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After graduation from high school, I spent the summer working for the US Forest Service in Central Oregon. That fall I entered Oregon State College. Enlisted in the US Air Force in May of 1954, serving on a SAC bomber crew for most of my tour of duty. Returned to Oregon State College in March of 1958, and graduated in June 1960. Worked a year at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, and then attended grad school at Penn State University. While there I spent the summer of 1962 as a member of a Polar Bear Study project in the area around Spitsbergen. I left Penn State in May, 1963, and worked that summer and fall as a ranger at Mt. Rainier National Park. Later that fall, I got a job working in a research lab at the University of Washington Medical School, living in Seattle. In January of 1966 I moved to Portland, Oregon to a similar job in the U of Oregon Medical School. While in Portland, I completed night school course work for secondary school teaching.
Moved back to Seattle in fall of 1968 and started teaching Junior High School in Seattle. Married Leslie Grace (McCune) in May 1969. Leslie had opened the import shop "La Tienda" in Seattle in 1962, specializing in Mexican and Latin American Folk Art. We spent the next three summers traveling in Mexico buying crafts for the shop. In the fall of 1972, I joined her in the business full time. We traveled extensively in South and Central America, and Africa the following several years. We divorced in the fall of 1980, and have remained close friends ever since. I left the business that winter, spending the winter months in Mexico. The following year I worked as a guide/driver for a tour company taking young adults on camping tours of the USA, coast to coast. I did this for three summers, clocking 50,000 miles a summer in small vans. I continued to spend much of the winter months traveling around Mexico. January 1984 I moved to Madison, Wisconsin to work with an old friend at the U. of Wisconsin Med. School, in a temporary position. Spent the summer of 1984 traveling in Europe, based primarily in Germany. Returned that fall to Seattle, doing some substitute teaching at local high schools.
Resumed work at La Tienda in the fall of 1986 as operations manager. In May 1995 I joined forces with another younger fellow employee and her husband, formed a corporation, and bought the business from Leslie, who wished to retire. In the fall of 1998, we opened a second shop in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. I continue to travel occasionally on buying trips for the business, and for my own pleasure. Most recently I traveled to South Africa and Nigeria last September/October. Over the last dozen years, I have become active in local neighborhood planning efforts, focusing mostly on transportation issues and related land-use and growth management concerns.
Fred in Paris, Spring 2000