Bob Dahl:
CLASS OF 1963
Niles West High SchoolClass of 1963
Skokie, IL
Bennett AcademyClass of 1998
Phoenix, AZ
Wellton Elementary SchoolClass of 1997
Wellton, AZ
Lake View High SchoolClass of 1960
Chicago, IL
Ravenswood Elementary SchoolClass of 1959
Chicago, IL
Bob's Story
The morning after graduation from high school, I left for Wyoming to work on my cousin's cattle ranch. In October 1963 I joined the Air Force and retired in 1990. I have been married for 40+ years. I have one daughter and two stepsons. I graduated from ASU West in 1995 with a degree in secondary education majoring in social studies and general science. This in itself was a great if not an amazing feat as I just barely made it through high school. I plan to retire in 2010 or 2011.
I moved to Phoenix, Arizona originally in 1971 and basically have called this home ever since. As you can see from my communities, I have spent much of my life in a variety of locations around the globe. With this, learning different languages became an on-going necessity. First I studied Thai while during my visit to Southeast Asia. I picked up a bit of German while working with a German Air Force unit for 5 years in Arizona and living in Germany for 3 more years. Additionally, I had the chance to delve into the Dutch language for a couple of years. Imagine that and I thought that my one year of Latin was hard and confusing in high school. Then at the end there is the fact of living in Arizona and the Mexican-Spanish speaking residents there.
After being on the road with the Air Force for 20 plus years, I have learned first-hand just how lucky we are to have all the freedoms that we do. If only people would could really understand this. There will always be someone who wants to change us and we view this as our enemy. Sadly, now we find that our greatest enemy is not some other nation or government but simply ourselves. We need to wake up and stop giving our country (enough preaching).
We all at some point in time will experience irony in some manner or another. For me, it was after all the moving around the globe I did in the military, my daughter married the son of someone that I had graduated with from Niles West TWP High School while we were stationed in Germany.
HIGHLIGHTS IN MY LIFE
Some of the notable people I have known and or had the pleasure of meeting:
1. Jim Hart (NFL quarterback)
2. Jeanie Crain (act...Expand for more
ress)
3. Tommy Smothers (comedian)
4. Bob Gibson (folk singer)
5. Tommy Overstreet (country singer)
6. Dan Haggerty (actor)
7. Ross Martin (actor)
8. Joan Baez (folk singer)
9. Chuck Yeager (X-1 test pilot)
10. Roger Miller (country singer)
11. Hank Sauer (MLB baseball player)
12. Neil Armstrong (astronaut)
13. Dave Guard (singer - Kingston Trio)
14. Bobby Bare (country singer)
15. Don Williams (country singer)
16. Glen Campbell (country singer)
17. Jack Jones (pop standard singer)
18. John S. Kemper (Kemper Insurance)
19. Helen O'Connell (singer/actress)
The two most regrettable mistakes I ever made:
1. After the assassination of JFK I wrote Jacklyn Kennedy a letter of condolence and in return she personally replied saying Thank You. Not realizing how important the letter would become I read it and like any other normal 18 year old discarded it in file 13. I guess now I can say OOPS!
2. After hearing that I had enlisted in the Air Force, my God Mother talked to her father James S. Kemper about possibly getting me an appointment to the Air Force Academy. This he did without any mention to me about his political maneuvering. And so it had been arranged through his political connections. At the time this took place, I was not too keen about the idea of making a career of the military and promptly turned down the generous appointment offer when it was made known to me by my squadron commander. Oh the choices young people make when in the moment of negative passion. I guess this is another one of those moments of OOPS!
II guess that I proved all of the adults from my formative years correct as per my education. I remember how all of them kept telling me that if I were to do my homework, study harder, and become more serious, I would get better grades. I guess that they were all correct. From a 1.1 GPA graduating from high school, I improved it to a 3.6 graduating from ASU. Gee, I guess that adults were correct part of the time. From hating school in high school, to loving it in college, I think it must be that attitude thing everyone keeps talking about.
More to be added at a later date.
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