Immediately following Grad School,I got a job at a small computer firm in Massachuesetts  called Digital Equipment Corp. In 1970 when I started work we stayed at a motel in Bedford and had run out of money since you didn’t get advances in those days. The motel manager was after us for the rent, Baby Mike was running out of formula and we put the last of our change on the bed and had just enough for two burgers at McDonalds. The next day I got my expense check and asked my boss if DEC could speed up the next check and was given a lecture on personnel money management.

During the summers in Grad School Pat and I would go camping usually with friends. I recall a couple of events. For some reason we decided to take our first camping trip to Algonquin National park in Northern Ontario, a real wilderness in the 60’s. In the middle of the night a bear invaded the campsite and dogs were barking and people were making noise. We jumped out of our tent and got in our car, a Chevele convertible. Then we discovered we had left our flashlight in the tent. Pat bravely got out of the car and retrieved our flashlight.

Pat did not know how to swim and was basically afraid of deep water so, of course, I decided, on one of our camping trips, we should go canoeing on the Miami River swollen by spring rains. We got off course and our boat was pinned against fallen trees. While I was trying to figure a way out of this jam Pat amazed me by jumping out of the canoe into the raging river and with one arm on the tree and the other on the boat pushed us off the fallen tree.  I pulled her back in the boat and we proceeded safely to shore.

We were married in December of 1965 in a modest ceremony at Pat’s church. We immediately settled into our apartment in Cleveland. One day I came home and Pat was sitting on the bed in tears. She had planned to make me meringues for dinner but her meringues ran together in the pan. We made an agreement that whenever we had meringues I would make them. I proceeded to the kitchen and turned out a batch for dinner. I have made meringues for us since that day.

In the summer of 1965 I was working with Pat’s brother Norm at an Aerospace firm in Akron, Ohio. One day Norm came up to me and said that he thought I should meet his sister who was “between boyfriends”. We arranged to meet with Pat, Norm and Eve at the “Lemon Tree” a quiet bar in West Akron. I was late and as Pat said later I walked in “looking like I owned the world”. I preceded to discuss mostly work with Norm. I got Pat’s number and told her I would call her because “I hadn’t given her an enough of a chance” at our first meeting.

In 1969 Pat and I were vacationing on Cape Cod. It was July 20th and we wanted to see the moon walk so we pulled into a motel, watched the moonwalk. On Aril 17th the day of the safe return of Apollo 13. Our first child, Mike, was born a true child of the space age, conceived during the moon walk; born when the astronauts landed.