David Matthew:
CLASS OF 1977
Lakeridge High SchoolClass of 1977
Lake oswego, OR
University of Florida - Liberal ArtsClass of 2003
Gainesville, FL
University of Wyoming - Arts & SciencesClass of 1996
Laramie, WY
San Francisco Theological SeminaryClass of 1986
San anselmo, CA
University of Oregon - Honors CollegeClass of 1982
Eugene, OR
David's Story
Life
From birth to 18, I grew up in an almost idyllic setting next to a forest and a cow pasture. Then that cow pasture was turned into Lakeridge HS, and the Douglas Firs of the dark forest now gaze haughtily down upon intruding McMansions. Can't blame people for wanting prime real estate, even though the bobcats and foxes I used to see are probably gone. Heck, I lived there, too, part of the suburban cancer/dream. Who couldn't love it? But who couldn't wish it returned, now, to wildness?
It makes me sad to know that some of the most beautiful places in the country are ruled and populated by some of the people who care least about retaining that beauty. The people in Oregon, thank God, care more than most people elsewhere.
I was voted "most brainy" in high school. Please. My brain was and is, at best, a little better than average. In HS, my mind and heart sought after God and love. I am now only certain of one of the two. For a while I was a fundie; but then, as Leon Wieseltier, the wisest writer I know, has put it, "The gates of figurative interpretation were opened in my face, and I grew up."
My best friend from High School, Karl Burden, died of a heart attack some years ago, while he was flying a kite on the coast, with a friend/sometime-lover. My first HS sweetheart is happy with her family of choice in Seattle. My second HS sweetheart made the national news recently and is happily neo-con. I still have good feelings for both.
I wasn't personally aware of the power of sexual attraction until my mid-20s. (Not too bright for a supposedly brainy kid.) Missed out on the 70s sex. (Yet again, if I told you who I experimented with in jr/sr hi, some of you might hire hit men.) Relax, people. The world and its creator are big, and so, so gracious.
I earned a Ph.D. at Florida in 2003, combining cognitive science with English literature.
Since Sept 04 I have lived near Washington, DC, with my family of choice: the one who asked me, on Christmas Eve 1993, to spend the rest of our lives together, and the dogs we have adopt...Expand for more
ed. He (my partner, not the dog) was a Minnesota Dairy Farmer's kid and then a Coast Guard enlistee. Now he's a State Department research geek. I applied for, but have found, no teaching jobs in DC, then worked for a year and a half for a medmal lawyer. In 2006, I switched jobs and now track and write research about medical school students and applicants.
In my dreams, the ones I remember, almost every one of them has mountains. Occasionally, in my dreams I can still fly. My first flying dream took me above our Lake Oswego rooftops, Douglas Firs, and fields of grass before the HS was built; I would brush the high wisps of the Dougy Firs with my fingertips.
I still can't fathom why it is that so many of us become our permanent selves in just a brief span during our teens, and why that short period keeps such a firm grip--for good or ill--on us throughout adulthood.
My father died of cigarette-induced emphysema in '87. I think about his life: a soldier in WW2, very young, and surviving hardships we can only imagine, even playing dead on a snowy field in Belgium just to survive. Then the war is over, he goes to school, becomes a teacher, moves to a teaching job in Lake Oswego. Life after war is "just gravy," he told my mother.
I'd like to talk to him about that recipe.
(Updated Thursday, January 30, 2009)
College
(I guess classmates.com thinks college ends at a BA degree?) College was a crazy time for me, emotionally. It started with appearing as an extra in Animal House Fall of '77. Hating school and my life, I took most of a year off in '79 to travel to Europe by myself. Returned to UO emotionally more stable. After graduation from UO in Comparative Lit, I went to San Francisco Theological Seminary and got an M.Div in '86. Years later, I went back for an MA in English from U Wyoming (94-96) and a PhD in English from U Florida (96-2003). Can't keep out of school, it seems. Now my secreet wish is to start over and either study environmentally friendly farming, or become a slacker mountain bike tour guide.
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