John
Broyles
March 23, 2006
Jan and our classmates,
I am now found. We just got back to the
This year I don't think we will be able to attend. There have been
some major changes in our lives since the last reunion. Are you going to
ask people to write an update to their autobiographies?
For you I will give you a synopsis. I retired in 2004 and we
joined a volunteer organization and went to
Jeanne teaches children, 5th and 6th graders, in a school primarily for
children of expatriates. There are some students whose parents are
from the US Embassy and the military base there. I am trying to design a
micro-hydro system for generating electricity from power in the rivers.
Jeanne has the full time job. She leaves the house at 7:30 AM and gets
back home at 5:30 to 6:00 PM. Then after dinner she often types up a test
for the next day or corrects papers. So, she is BUSY. She says that
she would not have it any other way, however. I stay at home, wash the
dishes, make the bed, wash clothes, hang them to dry, clean, study the Kyrgyz
language and design micro-hydro systems. I use the internet a lot.
In the near future I will be going to the villages more to work on the
micro-hydro systems.
Our two girls got married last summer and they, one husband, our god
son, Chris, and his wife (5 persons in all) will be visiting us in
That is all for now.
I guess you must have tried my old e-mail address and found that it was
not valid. I just changed recently to this one because we have secure
e-mail between my computer and a computer in
So, tell me what you have been
doing some time.
Blessings,
John Broyles
After graduation, I probably
helped my father in his business during the summer. In the fall, I went to
school at Cal Poly in
When I graduated and started to
work, I found that I did not enjoy the work as much as I thought I would. For
one thing, the population of single girls my age dropped significantly. I had
not found any girls in college that I wanted to marry but just the idea of
having them around was comforting. I had three jobs between 1965 and 1970. In
1970, I was working in
So in the fall of 1971, I went to
the University of Georgia Business School. It was a
step backwards for me in terms of living conditions and of course, I knew no
one. So it was a very difficult time for me emotionally. I stuck with it
however and after graduation in June of 1973, I came back to lovely
I had a difficult time getting a job in a pure business position so I
flipped back and forth between business and
engineering for a while. During this time, I was in my early 30s and was not
married. This was not good as far as I was concerned. I got out my little black
book and started calling some of the women that I had known before I went to
Wow, what a fantastic change in my
life. Now I did not care whether I liked work or not. It was kind of a means to
an end. Our first fight was over money. What else? But we survived (she was
right). We had two daughters about 15 months apart. Jeanne did not want to have
children when she was over 40.
When our first daughter arrived, there was a time or two when I
regretted having to stay home because we now had a baby. But after a while, I
got to feeling that this was a worthwhile endeavor and I had a sense of
satisfaction that I was responsible now for another human being. (I actually
thought when Jeanne was pregnant that I was not ready for this. I had not
figured life out completely yet. How could I tell someone else what life was
all about? But when Karen arrived, she did not ask those kinds of questions. All
she wanted was to be fed, have her diaper clean and to get enough rest. So I
was off the hook for a few years.)
We pretty much worked, were active in the church, and went to school
functions, soccer games, volleyball games, etc. for the years of their growing
up through high school. In 2000, Melanie, our youngest, went off to college.
Now we are by ourselves. Karen is a junior at
I hope to retire in a couple of years, when Karen is out of school and
Melanie has one year left. I have started learning to play golf in preparation
for retirement. We still go skiing each year.
I am getting a little tired nowadays however. I find that I cannot turn
my neck as far to the side when I am driving and I do not sleep as soundly as I
used to. I have no major health problems however, thanks be to God. I am
counting my blessings when I hear of those who do.
I am looking forward to seeing everyone
at the reunion.
John Broyles