Lee Note 20 Ken Buffington April 10, 2001

"Hello" to everyone from the REL Class of '60. I am enjoying reading the notes about your lives. Some sound happier and more exciting than others do, but if you are reading this note, then you are still alive and kicking. There may be some extra aches and pains, but being alive is a good thing!

My life has not been as exciting as some, but I am enjoying it and am happy with it. After finishing high school, I worked in the electrical trade for a couple of years (my father was an electrician). I was working through the electrical union and if you remember the early sixties, work was not that plentiful.

As a trainee in the union, I was not allowed to "travel" to other cities for work when none was available locally. Since there wasn't much work here, I said "good-bye" (with a big raspberry) to the electrical union and went to work for an oil field products manufacturing company in Houston.

I made a living and had a regular income (something new to me since construction work was not regular) and life was OK. During these short years, I married and we had two children, a boy and a girl (the first two of three wonderful children). I had regular employment, but I sure wasn't making much money.

In 1965, I tried to go to work for Exxon, but they turned me down (you will see why I put this blurb in here later). I did say good-bye to the manufacturing job and we moved to Lake Jackson where I went to work for Dow Chemical. Dow was an interesting place to work and Lake Jackson a wonderful place to live. In 1968, the "Gold Mine" coming to Baytown (US Steel) lured me away from Dow Chemical (and back home?).

Not so!! In January of 1969, US Steel moved me to Gary, Indiana for training. What an "eye opener" I received up there!!! I found out that life is truly a learning experience. Did I mention that my "in laws" lived in Baytown? No?

Well they did and they were "somewhat" UNhappy with their Grandchildren in Indiana. So, my Mother in Law (a wonderful woman and now deceased) called Exxon to find out just why I had been turned down for employment back in '65.

What she found out was that I had not been turned down, but had been hired and had been working in the refinery since '65! You would have to know my mother in law to understand the explosion from this information.

When the smoke was all clear, Exxon called me in Indiana and asked me to come down for employment testing. I did, and they hired me (I still don't know what the inside story was about my having been employed in 1965). I was happy to be out of the frozen wasteland of the North and back in the "Sunny South". Home again (and I'm still here).

In 1970, we had our third child. She now works in the Exxon plant for a contract company. My son is a commercial airline pilot (with three children [all girls]) and my older daughter is a housewife (with three children [one boy and two girls]). In early 1978 I divorced and remarried in late 1980.

Experience must have taught me well. My current wife is a wonderful woman. She was born and raised in Kansas and we have been married for 20 wonderful years. In 1999, we both retired from Exxon. My wife had 20 years of service and I had 30. I love to travel but she doesn't. We have been to France, Hawaii, Las Vegas and Washington, DC (my son lives in DC). For a non-traveler, she does really well.

My current pastimes:

I take care of the electrical work for the Baytown Habitat for Humanity houses. It is volunteer work and something I like to do. With my early training in the electrical trade, I have the experience to do it (and I'm running behind with it now. Anyone out there want to help?).

I still like motorcycles. I also like to travel by motorcycle and just got home yesterday from a ride through the Hill Country (the flowers were fantastic). I do stay busy and am enjoying retirement. Right now I have a big clean up job to do on my bike. Soooo, let's hear from some others.

PS: Kay-thanks for all the time and work you (and others?) are putting into the letter updates from our "REL Class of 1960".

Ken Buffington