Michael Emmons:  

My story after Wells High and Catherine Kenison's story are one and the same. We started dating in Feb 1969. My plan before then was to go in the Navy to avoid getting drafted and going to Vietnam which was going hot then. Cathy's father convinced me that I should go to college. I applied to the University of Maine in May 1969 in their Engineering program. I was accepted and moved to South Portland to attend the Portland Campus (now University of Southern Maine). This was a commuter campus. Tuition was $250 the first year and jumped to $425 the second year. I couldn't figure out how I was going to pay that much. Cathy went to Westbrook College and lived with her Grandparents in South Portland, about 1/2 mile from me. It would be fair to say I spent 90% of my non-school time at her Grandparents. Cathy graduated in May 1971 and we got married in June 1971. We promptly moved to Bangor, Maine to finish my last two years in Engineering at the Orono Campus. Cathy worked for a Clothier in downtown Bangor. Upon my graduation in May 1973, we moved to Silver Spring, MD. Cathy didn't work and I started my first job at Vitro Laboratories in Silver Spring, MD who had contracts with the Navy to certify weapon systems on the FBM Submarines. They had an office on the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and I transferred there in Oct 1974. We lived in an apartment in York, Maine. Our daughter was born in September 1975. We bought our first home on Pine Ledge Drive in Wells, Maine in 1976. I was chosen to support an Extended Refit Period on an FBM Submarine in Rota, S...Expand for more