Bill Kessler
Where
do I start? I moved to Riverside with my folks at the end of summer, 1961. I
spent two and a half years at the city college pretending to be a pre-med
student. I joined the army in 1964 and trained with the now-defunct Army
Security Agency as an electronics repairman. The army sent me first to Ankara,
Turkey and then to Berlin, Germany. I took advantage of every possible
opportunity to travel in the Near East and Europe.
I
returned to Riverside in 1967 and went to work for JPL in Pasadena as an
antenna technician on the Mariner 69 Project. Great job, but in those days not
much money, so I went back to school. I earned a BA in psych from San
Bernardino State in 1970, hoping to do personnel work. I wound up at State Farm
as an insurance underwriter. During this time I met, married and divorced my
first wife Emily.
I
joined the Army Reserve in 1974 (retired in 1994). I left State Farm and moved
to Sacramento in 1976. For the next ten years, I ran my own Farmers Insurance
Agency. Married second wife, Debbie, and we had three children... Charley 22,
Donna 20 and Donnie 16.
After
my second divorce, I left Farmers for Met Life. In 1990, I met Ginny... We were
married in ‘94. She has three children, Aaron 31, Michael 27 and Kate 20. We
also have two grandbabies, Jason 2 and Jade 5 months. Kate has just moved out
on her own, so Ginny and I are getting used to our "empty nest",
although it's not empty very often! I'm a happy camper!
In
January 1993, I went to work for Pacific Bell as a test technician for the
California Major Accounts Center. Best job ever!
I
fish as often as I can. Ginny and I love to cook and try our hand at new
recipes, go to the movies, peruse garage sales, and baby-sit our grandkids.
Jason is heavily into dinosaurs at the moment, so we run around and roar a lot!
We
are planning to attend the reunion. I am really looking forward to seeing
everyone after all this time.