Stephen Gunderson:  

Life In September 1963, after High School and a semester at the Jr College, I left Lancaster and moved to Las Vegas with my dad and his family. I went to work for a Propane Gas Company and drove a delivery truck. The route I was assigned was at the Atomic Test Site at Mercury Nevada. In December of 1964 I met my first wife, Gwynn. We were married on Feb 7, 1965. On April 1st, I quit my job and we moved to her home town of Santa Paula, back in California. The marriage didn’t last long and in June, we split up and I went back to Lancaster. We were in the process of getting a divorce in September when she was killed in a one car rollover. On December 24, 1965 Karen Lindsay (AV Class of ’64) and I were married in Lancaster. I had gotten a job with Northrop Aircraft, at Plant 42 in Palmdale, and Karen worked for J.C. Penney’s on Lancaster Blvd. We got an apartment and settled in to married life. In June of ’66 we went to Tacoma, Washington on a vacation to visit Karen’s family. She was very familiar with the area but I had never been there. Well, I fell in love with the mountains, especially Mt. Rainier, the Puget Sound and the fact that everything was green – not brown and dry. Boeing was hiring just about anyone who walked in off the street, so we decided to go home, quit our jobs and move to Tacoma. In October ’66 we moved north and found that Boeing had stopped hiring and was, in fact, laying off people. No job. And Karen was pregnant. And we had a new car with payments due. And no place to live. Oh, to be young again. We stayed with Karen’s grandparents while I looked for a job. After several weeks I was hired by the Navy Department at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington. As a Helper Pipefitter. I was making 5 cents an hour more that I had been at Northrop when I quit (that was $2.95). Over the next 30 years we lived in several of the suburbs around Tacoma and I pursued a career in civil service. Karen had a miscarriage in November of ’66 but was immediately pregnant again in January of ‘67. Our only child, Annmarie was born on October 7, 1967. Annmarie, our daughter had graduated from high school and, wouldn’t you know it, she moved...Expand for more