Richard Loon:
CLASS OF 1965
Taylor Center High SchoolClass of 1965
Taylor, MI
University of Michigan - EngineeringClass of 1970
Ann arbor, MI
Cass Technical High SchoolClass of 1965
Detroit, MI
Taylor Junior High SchoolClass of 1961
Taylor, MI
Edgewood Elementary SchoolClass of 1959
Taylor, MI
Richard's Story
Life
I spent my early years growing up in Taylor. My Dad worked at Ford, a 15 minute drive to the Ford Dearborn Design center. I remember watching the thunder clouds in summer, chasing the fire flies on the summer nites, jumping in the leaves in the fall, and building igloos in the back yard in winter time. I shared a Detroit News paper route with a friend, Jimmy Terry down the street during my junior high years. Went to boy scout meetings and their annual jamborees.
I remember doing hall guard duty in the 4th grade with Larry Hinton at Edgewood Elementary, which is no longer there. I went the Taylor Junior High then in the 9th Grade at Taylor High School, my parents transfered me to Cass Tech, a trade tech high school in Detroit for the last couple years of high school. From Cass Tech, it was an easy move to the University of Michigan where I really had to study. I followed the technical interests of my Taylor Junior High School buddies Norm Alred and Arthur Ambrus and chose Electrical Engineering. In hind sight, I think I should have chosen Mechanical Engineering but I had no idea of what I was really interested in.
After grinding thru at U of Mich, I follow thru on my Naval ROTC commitment and spent two years in the Navy... seeing the world. I had a nice tour of duty in the Pacific, visiting Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, and Hawaii. My first ship was stationed in San Diego, where I experienced my first Christmas without snow. It felt very strange.
Military
Joined the Navy ROTC at University of Michigan. Had an interesting experience in 1968 during a Midshipman cruise. After President Nixon flew by for a missile launch exercise, an unknown sub alert went out and we on the destroyer watched the massive nuclear carrier Enterprise quickly speed away.
After completing college, the Navy sent me to the Pacific Fleet as a junior Damage Control Officer on a small escort carrier, USS Bon Homme Richard on duty at Yankee station in 1970. The carrier was home based in San Diego. I arrived on the ship after the crew had ordered their stuff to take home at the end of the tour. Otherwised I would have ordered my first motorcycle to be brought back with a thousand other stuff loaded on the carrier in the Philippines for the return trip to the US. I was assigned to the carrier for a year before it was decommissioned.
Then I was transferred to an destroyer USS Henderson, based in Long Beach, California and did another tour of duty in Vietnam. The ship performed shore bombardment and carrier escort duty. I enjoyed the night ops as a junior officer of the deck, where our ship served as part of the carrier screening force and as plane guard duty following the carrier in case anyone or any plane fell in the ocean during flight ops. Night ops was usually quiet.
Career
Since I was in the Reserves, I was discharged early from service in 1972 after President Nixon started reducing manpower levels. I lived in Long beach so I found engineering work nearby at Hughes Aircraft Co's Space & Communication (satellite) division in El Segundo. Later, I moved about the company to their Missile group working on the Phoenix missile & AMRAM, and then switch to their Electro-optics group in Culver City to be closer to my fiance, Jenny Shen, who was staff engineer with the Space & Comm division. Jenny was a rare find, she has a PhD from Cornell in Electrical Engineering, kind of rare at the time for women in professional fields. She speaks fluent Mandarin and plays the piano. But don't ask her which way is North.
We married in 1979 and were blessed with two boys, Josh & Tim. We were a dual income family putting our boys thru pre-school, then letting them enjoy different sports; tennis, gymnastics, swimming, etc before they went on to engineering college; UCSD and UCLA respectively.
I went thru a minor mid life yearning in the late 90's and bought a used 1100 cc, classic style, motorcycle from my boss, a collector of motorcycles. I rode it for approx 8 years before my back started having issues. It was fun to relive some of my earlier adventures on a 1970-ish Honda 450. I had a riding buddy, a fellow co-worker & engineer, who liked sport bikes. Yes, we were an odd couple, but we enjoyed the windy road called "Angeles Crest Highway" which we traversed on many early Saturday mornings, trying not to hit any squirrels running accross the road at 7 in the morning. Early moringin rides avoid a lot of the casual traffic that picks up around 9 am as couples & families take rides up the mountain to enjoy the views while trying to stay on a curvy, one lane highway. Following a line of cars on a motorcycle is a bit boring...
