Wade McDonald:
CLASS OF 1970
Mclane High SchoolClass of 1970
Fresno, CA
University of California - ForestryClass of 1976
Berkeley, CA
Fort Miller Junior High SchoolClass of 1967
Fresno, CA
Fresno State College Laboratory Elememtary SchoolClass of 1964
Fresno, CA
Wade's Story
Life it's been a gift i survived being 19 and 1A in the draft and not going to Nixon's War by almost killing myself on a motorcycle. as all 19 year olds, i felt invincible and being STUPID, (having not yet graduated from college!), i wasn't wearing a helmet. after the accident i was sent home to die by the doctor in the hospital emergency room. he said i had a concussion. 10 hours later i went into convolutions, luckily my mother was at my bed side, and got me a 2nd ride of the day in an ambulance to saint agnus hospital. when the neuro-surgeon started surgery i was near death. i was then unconscious for ten days and came to paralyzed on my left side. with much physical therapy i learned to walk for the 3rd time in my life, this was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. 5 months later i joined the real world and went back to school. spent a couple years at fresno city college and then transferred to CAL (University of California, Berkeley) where i got a B.S. degree in Forestry.
i feel very lucky to be growing old. every year since my motorcycle accident has been a gift. my sister Jane feels the same about growing old too. she broke her neck at age 24, didn't end up paralyzed or dead from it.
i worked as a Licensed Professional Forester in reforestation, timber harvest and urban forestry for 22 years for both private industry and the state of california. while working for CDF I worked in a grant program which gave grants to cities to plant trees. I made sure Fresno and Clovis got their share of grant money. i retired from the State in 1999 and since then have worked for myself. the past 9 years i've really used my forestry education sequestering CO2 in trees and hay and rehabilitating an over grazed ranch In central British Columbia on the Bulkely River that had been over taken with noxious weeds. thank god for herbicides. saw my first gray wolf on the ranch in the spring of 2011), five years ago almost ran into a grizzly on an ATV on the banks of the Bulkley River. that scared the crap out of me. also, saw a wolverine on the Suskwa River. I don't go anywhere on the ranch without a rifle and a dog. in the summer (2013) I was sleeping in one sunday morning when my wife comes into our bedroom and shouts there's a porcupine under the truck. I jumped out of bed and said "where's my gun". ...Expand for more
my wife said "your not going to shot it are you?" I said "in the name of ED Stone (professor of forest ecology at UCB) I have to shot it!!!!" he use to preach that all foresters should carry a gun and if they had a chance they should shot porcupines because they girdle pine trees and can really screw up a pine plantation. I rushed out the door and shoot it. later that afternoon my wife found a cow with 120 quills in its face.
i've been married for 38 for years to a montana native, who i met while working for the california state lands commission in sacramento. my wife, Merrianne, retired as a bean counter after 35 years with the state of california in September 2011. we have two sons, the youngest age 28 who graduated from Cal in 2010 with a major in English and the other age 29, was in the Coast Guard until August 2011, and was in Alaska for almost 2 years where he froze his ass off, and then thoued out in San Diego for a couple years. after 4 years in the military he decided that an education is very important. he went back to school on the GI bill.
In School:
Ms. Blumenthal was the best teacher i had at McLane, she inspired me the most. she convinced me to go to a "REAL" University and to discipline myself once in college. i sure wasn't disciplined while in high school. At Cal a few of the Forestry Professors were brilliant. one, Paul Zinke was talking about carbon sequestration in the 70's, at least 20 years before anyone else.
best school times were before Billy Pagel was killed in a car accident in october 1967. we had lots of fun the summer before his death. drinking colt 45 and joy riding in our mother's cars without drivers licenses. Now that its in the past, college in berkeley was great. the best part of my forestry education was "Cal Forestry Summer Camp" in Meadow Valley in Plumas County. 10 weeks of Forestry classes out in the woods before entering upper division study. at summer camp I remember the gallon of ethanol that Steve Sweetwood provided to everyone to use as vodka to make screw drivers and Tom Fisher getting very drunk at the 100 year anniversary of Greenville. Bruce Cotterill and me then dumping Tom into his dorm room at 1a.m. and then throwing rocks onto the metal roofs of the 2 dorms to wake everyone up, and laughing all the way back to our tent frames.
Go Bears!
Wade
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