Richard Mansfield:
CLASS OF 1959
Redondo Union High SchoolClass of 1959
Redondo beach, CA
Hamilton CollegeClass of 1963
Clinton, NY
Richard's Story
Life
Starting in '59, I did four years at two colleges, switching majors often, and blowing a lovely scholarship in the process, but having an excellent time. I traveled in Europe six months on a Britrail and a Eurailpass, ended up camping in the Bois de Boulogne and bussing tables in Paris.
I was driving for UPS when Kennedy was shot, then got my draft notice and enlisted in Army Intelligence, hoping to become 008. I was spending two years safe in Saigon while they held the Watts Riots back here.
After my hitch, I drove back from Maryland in a camper, sharing an apartment in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, then on to Texas, working briefly on a ranch. While completing a 5th-year BA in '68, I did odd jobs like driving a roach coach, and welding, and built a camper named Ars Longa, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a hammock. Got jobs, quit, traveled.
I re-upped in the Reserves for the cash and beer and bull sessions, tacked on an MA and teaching credential via the GI Bill, and have worked on and off as a teacher since about 1974, burning out about every five years on average and relaxing into substitute teaching, which is cool (IÂm known in two districts as Sub Dude, because of my subdued personality). IÂve been doing that exclusively since 2000, semi-retired from both the Reserves and teaching.
In 1970, in San Pedro, I met and fell in lust with Jenia, a gorgeous nurse from Chile, and we've been together ever since. Her niece came over from Chile around 1990, and is now married, with twins - a boy and a girl, born in May 2000 - and we are totally nuts about the...Expand for more
kids. I had cheerfully subcontracted out parenthood, since Jenia already had a grown son, but he came up with a kid of his own in 2002, so I find myself a sort of honorary grandfather anyway. However, being a grandparent is not much responsibility, and is in fact kind of fun, so we both wallow in it happily.
IÂve worked as a teacher, computer trainer, Army instructor, realtor... and never found my "niche". It's like a boat; my two best days are when I get a job and when I quit it. There's not much financial reward to this, but there is at least novelty, I say, making a virtue out of choices made. A recent road trip to Yosemite is typical...
8/12/02: ... by the time I had gone too far to turn back, 120 is closed due to a rockslide. I stop at Chinese Camp for gas and news.
So now I am on 49, a white-knuckle road, and a county firetruck passes me, lights flashing. I see helicopters dropping lake water on smoke, and when I get to Coulterville there's a cruiser blocking the road.
Coulterville has a saloon built in 1851. A tattooed geezer is pounding on an old upright, there's Red Hook ale, I'm singing "You had a dream" - and och, I am in foin voice, the Long Beach Barbershoppers should see me now - along with the perfesser, who has been playing for about an hour by then, and through the dusty windows I can see cars moving up 49 again.
I pass the fire trucks and the blackened grass with a beery smile. I sign in at the hostel, get my bunk and a trail map for the next day, and there's still daylight to walk around! What a great day 'twas, after all!
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