Randy Radock

Miles traveled to the reunion as calculated from my National Geographic Deluxe Road Atlas are 2233 miles via the most direct route. We made that drive once long ago in a car with no air conditioning so chased cloud shadows across all of Montana and will not do it again – I do drive to Eastern Montana to meet my brother who drives from Wisconsin to do some super fishing.

We have one grandchild – Emily Aeorwyn Raymond living with mom and dad in Sooke, B.C., Canada. She just turned five last month and will be entering a French Immersion School in the fall. Since birth her mother has taught her Spanish and when I call she answers “capassa pa pa.”

I retired in 1998 and Sallie was going to work for two more years after my retirement. Well, six months into my retirement Sallie said she was retiring because I was having too much fun. Five days after her retirement we were off to Turkey and have not looked back since.

I have no real athletic accomplishments but will always remember in 1997 being invited to play in a charity golf tournament and being in a foursome with Jack Nicklaus, and his recognizing me and making a point to stop and say hi when I saw him at the Master’s during the par 3 tournament in 1998. Remember when you are on the course that golf spelled backwards is “FLOG.”

Sallie and I travel the world to faraway places with strange sounding names, from Antarctica to Zanzibar. That was one reason to retire – work was getting in the way of our travels. If I had to pick one place that stands out, I would pick Southern Africa, to include South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe (a country that has been ruined the last 28 years by a ruler with no conscience).

In 2004 one of my block prints was picked for publication and I do have one of my designs exhibited as public art. Sallie and I have exhibited our art in Michigan and Washington. We are now hanging in two galleries on the Olympic Peninsula and at this time we are participating in a hospital art wellness program in Kirkland, WA and Port Townsend, WA.

Happiness to me is a healthy family and friends.

A cause that I have is to be able to provide art class free of any fees for seniors. I have been able to accomplish this through a program started by Dale Chihuly called “Seniors Making Art.” During the last five years they have provided dollars to have four classes of eight weeks each in watercolor. And I have been told that we are on the fall list for dollars this year.

I guess the only thing that I can say in the way of a proverb or quote is “I’d give up chocolate, but I’m not a quitter.”

Our luck is that we were born in America and not in a third world country. I was born in Aurora and lived in Naperville from day one until I was off to Wisconsin after graduating from high school (that was done after a summer school class in Downers Grove due to one of my favorite teachers – Mr. Gaston). It was in Madison, Wisconsin where I met Sallie at an ice skating party on the third weekend of February in 1963. She was the blind date of a good friend of mine, and she and I hit it off quite well and were married on November 9th, 1963 – the evening of the Wisconsin/Northwestern football game. We were moved to the Seattle area in the summer of 1966 and had our son Erik in 1967; our daughter Daphne followed two years later.

Naperville was a great place to grow up. Going to the Naper Theater on Saturday afternoons to watch those thrilling western movies, and to Oswald’s after the movie for a chocolate phosphate…having fun swimming at “the beach” and dancing at the YMCA…band concerts on Thursday evenings with the smell of popcorn in the air…making a stop at the Prince Castle for hamburgers (13 for $1.00)…sledding on what we called “Indian Hill”… ice skating at the Sportsman’s Park and on the DuPage River…and of course going to the City Meat Market (Faulhaber’s) and snickering at the sign behind the counter- “Bring your fat cans in on Friday.”

My first paying job was caddying at the Naperville Country Club, which was just up the hill from our house on the last street on the East side of town; being able to play on Mondays was a plus (caddy’s day). I remember that I was lucky to caddy for Herb Matter Jr. the year he won the club championship. Man, what a haul I made that weekend; it must have been $10! We had a group of us that landed a job spending the summer cleaning the YMCA from top to bottom. That meant cleaning the grease-laden walls of the kitchen with “Spic and Span” and even scrubbing the pool. We made it fun and did make some money. I worked for Mr. Al Rubin (fondly known by a number of us that worked for him as Clancy O’Rubin) at his restaurant at Hwy 59 and Aurora Ave. doing dishes and working the grill (which came in handy later being a short order cook in a bowling alley in Madison, Wisc. to make money for tuition). Then Terry Clark, Ken Hatch, Bill Nordbrock and I worked for his catering business.

We had three elementary schools in Naperville. I attended Ellsworth School on the east side of town. Not much to remember – only that my kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Arnet, my next door neighbor.