Bob Steiner, Jr:
CLASS OF 1967
Balboa High SchoolClass of 1967
San francisco, CA
Bob's Story
Where did nearly 50 years go? After Balboa I attended CSM for two years before transferring to the University of Oregon where I got my B.A. in Anthropology in 1971. That immediately qualified me to return to the grocery business which I had done part time while at CSM.
I worked at Safeway and Lucky mostly on night crews restocking the stores on the graveyard shift. In 1972 I married Penny Parsons who I'd met through a Bal classmate Paul Spechenhauer in 1968. We got back together after I moved back home in '71. Typical young married we lived in an apartment complex in San Bruno while both working in the City.
The 1973 to 75 energy crisis prompted us to move to SF where we rented a house right below the Sutro Tower literally under it as our non existent backyard was a vertical climb up Sutro mountain.
Not wanting to be a grocery clerk the rest of my life I had been exploring a number of para professional careers and discovered the Therapeutic Radiologic Technology program at CCSF. Accepted into the progran in the Fall of '75 I worked nights full time went to classes during the day for a year. When my clinicals started in '76 Penny supported us and I quit full time grocery work took a weekend darkroom job at St Francis MC to help pay the bills.
Finishing my training in the Fall of '77 we moved to Salem, Oregon, Penny very pregnant with our first child.
Our son Brendan was born Feb 18, 1978 however tragedy struck when Brendan died of SIDS only 11 days after he was born. You can imagine how devastated we were. No family around us but wow we did have the few friends we'd made in our 3 months there who rallied around us and forged bonds that stand even today.
Working through our grief took time. We got involved in two support groups, the Oregon Chapter of the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Foundation and the Compassionate Friends. Helping parents who lost children after us was a major part of our healing process.
Life goes on and time dulls the pain of such a great loss and we went on to have 3 subsequent sons, Aidan Conar was born December 13, 1979, Gavin Kyle arrived September 23, 1982 and with a little help from our family OBGYN I brought Colin Elliott into the world on July 11, 1984. All have turned out to be outstanding young men.
We lived in a suburb of Salem from 1979 to 1988. I was a Staff Radiation Therapist at Salem Hospital and Penny, who did temp work with Kelly Services eventually became manager of the Salem branch, eventually opening two satellite branches as well.
1988 saw ...Expand for more
a move to Redding.the boys were preteens at the time and wondered what they had done to be pulled from the mild rainy climate of the Willamette Valley to the heat hole of Northern California. They arrived in Redding August 1988 in the middle of a usual heat wave. It was at least 110 degrees that day.
Out move brought us closer to family in the Bay Area. Close enough to visit on a regular basis at least.
My RT career took some interesting twists. While the family remained in Redding I was hired to start a new cancer treatment center in Klamath Falls Oregon about a three hour drive north. While I enjoyed the challenge of bringing a new facility to life K Falls was not to be a long term committent. Preferring to remain in Redding so the boys could all go through the same high school experience I took a career track that would see me traveling the country plying my trade as a locum tenens RT.
From early 1990 to 2006, with one year spent commuting to Red Bluff in my second new facility start up, I worked as a traveling RT for facilities experiencing staff shortages, or needing vacation or maternity coverages.
During that 16 year period I worked in 15 different states in 4 dozen cities and 52 facilities. Assignments varied in time from a few days to months.
I also found myself concerned about getting assignments regularly so I substitute taught during slow periods
That experience led me back to the classroom as a student. At Simpson College,(now University) in Redding I acquired an Elementary Education Credential. However instead a changing careers, Radiation Therapy still paid more and with three boys approaching college years I never did become a teacher.
Fast forward to the 21st Century. More travel, a failed marriage and self imposed exile in Pennsylvania. Divorced in early '08 remarried soon after life changed dramatically.
Career as an RT ended in '11. Warehouse work at Lowe's for a couple of years until I lost that job. A second failed marriage, return to California to heal and find myself once again.
Now I have resettled back in Redding. Again close to family but not too close. Now I take life one day at a time. I follow a Buddhist like life with much reflection and contemplation. When needed I go the Roseville and help Aidan and Jessie with the two year old twins. Life is good. Every day a gift. I look forward to the 2017 reunion. Maybe they will,let me MC it like I did for the tenth. Got lots of new material. Drop me a note if you want more details of what as I have been doing.
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