Recently, we gathered in San Diego to celebrate my dad’s 83rd birthday. It was a wonderful weekend, and it was good to get (most) of the family back together. Alas, my father’s cognitive ability is slipping, and while he is accepting of the changes, it is difficult to see and handle.
While I have some spare time, I am going to begin to document my recollections of growing up, and as much as I can remember.
I am doing this for myself, and my family, so if the posts get too mundane, I apologize in advance. You have been warned.
Introduction
My parents settled in Sunnyvale California when they were first married. The stories I was told indicated that their house was surrounded by fruit orchards at the time, and slowly (or not so slowly) the neighborhood was developed.
My dad worked at Lockheed Missiles and Space in Sunnyvale (near the “Blue Cube”) and was in the computer department there. Of course, computers in the 1960’s were quite a bit different than today, and he worked on all sorts of cool things that he couldn’t talk about, as Lockheed was a defense contractor, and infosec was the name of the game.
I remember from a young age, on payday, my mother would drive us down to Lockheed, and we would get his paycheck at the gate, and then head to Wells Fargo bank in Sunnyvale to deposit.
Strange how this flotsam and jetsam of memory associations appear. I hadn’t thought about that in decades, yet it is quite vivid.
Anyway, I remember the Lockheed open house, one day a year where the family of the employees visit, presumably all classified information was hidden and locked away, and we played primitive computer games, printed ASCII art on their line printers, and were in awe of the latest and greatest acquisition to their computer lab.
These are fond memories, and I am glad to share. Enough for part one though. Next up – early memories.
