, Life has been a journey in search of Truth and Understanding. It has been experienced by inching forward, day by day, in real time, the only way it can be. Now, unconstrained by the linearity of the Time that has already passed, I can look back, moving freely from moment to moment; I can see, now, how some of the dots are connected, and from that, the Truths that connect them.

In a way, writing about it restarts the journey. I invite you to join me in the adventure.