Harry Mason:
CLASS OF 1977
Kempsville High SchoolClass of 1977
Virginia beach, VA
Kempsville Jr. High SchoolClass of 1977
Virginia beach, VA
Harry's Story
(2020) Back home Livin' at the Beach after 40+ years. My Dad and four siblings are all here in VA (VBeach, Chesapeake, Mechanicsville, and Massanutten).
I went to VTech in Fall '77 and got crushed in a head on with a VW bus on my 10 speed in my first quarter of aero engineering school. In '79, I took a Civil Service Co-op job at Wright Patterson AFB in Ohio with the F-111 engineering group. After one quarter there and another back at VT, I transferred to ODU to take a Civil Service transfer and work at NAS Norfolk with the A-6 engineering group. I joined friends in Theta Chi fraternity and alternated work and school semesters.
In 1981, my Dad's Civil Service position took him to London for what turned out to be 11 years. Some of my siblings and I were still young enough to go along as dependents, so I dropped everything and spent a year in England.
Before England, I had spent a couple of weeks in Texas with my sister and husband who'd just relocated there and liked it enough to tie up loose ends in VB and move there after England in '82..
I transferred schools again to UTexas and finished my degree there. While at UT I became active in campus christian
groups like Campus Crusade and the Navigators. I spent four months in the mountains of southern France helping build a christian summer camp then returned to Texas. After graduation, I spent a year at a french speaking Bible Institute in Quebec and considered full time mission work. Instead, I got an engineering job at Hughes Aircraft doing flight simulator work.
In 1985, I got married and had a daughter in '87 and a son in '89. In '95, I took the family back east for a job at MCAS Cherry Point NC at the AV-8B Harrier flight simulator facility. I traveled to MCAS Yuma AZ to support the same simulators there. I also did some work for the F-18 simulators at MCAS Miramar CA.
In '04 my marriage ended and I quit my job to spend a few months back home to sort things out. I got a call to do Apache helicopter simulator work for L-3 in Kentucky and relocated there in late '04. During four years there, I also helped Bourbon County start a wrestling program as coach at their middle and high schools.
When my Mom was beginning to struggle with RA in '08, I moved back home for a couple of years and took a job with SAIC in Suffolk at the Joi...Expand for more
nt Forces Command's Modeling and Simulation branch doing simulation concept development.
In early 2010, I asked for a transfer with SAIC to Florida and worked on the Army's SE Core program in Orlando doing M1A1 tank and Apache helicopter simulator stuff. In 2012 I took a different job with Jacobs ASG at the Marine Corps' simulation program office doing vehicle simulator stuff.
In 2014, I got laid off and went back to VB until late 2015, when I got a call to work back in Orlando at Lockheed on one of their missile programs. In late 2018, I asked Lockheed to transfer back to VA to do flight simulation work when an opportunity came up. I've been back working in Suffolk and living at the beach since then.
So much for the resume timeline. Here we are in our 60's wondering where the time went. I have been blessed to
experience and learn so much, and to survive my biggest mistakes. I'm satisfied with the things I've accomplished and with who I've become. There have been some tough times, but I keep in mind that in the world's grand scheme I've had it pretty easy as a middle class American growing up in the Space Age. A lot of my childhood friends risked a lot in the military while I stayed safe in a support role. I salute them and the people in my family who've served in all the branches of service.
I'm proud of my kids and grandkids. I have a daughter and two granddaughters in NC and my son is surfing and working on the southeast coast of FL. It all goes by so fast and as we get to the point in our lives where we focus more on where we've been it's good to take that look back. I recently spent a lot of coronavirus free time scanning all the family slides my Dad took of our early years in Arrowhead and all the fun years growing
up in Kempsville. Some of them ended up on my Facebook page.
Classmates who had the same experience know that it was the best of times. Some of us are already gone and more leave all the time, but I'm glad that there are still many of us around Kempsville who share the memories and familiar feel of our town. I go back to the old neighborhood from time to time and have slowly become more acquainted with them both after spending most of my life away. I hope to see more of our classmates and look forward to sharing memories and greetings while we're still around.
Register for Free to view all details!
Yearbooks
Reunions
Photos
