Gary Stephenson

 

I was raised in a small town or maybe it should be referred to as a village, Randle, Washington.

 

This area lies between Mount Rainier, Mount St Helens and Mount Adams. The men were mostly loggers (referred to as lumber jacks).  Knowing at a young age that was not a trade I wanted for myself.

 

As soon as I could I went in to the U.S. Army. Talk about jumping from the pot into the fire so to speak.

 

I spent the next three years as a paratrooper. When I left the army I was lucky and got into telephone work. That was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I took to electronic work like a duck to water.

 

In 1971 I transferred to Hayward, California. That was when I started my life as a computer tech. AT&T was on the cutting edge of having two engineers that wrote the first C programming language for computers. Not knowing it at the time, I was going to have a job programming and maintaining a very large computer.

 

So, my life was a lot different from my life in the country. I was now a big city person.

 

It is great living in Shasta County and being a member of the Redding Breakfast Lions Club.

 

After all of what has transpired in my life, I became a husband, a father, a grandfather and a pet owner.

 

At last I can now say I am living in the country again and enjoying it very much.

 

Published April, 2016