Classmates

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Bonnie Beyerl (Demarest)

Marital status: Widowed
Children: 2
Comment: Living in Columbia, SC for the past l0 years.  Children, aged 20 and 22.  Before Columbia, lived in Wilton, CT for 7 years and before that St. Louis area for 9, all corporate moves with my late husband's job.  Looking forward to September 15....

Peter Bolton

Now Now
Marital status: Married
Occupation: Retired
Comment: Hi all – Oh boy! I’m going to make it to the big 5-0. My last submission was 10 years ago. Some things have changed and a bit more’s happened:



DHS to Boston University. Started in engineering but panicked when I just couldn't do math anymore. Xferred into political science. Did a bit to end that damn war while learning just enough to get a BA. I wasn't a slacker; I just wasn't much interested in learning.



The woman I was living with got into UC Berkeley grad school so I split for the coast. With no specific ambition or inner voice to guide me, I took a job in a warehouse in Oakland, CA, and quickly rose from order puller to head of the shipping department. Ever work with junkies? Don't you love their mood swings.



Left that when I realized I had peaked at 24, dithered around at some other dead end jobs, until I got my big break: I was hired in '76 to write technical manuals for IMSAI, a microcomputer manufacturer. (Google it or read "Fire in the Valley.") A career in high tech is born.



Sidebar: You gotta laugh. Some people work hard and long to prepare their career. I landed in mine because I'd taken touch typing in junior high summer school, had a knack for computer programming, and won a virtual coin flip (my boss drew some of her wits from the cosmos and used the direction that her necklace swung to pick among the applicants). I'm curious: How many of you planned your career? Who had they're career find them?



IMSAI turned out to be one of the birthplaces of desktop computers. Wild times, fast times, high times (I never had a problem with that, although I do only somewhat jokingly refer to the late 70s/early 80s as my lost decade.) Within a couple of years, though, it crashed.

I moved on to another desktop computer company in San Francisco (more wild, fast, high times; watch out for that cocaine-speed kills), and then went to work for Digital Research (again, worth googling). For this I left Oakland (a great city by the way) and moved to Pacific Grove, CA, where I live today. It's ironic - I prefer living in a big city but PG's profile is much like Darien's - go figure.



I migrated from tech writing into product management. At Digital Research I managed the design, promotion, and sales of an operating system. You wouldn’t have heard of it but it was used in complex point of sales systems at big-store retailers such as WalMart, Safeway, and Costco. Digital Research collapsed too. I then worked for a security software company. Here, I worked with the former Deputy Director of the NSA. (Warning: don’t work for companies that develop security software, they’re full of very paranoid people.)

It too collapsed (there’s a lot of crashing and burning in Silicon Valley). At my next stop I became the proud papa of a real-time, publish subscribe middleware product that has gone on to some big things in its little markets. As it turns out, I’m quite the propeller head.

This company did not collapse, but the president and I never got along (I never learned how to manage up).Thus ended my product management career in 01. Good thing though, I was pretty burned out. Since then, there were a couple of jobs as a lowly tech writer until I retired in ’15.

Long, strange trip indeed. I never hit the stock option jackpot but got tons of other perqs: traveled all over the US and to Europe and Asia (be sure to go to the street markets in Seoul, Tokyo, and Taipei - major sensory overload) on the company dime and hobnobbed with lots of brilliant, creative, and bizarre people. The wife and I are living a very comfortable life now, without too many scars and enough good memories to entertain my table when we move to the assisted living facility.



Demographics: Married since '83 after living together since ‘74 (who's afraid of commitment?). No kids (we love kids, especially when their parents take 'em home). Retired but doing a lot of work for a non-profit (Kernespool.org) and occasionally some writing for fun.

If you visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium, give me a call; I live just up the hill. I’m also on FB but don’t post much.



Re the pictures: These are my CA driver license pics since '71. They're kind of a hoot and tell a story by themselves. Since the last one (lower right), the hair's a lot grayer and thinner, my face has sprung a lot of lines, and I'm 40% broader.

Michael Bonfoey

Now Now
Marital status: Married
Children: 2
Occupation: District Attorney
Comment:

My wife, Kelley, and I live at Lake Junaluska which is located in the mountains of Western North Carolina about 35 miles west of Asheville.  Kelley is an attorney with Legal Aid of North Carolina.  My daughter, Tekla, and her husband Doug live and work in Greensboro, NC.  Tekla is a Probation/Parole Officer. I have two granddaughters, McKenzie and Abigail. My stepdaughter, Lauren Kelley, starts high school this year. 


 


I currently serve the people of the seven most western counties of North Carolina as the elected District Attorney. 


