Terrance Stuart:
CLASS OF 1970
Mclane High SchoolClass of 1970
Fresno, CA
Sierra Junior High SchoolClass of 1967
Fresno, CA
Terrance's Story
Hi all, this is "Terry Stuart", used to run a little cross-country and track. Right now I live in PA with my lovely wife Wen Xian of 4 years. She and I live alone here. My children from my first marriage live in TX where I resided for years. I work for the Department of the Air Force, have traveled a lot, and currently run a Readiness Center.
My daughter Lori is graduating in May with a DO degree and has a 4 year residency waiting for her. Jeff is doing some teaching in West Texas. We live active lives and own several homes here and missed out on the market crash, and are doing okay in today's uncertain environment.
My wife is a singer, and English is her 6th language. She was an extra in a couple of movies when she lived in CA, Be Cool was one and Terminal the other. She is a joy to be with.
We are remodeling one of our houses, and that keeps us very busy. I honestly couldn't have predicted my life when I left High School, I have lived in Europe, worked in a tent in the Middle East, and participated in an event that inspired War Games and has been detailed on the history channel.
New updates include a trip of one month to the Yunnan Province of China. Saw tourist sites like Jing Hong, Dali and Lijang; the latter two are world heritage sites. Was about 8 hours shy of being able to get up closer to Tibet and vist a tribal group of women who practice free love, the wife suggested that it might be problematic. We got married in her families village of Cao Di for the second time, had 300 plus guests who participated in the wedding. Food was special, I was fed the best parts of what was available, which there consist of eyes, brains, gonads, filled intestine, and the like. Year old dried pork in blood resulted in dysentery, but the donkey and do was better than I exacted. Yak was okay, and the pork was fresh, as were the barnyard fowl. They freely make their own hootch, a concoction of corn and rice, kind of a White Lightning drink and all true males must smoke and drink. Found folks there to be very friendly and forthright . My Mandarin is poor but over time I could say the important words for getting along. Driving there was a bit like wack a mole, and I trusted in the Lord that if things did not turn out I would be going to a better place. In the month I was there I only saw four other westerners, was frequently an object of curiosity, and my native dancing was greatly appreciated by the Dai and Yi minorities that live in the area. Oversaw the completion of a house we built for the family to completion, it includes indoor plumbing and one western toilet, they are more inclined to use the jungle, or use a porcelain lined hole. As Americans we of course measure civilization based on indoor plumbing so I could not leave that out. Fir5st night in Shanghai I played cards with 4 Mary Kay representatives, they were fr4iendly and we played a favorite card game called beat the landlord, something Mao made popular. Close to Kun Ming we went to the famed Stone Forest which is a Yi tribal area that has been turned into a tourist attraction. After return my daughter a Do got married in Austin Texas and I flew out there. I've unfortunately lost my Dad who passed away in March. He had lived with use for a number of years and I am proud he made it on over to China twice, his major complaint was that they didn't speak English in the Beijing Airport. My son Jeff has move out to Pittsburgh to be with us and is getting adapted to green foliage and mountains after living in the desert all his life.
I am not retired as yet, though I probably could throw in the towel and survive in what I hope does not become a post modern world.
Update as of Nov 2017. I unfortunately lost my mother the first of this year. She suffered from kidney failure, and other difficulties that took her all to soon. Fortunately I was able to visit with her several times before her demise. My son Jeff is residing in Abilene, Texas and my daughter Lori has successfully run her own OBGYN practice in Odessa Texas.
We are completing the building of a second house in China, This one is for my brother-in-law, his old home was termite infested and damaged by the recent earthquake. It has been razed and a several story home with an attached covered fishing spot dedicated to parents is being built. Should be done in a week or so. We intend to return next January and stay a month or so. My wife Cindy is operating her own massage therapy studio and enjoys the work. I have reach self-actualization roughly translated into I do what I want when I want to and sometimes that involves a little work, plus I try and swim a quarter mile a day.
