Larry Riggs:
CLASS OF 1957
Excelsior Union High SchoolClass of 1957
Norwalk, CA
Larry's Story
Life
(6-15-2020) Update. Mary passed away from cancer on Feb 1, 2018. Today I am living alone in Newbury Park, but trying to find a lady with whom I can live out my sunset years. I am still in good health. I am going hiking in the morning tomorrow with my latest lady friend, Judy, and tomorrow evening we're having dinner at my house, followed by a movie.
With a pandemic raging. I can't travel, but I am travel-horny. Maybe in a few months, I'll be able to start with short auto trips and eventually venture into air travel. However, I refuse to travel alone. It must be with a lady. Check out Christmas letters on riggsca.com, which contains lots of photos and stories about life in the Riggs family. I miss Mary but I'm not depressed. I feel hopeful and positive. You can easily find and contact me on Facebook.
(4-23-2014) After graduation from Excelsior in 1957, I spent three years in the Army becoming a Russian linguist and then graduated from UC Riverside in 1965 with a Russian degree.
I met Mary in my senior year at UCR, we married in 1966, and we've been together ever since. She's my friend, lover, and confidante. She's been a stabilizing force in my life and has taught me so much, but as any teacher knows, not every lesson takes. Alan Jackson expresses it well in song: "I'm a work in progress."
Our four children are Cathy (69), an LAPD sergeant, Jenny (70), a lawyer, Brian (73), a programmer with Adobe in San Francisco, and David (80), a web developer and "affiliate marketer" with Experian in Irvine. During my Army stint I fathered Volker (64) in Germany; he tests drugs for Accovion in Frankfurt.
Volker was raised by his German mom and stepdad. He and his girlfriend Marion came to the U.S. for Jenny's 1999 law school graduation and Cathy's 2003 wedding. Mary and I attended Volker and Marion's wedding in Germany in 2006. Their first child Alexander was born Jun 7, 2011, whom I met a year later.
Cathy married Kirk (also an LAPD sergeant) in Aug 2003, and Tori was born Jan 18, 2007. However, the marriage failed; Cathy and Tori came to visit us just before Christmas 2010. Shortly after her arrival, Cathy said, "I'm not going back." A year later the divorce was final and their beautiful new $636K Valencia home had been sold in a short sale. Cathy sobbed, "I'm 41 years old and have nothing." But she did have Tori, whom she loves unconditionally; Cathy is the most loving mother I have ever met.
Cathy had been off work for 8 months starting in Jul 2010, after surgery to remove a golfball-size melanoma from the left side of her face. She went through debilitating daily chemo, and then in Apr and Sep 2011, she underwent two outpatient cosmetic surgeries to repair the hand-size wound to her face. Kirk's seeming lack of compassion during this time is a primary cause of the divorce (a second cause is his tendency to spend more than he earns). Weakened by the chemo, Cathy would collapse on the landing, part way up the stairs; only after a rest, could she get to the top of the stairs. Yet Kirk still wanted her to do his laundry and keep the house clean. Since then, Kirk has accepted his fate; he even remarried on Apr 1, 2013 (a fateful day, many feel), and regularly has Tori on weekends. Tori loves her mom and her dad, and has the support of Mary, me, and Kirk's mom Kathy, who lives locally and dotes on her granddaughter.
Jenny, a 1999 Northwestern Law School graduate, worked 11 years for Jones Day in Los Angeles, but quit her job in 2010. Enjoying her freedom from stress, she traveled, took classes in pottery and German, but finally decided it was time to rejoin the work force. In Feb 2013 she became a member of the Meyers Nave team in downtown Los Angeles. We see little of her now because her work is more feast than famine. She lives in Altadena.
