Robert Thomas:  

I'm analytical and creative, not as a painter, but in my eye for seeing the way I want things to look and then doing what I can with the tools I have to make things that way. I think that I am remembered for my ability to work story book math, chemistry and physics problems. Do you know what I still am that way. If I'm going to work somewhere, I need to have coffee, carrots, and a bit of candy to be able to deal with the day-to-day. I like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I believe he had compassion and he helped the little guy when the little guy needed it most. You know there is another guy that also I think likes the little guy. I throw things, but never a live animal, a wife or a good friend! I relax by taking a warm shower, one of those sprayers that pulsate. I like to swim and ice skate, though there is some exercise in this way of relaxing. The wildest thing I did in school, was a summer band trip to Traverse City. I was about to enter 10th grade and was excited about this trip. We went by bus (maybe 2) to Cadillac with Mr. Ojala. He was really cool on a trip, and he loved going North, like several other Romeo teachers, like Joe Sullivan who lived there on weekends. The guys stayed at one lodge, a few miles away from the girls. We all went roller skating the first evening we were up North and after coming back us guys, freshmen wanted to relax, maybe walk to the girls cottages, ha! But our upper class-men had other ideas. You see they had lots of vaseline and shaving cream. What for? We were too young to shave. Well we found out that they had other ideas for us. They had us go outside and proceeded to make us take our pants and shirts off, leaving us with our clean undershorts only. And it was cold for July, in the upper 40°s. They had us nice looking mostly naked boys what the white line of the highway, while they greased our hair and shot shaving cream on us while we walked the line. We were never so glad to get back to our cabins and boy did we shower trying to get vaseline out of our hair. I am sure our chaperones were holding a tight one looking behind their cottage room curtains. If I'm going to work somewhere, I need to have coffee, paper , and pencil to be able to deal with the day-to-day. I have lived in several places. I was born in Detroit at Women's Hospital, moved to Romeo, Michigan at age 6 after having been in first grade in Detroit. We only lived there two months while our Washington, Michigan home was being finished, and where I lived until I graduated from high school. I went to school at Michigan State University in East Lansing, living there and in Lansing my college years. The same day I graduated from MSU, I grabbed a backpack, with sleeping bag and dress suit and hitchhiked to Florida. For a while I had wanted to live in the mountains and the other part where it was warm. Warm won. So I headed to Gainesville, Florida and went to an job interview at Shand's Teaching Hospital of the University of Florida, where I was hired and went to work within two weeks of graduation. I lived in Florida until 1981 when I accepted a job at the Veteran's Hospital of Indianapolis and worked there two years. A serious illness got me back to Michigan and I decided to go back to school in electronics and computers and moved to Port Huron, where I then lived for 15 years. I now live in Kenockee, Michigan, which sounds like a Upper Pennisula Michigan locale. But I'm not a Yooper. Kenockee is less than 20 miles away from Port Huron. The one person from my past who I'd most like to see again is John - Computer Guy at Shand's Job West, because Computer John because he helped me become interested in computers and Job West because I hated when his family moved to Chicago, to only see him one time afterward while short-order cook at Big Boys in Utica, Michigan. I am not sure what my biggest surprise, but sometimes I think there is a higher force. my wife and I both attest to this. On 9/11/2001 we were supposed to go to Flint. My wife's mom was living there at the time and we were going to visit her and Linda & I were going to get haircuts at Linda's favorite beautician. We a...Expand for more