Our recent China trip turned out to be an epic experience. We are well known in the Yunnan province where over the years we gifted a couple of substantial three story houses we had built to family members in a small village called Cao Di. All of this is located in a jungle area that borders Laos and Burma. My wife Cindy grew up their being born next to a wall as the village was very poor and many did not have homes. Her family was the poorest in the village and as a child she was referred to as sunken eyes. She spent her early years on the tail end of the Cultural Revolution, a time where the government told the farmers what to grow and all food was politically distributed and her family got a share of food for every worker i...Expand for more
n the field prompting them to only give three shares of rice to the family. This same area now under new rules allows the farmers to make their own decisions about what to grow and when.
We travel there today during the Spring Festival which is the equivalent of Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled into one. Initially we were invited to celebrations in and out of the village where one of more pigs are slaughtered and every ounce is ultimately used. We ended up meeting county officials to include the hospital director, various party officials at a nice restaurant in Feng Shan County where I sold them on the benefits of Donald Trump. It was a tough sale. In the mornings a delivery truck would garner customers by blaring out Donald Trump Stop. In another party we met with a bunch of generation X government folks who were resentful of the then current program to eliminate poverty by using government official to go into the country side at their expense in free labor and money from their pockets to improve the lot of the poor. I explained and they agreed that Chairman Xi is a proponent of Maoism and the goal is to increase stability by tying the actions of the government officials to reducing poverty on a on one. They asked how we handled it and I said starting 50 years ago we have disinterested government employees handing out benefits without any personal sacrifice to people who request help and largely spend the benefits the way they want. A judge there along with a party official agreed this is Cultural Revolution 2.0 and that the program is immature in that it has no criteria for what help is and help is sporadic and largely produced out of a desire to not go broke providing it to the farm families.
Within a few days our cruising with the local elite ended when the corona virus broke out all villages were directed to restrict movement in and out. Our friends at the hospital showed up with a swat team member and the police chief to examine us for blood pressure and temperature the beginning of a daily visit by a nurse to see if we were alright.
China has basically shut down, with the new growth industry being check points. Due to a screw up when we headed out for Puer to take a plane to Kunming, we were denied entry and it was only through intervention by a friend with the capital police Chief that we were allowed entry into the city. No one was out in a city of 400,000. Stores closed and we were sent to the only open hotel in the area which houses police and elements of the foreign office which are a part of the police. Our friends and nephew were told to leave and we had to have a picture taken outside of the hotel room to verify our presence. The police were a little afraid of me as they were told I am ex military and I towered over them, plus I was the first white guy they ever saw.
In the village and among the family I am called Da La bon in addition to my Chinese name of Da Shan. Da Shan means big mountain in the sense I protect the family which is now the wealthiest in the village. The nest morning breakfast was brought to the hotel and eaten under the watchful attendance that a big boss could expect. That is the da la bon moniker. Cell phone flash lights were used to illuminate the experience.
We were given to use a cell phone from my nephew where it became official to scan health statement s required with an abundance of medical checks the resulted in the requirement of new forms having to be produced. We made it to Kunming and stayed the day and night in a basement which was unheated. A hotel was impossible as we lacked a pass, did not have a medical form to be used to blame any incompetents that would have cleared us, plus we would have to get a taxi, find a three star hotel open in a 7 million person city with hotels being locked down.
In the evening people started showing up, most were rational and kept their distances and war face masks as we did. However there was a group of 4 loud mouths that came in and at around 1140 this woman turned her phone up and emitted baby crying sounds on it. There were other assholes there that made a lot of noise but fortunately by 4 am most had departed. We went through a host of medical rechecks, extra paper work and caught a flight to Shanghai. Weird to look down on a city of 31 million and to barely see anyone on the streets, the airport was largely absent of people. We learned our United flight had been canceled and we would have to go on a Korean airline to get into SF. That extended out trip by a day. Ended up in Seoul, SK, went to SF where we were screened and cleared. We got home this afternoon as our 0730 flight was delayed by several hours due to fog.
Cost us an additional 4k that fortunately my card worked, to get us on the Korean airline. I feel very sorry for the Chinese right now as they have something scarier than politics to worry about. I am running on fumes as I was sleep deprived for 4 days. We are limiting physical contact with other as we could have been exposed to something on our flights. The stuff is easier to catch than a cold and more deadly than SARS, some cases are almost Ebola like in they destroy body organs. There are very many assholes in China that through their individual actions will get sick and transmit the disease. People were caught playing mahjong in groups and doing other crap that is irrational and will continue to affect others,
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