 


I have been a Tar Heel since I left Darien to attend college.  After graduating from the University of North Carolina with my undergraduate degree and then my law degree, I have made North Carolina my home.

Rod Borden

Marital status: Widowed
Children: 5
Occupation: CEO RB&A INC POP Displays
Comment: Currently semi retired. Been widowed for almost 2 years. Moved to be closer to my kids. Verona, NJ. I am owner of a display company since 1976 dealing with national promotions. I have enjoyed reading everyone's whereabouts. Have kept in touch with mostly girls from class of 1968.

Hope all are in good health.

Rod

Joan Brakeley

Then Then
Now Now
Marital status: Divorced
Occupation: art and consulting
Comment: Enjoying hearing from people after 40 years, and thanks to everyone who has emailed me. It has been fun. No kids, too busy being one myself. Now I am too old to grow up. 

Wrote the above for the 40th, haven't much to add, still making my art and trying California for a while,  thinking of coming back east.
Have an obligation and am I am not able to attend, hope everyone has a blast.

Barbara Brien (Haymes)

Now Now
Marital status: Married
Occupation: social worker/ psychotherapist
Comment: I am still in Connecticut, living just outside of Hartford. I am looking forward to seeing everyone at the reunion. With the exception of two people I saw sometime in the '80's I don't think I have seen anyone from Darien High School since around 1971 or so. I pulled out some old elementary school pictures from Hindley School just now and remembered most of the names. What a long time ago that was. Unfortunately I lost my high school yearbook somewhere along the way.

John Brockardt

Now Now
Marital status: Married
Children: 3
Occupation: Manager

Peter Brooks

Then Then
Now Now
Marital status: Divorced
Children: 3
Occupation: Finacial Advisor, ChristmasTree Farmer
Comment: Since growing up with so many of you, then leaving after 8th grade at Mather for boarding school, I really appreciate being invited to participate here.

The story of your life in a few words. Tough assignment, but here’s a shot:

THEN: Graduated from Kent; went to Stanford, where I rowed on the crew, studied in Germany, and stayed out of the war. Got sick of academia. Decided living real life was better than studying what everybody else said & did. Left Stanford after a couple of years, played guitar, pumped gas on the CT Turnpike, worked on farms in VT and ferry boats on Lake Champlain. Became a teaching naturalist with Audubon, got talked into going back to school. The English major got a BS at Cornell in natural resources in two years because he didn’t like being in school. Then educational nature center design & programs launch, in Englewood NJ; got talked into going back to school. Regional planning & landscape architecture at University of Pennsylvania; was throwing in law and business too – but that would require staying in school longer, so did the MS in two years & got out. Then forest resource planning for NY State in Albany. Loved the subject matter, hated the bureaucracy. After five years, it was either a PhD in resource economics or the stock market. The real world won out again. Went to work for Merrill Lynch in Albany and never looked back. That was 33 years ago. Now my oldest son is taking over, and I’m only doing a modest workweek there.

NOW: Starting a Christmas Tree farm just south of Saratoga Springs NY and love it. Dug ponds, built stone walls, rebuilt a 200-year-old timber frame barn, plant about 500 more trees every year. Going to build the (replacement) farmhouse this year. Keeps me in shape and out of the bars. Still writing poetry; maybe will try to get published if I can find the time. A couple of years ago, stumbled on the fact that Jim Towne and I have lived within 10 - 15 miles of each other since 1978, and neither knew it. (Told him it’s because I stay out of court!) So we go sailing together. What a gift to recover a fragment of your past - which I hope to do more of at our 50th DHS reunion!

Was married for 25 years; have been divorced for 19. Have three great kids who all moved away to explore the world, and have all recently moved back here. Married with children, so the way I look at it, I’ve got 6 kids, 5 grandchildren, with another on the way. Best part – they all like working at the farm. My simple plan is to live to 100 - with all systems functioning!

 

Garrett M - Garry Brown

Marital status: Married
Children: 4
Occupation: Actor/Writer ( and painting, too!)
Comment:

Gosh, not sure I can keep up with these reunions!  Had to forego my 40th college this summer to go to our family reunion in NH -!  Oh boy - but it was well worth it...again, thanks to everyone involved in putting together these events not to mention maintaining this website. Marie and I will do our best to be there in October, 2012 -- continued good health and blessings among us all,  Garry B.

J. Scott Brumit

Now Now
Marital status: Married
Children: 2
Occupation: Producer/Director/Singer/Voiceover
Comment: Married to Charlotte since 1971

2 Grand Children - Lilly Hanna Dowd and Jacob Brumit Dowd

Had a side career with Lotus Development Corporation/IBM for 15 years and now happily back in the music industry

General Director of Longwood Opera since 1986

Ta'i Chi/QiQong Instructor