Brian joined Intuit's TurboTax division after graduating with a Computer Science degree from UCSD in 1995. Seven years later, dot-com stock options in hand, he quit his job and traveled around the world, meeting his future wife along the way. In La Jolla in Dec 2004, Brian married Marion from Munich; they had been cooking partners on a roughing-it journey through west Africa two years earlier. A job offer from Macromedia, later acquired by Adobe, brought them to the Bay Area soon after their marriage. Lucie was born on Jan 1, 2007, and twins Jamie and Nicky on Sep 24, 2009. The fi...Expand for more
ve live in Berkeley. Marion, though often exhausted from her mothering tasks, continued work on her Graphic Arts degree from the SF Academy of Art, and graduated just before Christmas of 2011. She now works part time and knows that full time work as a graphic designer will eventually come as the children grow older and become more independent. Marion's parents Klaus and Christine are not infrequent visitors to the Bay Area. Many summers, including the summer of 2014, the five have been able to visit Marion's parents in Pullach, seven miles south of Munich.
David, a UCSB Computer Science graduate, created his own company some years ago and embarked on affiliate marketing, an arcane field involving the creation and monetization of web ads to promote services or products. Along the way he met and partnered with entrepreneur Geoffrey Arone, then the owner of SafetyWeb.com. After David helped add value to the site, Geoffrey persuaded Experian to purchase SafetyWeb, and from the end of 2011, both Geoffrey and David have been earning generous salaries as employees of Experian in Irvine. David has a home in Santa Monica, but during the week lives in a "loft" in Irvine to reduce the commute. During evenings in Irvine he and Geoffrey work on a variety of side projects that could yield them huge profits in the near future. One of these involves mining Bitcoins. Heavy stuff!
When computer programming was in its infancy back in 1966, I applied for a programming job at a major bank in LA. From the moment they hired me and I wrote my first program, I knew I had discovered my life's work. "I can't believe they actually pay me to solve puzzles all day," I have wondered many times.
Programming has taken our family from SoCal to Sacramento, New Jersey, and England. I have programmed computers from JPL to Germany, and welcomed every new challenge the profession has thrown at me.
The stock market boom of the late 90s enabled me to retire comfortably at 61. But I can't get away from computers and they remain my life. I spend time learning new skills, developing web sites, and helping others purchase and more importantly set up computers, guided by a 200+ page document I have written on the topic.
I maintain three websites. One is for our homeowners association. A second is a family web site, riggsca.com, where I post photos, slide shows, Christmas letters, and more. Finally, at maryriggs.com, CSUN students have been able to access Mary's class materials, assignments, and such.
Mary looks around at high school reunions and jokes, "You know I'm your trophy wife."
Indeed she was a naive 19-year old and I the experienced Army veteran when we met. I worked quickly to share with her all I had learned (and thus bring her down to my level). I took her to the UCR library and showed her the Dictionary of American Slang, where we studied words in the "sex and food" section. As I explained "banana" to her, I felt a corresponding anatomical response, one I gratefully still get today when I'm with her.
Mary retired in 2003 from high school teaching, worked for many years as a near full-time instructor at CSUN, teaching English composition and "freshman seminar" classes. Her 4.8 rating on ratemyprofessors.com is a testimony to her skills and rapport with students. She's a natural born teacher, with an MA in Linguistics and decades of experience teaching English as a Second Language. Bilingual, having been an exchange student in Argentina when in high school, she's a passionate and articulate spokesperson for the underprivileged. But a month from now, in May 2014, she will retire, for good, from all teaching!
In 1997, Mary was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent surgery, chemo, radiation, and breast reconstruction. Now a 17-year survivor, she is cancer-free, loves life, and is a poster child for positive thinkers.
I'm in great shape, hiking and working out to keep fit.
We've traveled west and east and south, with visits to over 50 countries. Summer of 2014 will find us in London with Cathy and Tori for four days, Romania on a tour for 11 days, and finally in Frankfurt for 3 days to visit Volker, Marion, and my 3-year old German grandson Alex, whom I last saw in 2012. Life has been a varied and rich journey. We've nurtured our children. They know we will be there when they need help or simply need a friend. I can't ask for anything more.
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