Dave Housteau:
CLASS OF 1976
Ursuline High SchoolClass of 1976
Youngstown, OH
Youngstown State UniversityClass of 1981
Youngstown, OH
Chaney High SchoolClass of 1976
Youngstown, OH
Girard High SchoolClass of 1976
Girard, OH
Saint Rose SchoolClass of 1972
Girard, OH
Dave's Story
Why am I doing this? It is partially due to all those spam emails received from this site that finally wore me down, but also because I have managed to miss every class reunion from every school I have attended. So, for anyone out there that actually reads this stuff, here you go.
50, yikes it is hard to believe, but true. At 17, or 18 a person 50 years old looked to be old beyond those years, yet now actually having just turned 50 (and now I am close to 52 - double yikes) I don't feel much different in body, thought and mind from when I was in my 20s. I am still not sure exactly what it is I would like to do when I grow up. Maybe by then I will know, but no promises :). Where has the time gone?
For me it hasn't been an exceptionally wild ride, but one somewhat more subtle, yet filled with lots of interesting surprises along the way. I was pretty quiet in high school with a low profile, not one to run with the ultra popular crowd yet not without a good bunch of friends either. I read stories and articles in different places where people write that those were the best times of their lives. You won't find me writing that, and I often wonder about people that write as though they peaked at 17. That is pretty sad when you think about it.
Sure I look back at some good times and wonder how so and so is after all this time, or what ever happened to whomever, but to wish I was back there again, not going to happen. Life is too short to keep looking back. Memories are great, but current daily life is better.
Now, if I could go back and keep everything that I have learned over all this time, that might be different. I am thinking of that movie 'Peggy Sue Got Married' here. I am sure many of us have thought a little along those lines from time to time.
I went to Youngstown State for 5 years right after Ursuline and managed some degrees. From there I moved to Florida and continued at Florida's Institute of Technology (FIT - now called Florida Tech.) chasing a Masters in Environmental types of Oceanographic study. Our 'great' ex-president Reagan had just closed down funding to environmental labs at the time, and so I realized that path was a futile one at best.
I had the education, but really didn't have a trade, or something to market well. So, from there I attended the technical branch of FIT where I picked up some Electronics, Computer Technology and of all things, Commercial Diving.
With technical skills I readily found work for a large commercial diving company in Louisiana in 1982, where I remain to this day. My company, Oceaneering Int. Inc., has sent me to interesting places around the world, but now I am happy to just work here in the Gulf of Mexico oil industry on a rotation where I basically have 6 months off every year. I am no longer getting wet, but rather supervising and operating advanced deep diving robotic submersibles. When you see or read about an aircraft going down and a black box recovery, salvage on the Titanic, Andria Doria, or raising the Civil War submarine the Huntly and Mercury 7 space capsule etc., well, basically that is my company doing these things.
I got married in 1995 to Nancy Filce, a local native to Thibodaux Louisiana where I have been living since 1983, or so. She is not just my wife, but also my best friend. We do not have any children and my work schedule does allow for large amounts of free time that we have no trouble filling. Truth be told, I don't have enough hours in the day to fit everything in.
Although I have the free time, I often cannot predict slots of time in the future which makes vacation planning near impossible. Nancy works the typical 8 to 5 thing and needs to know in advance to put in for such time off. So, as a result we usually take several short weekend type trips to some of our favorite places, such as Pensacola, which is only a 4 hour drive for us.
I was always very tall and thin in high school...Expand for more
, but started to become much more coordinated and athletic during my late college years. For the last ten years I have been heavily involved with the Western Martial Arts (WMA), and the Filipino Martial Arts (FMA) for the last three.
Most of you may not be familiar with what the WMA is and probably think of the orient when the term Martial Arts is mentioned. The WMA consists of European based fighting systems. My study has been with edged weapons, mostly swords and daggers. I continue to study, train, and sometimes compete with the many varieties out there including rapier, smallsword, cut & thrust varieties, short swords such as the Roman Gladius and 19 century cutlass etc. It is important to note here that this has nothing whatsoever to do with sport fencing. Not that there is anything wrong with sport fencing.
The Filipino Martial Arts (FMA) are more Asian, but their roots are European, Spanish to be more precise. So, that has been my interest in them. I am fortunate to have a friend and instructor that is one of the foremost edged weapon experts in the world. He has been on the History Channel and has just recently been commissioned by the Marine Corp to come and teach them how to fight with a knife. That says a lot right there. In fact he leaves tomorrow to teach a class of 30 instructors.
For those of you that remember me should recall my interest in small sports cars, MGs and Triumphs. Well, not much there has changed. In fact I still have my one MG that I originally bought in 1980. I have learned a bit about cars over the years, enough to rebuild my MG and to assemble a beautiful Shelby Cobra replica.
The Louisiana climate allows me to enjoy them all year round. When I was living in Ohio my MG had to be garaged for winter months. Oh, my dad just loved that. He was convinced that car was not long for this world. Now that I have had it for nearly 30 years and it remains in better than new condition, I enjoy pointing that out to him :).
Something else that has not changed much is my appreciation for music, more importantly, well recorded and reproduced music. I never had the talent for making it, but I always had been a good listener and critic of others. As the years went on I found that there was a proper term for this disease. It is called being an audiophile, or fine audio hobbyist.
My wife and I have a very modestly sized home at around 1600 sq/ft., but I was able to build a new room as part of a detached garage. I designed it for proper acoustics and its only purpose is as a dedicated listening space. If there is such a thing as a 'man cave', this is my 'man cathedral'.
The music I listen to was greatly influenced by my friends in high school. It naturally has expanded and changed some over the years, but I often find myself listening to the same or similar music as what I listened to back then. It has never left me. Those concerts, those strange smells and altered states, yeah, I guess I was wrong and looking back is not such a bad thing :). But seriously, the mid 70's was a time of some great music and concerts. I am glad to have been able to attend the few I was able to. Some hold legendary status today such as the 2112 tour of Rush.
A Postscript:
It has just been a year and a half since I first wrote most of this (winter 08) and started posting pictures here. I have now created two separate photo albums, one for newer pictures and one for the older. At first I felt foolish after seeing that most profiles on this site are usually very limited, such as just a few paragraphs if anything at all. Then, here I was practicaly writing a short story. But you know what? The contacts I have had from here since doing this has made it very worthwhile.
I had a rough idea of who I might run into doing this, but so far I have been 100% completely blindsided by those I never imagined finding me here. I wonder who will surprise me next?
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