Dave Bates:
CLASS OF 1966
Elkhart High School (thru 1972)Class of 1966
Elkhart, IN
Edwardsburg High SchoolClass of 1966
Edwardsburg, MI
Goshen High SchoolClass of 1966
Goshen, IN
Edwardsburg High SchoolClass of 1963
Edwardsburg, MI
Chandler Elementary SchoolClass of 1960
Goshen, IN
Dave's Story
My story, huh? How does one encapsulate six decades of life in 20,000 characters or so? Hell, I've probably met more than 20,000 characters during my life and it would require several volumes to describe even a few of them. So, how to begin?
As Bill Cosby would say, I started out as a child. Since this is a site dedicated mostly to school and what we've done since, I won't bore you with my preschool years and I daresay I don't remember enough about them to tell you much anyway. I started school in Milford, Indiana right in the First Grade. They didn't have a Kindegarten then, so it was Zipadeedoodah - right into the big leagues. I must have done okay or else I'd still be there. After about a year, my family moved up the road to Goshen. I spent my impressionable years either going to school or playing inside our fenced-in yard. I never quite figured out if the fence was there to keep me in or to keep me out if I ever escaped. It seems now like I spent a lot of years there, but in fact it was only around 4 - a mere blink of an eye in the grander scheme of things.
In the middle of the fifth grade, for reasons I still do not understand, I was sent to live with my grandparents in Elkhart. I loved them with all my heart but they were rather, shall we say, youthfully challenged. They were dear sweet people but they had about as much understanding of 10-year-old boys as I have about nuclear physics. They took excellent care of me but wouldn't let me do a lot of the things kids my age did, like play baseball and such. I was never athletic to begin with but I might have liked to at least try.
When I entered grade seven, I was back with my parents in Edwardsburg, Michigan. I spent seventh grade in a one-room schoolhouse in Adamsville. Only those of you who were in that same class can fully appreciate that experience. Edwardsburg Middle and High School was, for me, an exercise in adolescent angst. I was the class dweeb, the Geek of the Week, voted as the Ugliest Kid in the Class (honest). How I wish I could get a do-over for those years. I'd at l...Expand for more
east wear cooler clothes.
Grade Ten, sophomore year, my parents divorced and I moved once again. This time it was back to Elkhart and good old Elkhart High School (the only "TRUE" Blue Blazers). Three years of playing Mister Joe Average and I got my diploma, much to the shock and surprise of certain of my family members. Then I spent a year in the working world before deciding I wanted more than being a slave to the machine, so it was off to college.
Ball State University. The Sixties. Campus life with all its quirks. It was a great time to be young. Questions were there for the asking and answers were there for the taking. Like so many of my brethren, I questioned many tenets and tilted at many windmills. The world was our collective oyster. It took graduation to burst our bubbles.
So, what have I done since college? I married, had two daughters, lost one at the age of 8, went from one dead end job to another seeking the future they promised us in a different time. I divorced, moved back to Elkhart and more or less fell into my current career. I was offered a chance to become an environmental compliance administrator and jumped at it. That was 25 years ago and I still enjoy the work. Think of it - me, the class dweeb, telling multinational industrial giants they can't dump their toxins into our rivers and poison our kids. It's a great life.
I did remarry. We have five terrific granddaughters whom we adore. I managed to get a Master's Degree in Public Administration from Western Michigan University, straight A's thank you very much. I dabbled in writing fiction for a time, even got published a time or two, until my muse took a hike to parts unknown. I still have a couple of e-books floating around out there somewhere, but I doubt anyone has read either of them. I took up photography and actually got pretty good at it. Finally found something I can do.
So here I am, sixty years old, five years from Social Security, and I still don't know for sure what I want to be when I grow up.
Oh, one more thing - take the gun, leave the cannolis.
Register for Free to view all details!
Yearbooks
Register for Free to view all yearbooks!
Reunions
Photos
