Russel Mack:
CLASS OF 1963
Highlands High SchoolClass of 1963
San antonio, TX
Kubasaki High SchoolClass of 1963
Okinawa,
Heidelberg Elementary School (Mark Twain Village)Class of 1963
Heidelberg,
Schenck Elementary SchoolClass of 1963
San antonio, TX
Rayburn Elementary SchoolClass of 1957
San antonio, TX
Russel's Story
Like many of my Classmates, I'm a product of WW-II, and I grew up a "military brat". Dad and Mom became "pen-pals" while he was a Navy Medical Corpsman in the South Pacific and she was a steno in the War Department. When his overseas hitch was up they met/married in San Diego, and I was born in the Navy Hospital the following April.
Dad went civilian for 3 years, and we lived mainly in southern Louisiana.
In 1949 he decided to go back in the service-- Army, this time-- and we moved to San Antonio. That Christmas I saw The Hill Country for the first time, and promised myself I'd live there someday.
For the next 30+ years San Antonio was the family "home"-- although we had to take an overseas assignment to Germany (Nurenberg, then Heidelberg) 1952-55, and another to Okinawa, 1958-60.
I hated school my first year-and-a-half (Raburn Drive, San Antonio); I knew I didn't need school, since I wanted to be a cowboy. Besides, I needed to spend more time with my dog! And my teachers thought I was worthless.
But when I got to Germany, my classmates and teachers started acting like I was special (wow!)-- my grades went up, and I was class president in 4th grade. Participated in my first sport: boxing (fast hands, clumsy feet!)
Then back to SA/ Raburn Drive, where I was "nobody" again (making good grades, though). Became interested in mechanical things, and baseball. Transferred to (the new) Schenck Elementary for 5th and 6th grades. Plenty of friends there, and my grades came up to straight-Ss. Began playing in the orchestra, and played on the championship Little League team. A couple of girlfriends-- Martha Rohrer the longest.
On to Hot Wells Junior High for 7th and the first half of 8th-- lots of friends, mostly straight-As, played in SA Junior Symphony, deep into model airplanes and rockets. Some Student Council.
To Kubasaki High (Okinawa) for 2nd half of 8th, 9th, and 1st half of 10th. Played a little football, discovered a talent for running (distance). No orchestra. Went nuts for "having fun", and my grades fell. Dated like crazy, and went to every dance. Wrote bawdy poetry about my schoolmates and teachers to entertain the kids who rode the schoolbus.
Home to Highlands High for 2nd half of 10th, 11th, & 12th. Back to being "nobody" again. Bummer. Poor attitude, poor grades. But my favorite teacher-- V. Schelper (English) encouraged me to become a writer.
From 1963-1966, I did my own Army tour. Nice adventure, but I didn'...Expand for more
t grow up very much. Korea.
1966-68, worked for an auto shop and attended San Antonio College. Officially, I was a Creative Writing major. Actually, I was a "party" major (mostly with long-time girlfriend Mary Margaret Higgins). Dropped-out and took a job I loved very much-- as a research technician for Southwest Research Institute (mostly doing automotive research and testing). Raced motorcycles-- flat-track, motocross, and enduro. Soon after, I met and married my wife (formerly Madalaine Caine-- daughter of a Marine Corps Major).
By the mid 70s-- with two kids-- we decided that a man w/o a degree just couldn't make enough money in SA-- so I went back to school (Trinity U.) and got an Engineering degree (mechanical)-- all the time working full-time.
I took a job with Dow Chemical Co. in Freeport, Texas, and we lived there from 1981-1997, when I took early retirement. During this time I did mechanical design, heat-transfer engineering, and non-destructive testing R&D. I represented Dow to two engineering societies, and represented the U.S. to two Working Groups of the I.S.O. (Note: with my experiences "overseas", I entered into this I.S.O. work thinking of myself as an "internationalist". During that time I found that to be a naive outlook, since the Europeans were using their EU "voting block" to overpower other nations in the I.S.O.) Got to do a lot of technical writing, and competed in "running" events (5k to half-Marathon) for 15 years.
Since 1997, I have been "semi-retired". I do consulting in industrial inspection regs, management systems, and technologies; I write formal inspection operating discipline; I train, test, and certify industrial inspectors; and I do some inspections myself.
From 2001-2003, I spent a lot of time with landspeed racing efforts at Bonneville; our car got 2 records in 2001, and (as rider) I broke an 11-yr old record for 650CC Production Motorcycles in 2003. (Chump from California broke my record a month later.)
From 1997-2005, I lived in Fresno, Texas. In 2003 I bought my piece of the Hill Country, and moved out here July 4th, 2005. Since then I've spent most of my time improving my "homestead". Paying work takes us back to the Houston area every month or so, and we get to spend time with our daughter, son-in-law, and 3 grandkids in Sugar Land.
I still have most of my racing equipment, and hope to get back to Bonneville someday.
P.S.-- be careful about asking a writer to "tell his story"!
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