Douglas Edward Mowell 10900 Maiden Lane NE Bainbridge Island, WA 98110 (206) 780-2726 Phone (360) 598-5114 dmowell@ebmail.gdeb.com As you have noticed I am living on Bainbridge Island in Washington. We (I am married with children) feel, in may ways, it is a safe haven from the troubles of the world - little or no crime, drugs, gangs, etc. Unfortunately, it is changing from the sleepy, little-village-type community I fell in love with at first meeting (reminded me of rural Maine when I first came, the kind of place where you took the keys out of the ignition and put them on the dashboard while you went into the general store) into the kind of fast-paced, hyper-kinetic suburban stronghold of SUVs and soccer moms that just rubs me the wrong way. Seems there is a preponderance of prep-school and Ivy League types on the island - the high school is state champ in lacrosse if that tells you anything. Is it because we are drawn to the same types of enviroments - where we can be very casual, dress down and pretend to be common people while at the same time avoiding all contact with the real common people - or is it because we are the only ones who can afford the prices? I'm not sure, maybe it's both. But the place still feels good as a place to raise a family, and we're apt to stay until the kids go way and we retire to rot away in San Diego, Miami, or Sun City. Nearby Seattle is a wonderful city in many ways; clean, safe, and accessible with much charm and many attractions. It has, however, very little in the way of culture and art that I can relate to; most drama, art, and music in Western Washington is of limited appeal to my increasingly geriatric tendencies; I'm assuming it is good stuff, but that I just don't get it, preferring instead to stick to the oldies-but-goodies. But from where we are it is but a short half-hour ferry ride to downtown Seattle where we can go out on the town, or see a ball game, or go shopping, or just stroll around the city. It's fun when someone comes from back east to show them around. Al Ulman was out a couple of years back, and we had a great time - except we drank way too much. Come visit sometime if the opportunity arises, I'd love it. I married late, but it has lasted seventeen years by virtue of considerable hard work and tolerance from the both of us. (We are both not really believing the other hasn't left by now, and too hard-headed to be the first.) Mary is a tax attorney, working four days a week in Seattle, whom I met in Spokane while I was crashing the Christmas party she was hosting at her parent's house. She has been a godsend to me; without her I'm certain I wouldn't have a thing to show for my life, and likely would have ended as a wino sleeping in Pioneer Square after drinking Ripple from a grimy, brown-bagged bottle with the other dregs of humanity. We have three children; all boys. Keith, the oldest, is approaching sixteen and looking forward, with great anticipation, to driving. It's hard to believe he will soon be just a visitor; I'm having a hard time thinking of the time he will go off on his own. (My parents didn't seem to have any trouble packing us off to boarding school, which seems a bit odd to me. What do you think?) Keith is crazy about roller hockey, plays every chance he gets and is the leading scorer in his league. He has yet to go girl crazy, but it can't be too much longer I fear until he falls into that abyss. (I wonder sometimes if I wouldn't have nutted myself with a broken coke bottle, had I known then what I know now.) Brad, who is eight, is probably a good candidate for those drugs everyone gives their kids for hyperactivity, but I just like to think he has a lot of life in him - and I wonder what happened to kids being "all boy", you know like Tom Sawyer and all. He reminds me a bit of Steve Ahlgren - heart of gold, but just finds trouble at every opportunity somehow. Nonetheless, I think he might be the brightest of my brood and he will probably amount to something if we don't kill him first. He's very taken with everything military - a lot of kids are since 9/11 - to the point where he was asking about military school. At the time it sounded pretty good to us, but in reality I have a hard time seeing us sending our kid off like that - even if we could afford it. Scott, Brad's twin brother, is the one who really keeps us busy. He is what we used to call retarded, but now call delayed - the former having taken too pejorative a connotation. He's not stupid, and may in fact be very intelligent; but has incredible nuero-motor skills problems that prevent him from progressing normally in speech, writing, and almost any other activity you would associate with a kid eight years old. We do a lot of visits to therapists - speech, occupational, vision, etc. - which keeps the bank accounts empty and the free time non-existant. And we have to wonder whether he will ever be able to cope on his own. He has, however, two skills that will take him far in life, if he can overcome his other problems: he is obstenate in getting his way, and he has a way of getting everyone to love hem and want to please him; with those attributes I'd have done a helluva lot better than I've done. I have been working as a mechanical engineer for Electric Boat for twenty seven years - making use of my math skills has been fun. But I'm beginning to think I'm part of a dying breed; people today just don't work very long for a single outfit. (Is it that they don't have the opportunity, or is it that opportunity draws them on to go elsewhere?) I'm presently at Engineering Manager overseeing a few dozen engineers and designers assigned to the SSGN Project at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. We are engaged in converting TRIDENT submarines to fire cruise missiles and to carry special operating forces (the Navy's equivalent of Rambo) in lieu of carrying nuclear tipped ballistic missiles. It's a fast-paced, high-pressure project - feels a lot like I'm that guy in the circus who keeps fifty plates wobbling on top of fifty poles by running around and tweaking each one just as its about to come crashing off. But I do love the work, and am thinking this will be the one about which I bore my grandchildren with endless stories. At work people know me as a rebellious type (never went in much for conformity), with a penchant for thinking outside the box (what is this box they keep talking about anyway?), who never seems to get rattled about anything (never known things not to have worked out somehow), and who really does care about the people. On a typical day my shoes are untied, I've probably forgotten to shave, and I'm dressed in worn dungarees with an equally ratty plaid shirt. On the odd occasion when I wear an outfit like we used to have on at St. Paul's, people are either amazed or think I may have finally gone over the edge - most people wonder a bit about me that way I think. Basically I'm pretty happy. The demands of work and family leave little time for the things I used to think were important, and I wonder whether I won't go back to painting, traveling, four-day benders, and other no-account behavior after the kids have gone on and I've retired - which amazingly enough is not that very far in the future. Probably though I'm doing what I do because I have changed to where work and family are the things I really like to do, and I will be completely screwed when I am forced to retire and the kids are too busy to even come to see me in the nursing home. (Will there be a Lawrence Welk equivalent for us to watch in the community room while we wet our pants and generally act like infants while we are waiting to die?) I love seeing you every now and then on television. I'm partial to the A&E, Discovery kind of fare where I'm apt to see a show on the Chrysler Building or the Flat Iron Building with you providing expert historical perspective. And when I see you I usually act stupid; pointing out to everyone that I really do know someone famous - most of us ended up in pretty mundane existences after all.