Gary Blum:
CLASS OF 1962
Ingraham High SchoolClass of 1962
Seattle, WA
Gary's Story
What ever happened to that skinny kid with the endless sense of humor and overactive imagination? Well I'm still 6'2", but lost skinny a long time ago.
After graduating from Ingraham in 1962 I went to Everett JC and enlisted in the Naval Air Reserves where I finally found out that I really had an interest and aptitude for electronics. While attending EJC I met my wife, Pat (Pat Barnes, Shoreline Class of '62) and we were married in September of 1965.
In December of 1965 I was hired by IBM and we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and started my 30 year career. While there we had two kids, a girl and a boy. In 1974 we moved to Boca Raton, Florida and spent 2 1/2 years there. In December of 1976 I was promoted to Field Manager and we relocated to Orange County, California.
In 1980 after 12 years of life in the warm climate I took a promotion and we relocated to Rochester, Minnesota. In December of 1995 after a very interesting and challenging career I retired at age 51. Since then we have enjoyed our grandkids and done some traveling.
Three years ago we moved...Expand for more
35 miles north of Rochester to Lake City, Minnesota. Believe it or not..... Lake City, MN is actually the birthplace of water skiing. Lake Pepin is actually a 20 mile long lake between two locks on the Mississippi River. It's a great place to live.
In June of 2008 I was diagnosed with stage 4 esophagel cancer. That's when we were glad that we were here 35 miles from the Mayo Clinic. I couldn't have better care anywhere in the world. I was in remission for 10 months and then in September of 2009 it became active again. At this time I am back on chemo therapy and it will be a couple months before we know whether I'm making any progress. In retrospect...... I'm glad I retired at age 51. It now appears that that was a good choice. Over all, I've had a great life.
One of the only regrets that I have is that with all of our moving around I lost contact with so many good friends from the Class of '62. I have spent a great deal of time thinking about many of you and hope you are all doing well and have received as many blessings as I have over the last 65 years.
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