As of now, 2010, the boys are enjoying the single life, working & surfing. Jenny retired right after July 4th, Independence Day, after a 35 year career at Hughes Aircraft/Boeing and TRW/Northrop. ...Expand for more
As for me, I shifted to biomedical industry in early 90's after the Cold War era ended, and continued working in design and manufacturing as project engineer. The only issue is the 45 mile commute each way from home to Irvine, California.
I have picked up a few pounds thanks to my blood pressure medicine. But can't complain, most of my joints are still working. Yes, life has been good.
Jan 2011 Only a month after updating my story, we hit an interesting bump in the road. In October 2010, my wife was diagnosed with cancer. Then will recovering from a successful cancer surgery, she had a hemorrhage which put her in a coma for a few weeks. She is recovering but it will be a few more months before its clear what her deficits will be. Therefore, I have moved up my retirement plan to April. We will see what happens next....
Nov 2011 Wife was released to custodial care, meaning we can bring her home to be cared where it's quieter. I had work in progress for several months prior; adding a wheel chair accessible shower to our half bath downstairs, improving the room lighting, installing a stair lift, adding a ramp to exit the patio door to her room, while upgrading the other bedrooms; recess ceiling lights, eliminating the pop corn ceilings, changing the interior doors, tear down dry wall to add insulation, then painting the rooms. The only task remaining when she came home was cutting out an opening in the living room wall so she could access our side yard thru new french doors. Two days before she came home; the hospital bed, wheel chair, walker, and commode chair were delivered. She had her trach tube removed in Sept. After being home a week, her feed tube was removed. One of the challenges in caring for her is she can't tell us what she needs and going to the bathroom is one of them. In the meantime, I retired to stay home and care for her. A hired caregiver assists me during the day. On weekends, we don't need care givers, since there is enough family around.
Apr 2012 Not much changed in my wife abilities. She is not able to express herself and is confused about where she is. Fortunately, she seems to recognize who we are. Since her cognitive functions are slow, she doesn't qualify for insurance paid therapies: speech, occupational, and physical. However, that doesn't stop us from trying every day. We continue to hope that she may get there some day.
2014 ----- Updated July 2017
My wife retired in July, and a couple months later in October, just before we were to go on a Eastern Med cruise, she was dealing with colon cancer followed by a brain aneurysm; specifically Subarachnoid Hemorrhage (SAH). Bleed filled the space between brain and the skull, and brain shuts down. Her cancer tumor was removed. The subsequent hemorrhage left her in a coma for 2 months at UCLA, then slowly waken over several months. Her loss of various functionality reflected the amount of damage that occurred: speech, mobility, balance, vision, and responsiveness were all diminished. But what remain was enough for us to enjoy that she was still her self inside. I skip the long 4 year ordeal from hospital to nursing home to home care. The cancer came back . Doctor said she was too weak for treatment. In April she was classified as terminal with six months to live. In May, her siblings hung out with her during week in Monterrey. In June, I and our two boys took her to Yellowstone for our last family vacation together. She passed away in Sept.
Eight months, later in 2015 my father passed away followed by his older brother in August.
2015
A maniac year: two funerals, totaled a new car in between funerals, while wondering why I'm still alive and what am I suppose to do alone. I always loved to travel, so I went on a couple church mission trips with friends: one to Bolivia and another to China. Felt totally handicap by language.
But it was also a year that I met someone special two weeks after totaling the car, three weeks after my dad passed away, and just before my two mission trips. Emily is from Taipei, a missionary and pastor to Hong Kong and to Taiwan, single, no children, and a bundle of energy. We engaged in August, married 6 months later. And seems like the honeymoon has not ended. Yes, we did have a honeymoon: Florida, Caribbean, Texas. Emily obtained her MBA and later two seminary degrees from Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS). LIke my previous wife, Jenny, Emily is a book worm. Since then I been to Taiwan 3 times and China one more time. I finally went with her to Israel, a trip Jenny and I had to postpone in 2010.
2017
I now live with Emily in Irvine California. Helping out at church with administrative stuff. and recovering from the 13 hour trans pacific travels. Hope some day to visit the Philippines, that I once visited in 1970.
Will I ever learn Mandarin? we'll see....
Richard
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