Harold c. 1986
Tuesday, August 1 would have been Harold’s 98th birthday. This post is in honor of Harold. He was a wonderful, kind and loving human being. We all miss him a lot.
Harold was born on August 1, 1919 almost nine months to the day after Armistice Day on Nov 11, 1918. What do people do to celebrate an important day in history? They have sex. Witness the spike in new babies born in the Chicago area recently nine months after the Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series or nine months after the Blizzard of 1978.
Harold died of cardiac arrest in November 2009. He was 90 years old. He died unexpected and suddenly. We are just beginning to discover how and when died by reading Mary’s letters that we’ve found recently.
I struggled to find a decent picture of Harold to use in this post. Harold was always the guy behind the camera. In course of his lifetime I have seen many many pictures taken by Harold but very few pictures of him. I still have a few more boxes of slides in the store room to curate.
Harold spent much of his adult life teaching high school science and biology at Jordan High School in Long Beach, CA. Before he started his teaching career at Jordan, he worked at the Douglas Aircraft Company in Long Beach which was where he met Mary.
Harold was born and grew up in Kansas. By the way, Mary was also from Kansas but different parts of the state. They both moved to California to work in the war effort. Harold never served in the armed forces due to problems with his inner ear. Mary would always say that he had a problem with listening not hearing. Paula says that I have the same problem (ha ha).
Harold was the person who influenced me to join the Masons and the Shriners. He would always make it to my Masonic events (degrees, installations, etc.). Sometimes he would take Amtrak across the country rather than fly. He would do it to get some quiet down time and to see the country side. Mary would jokingly accuse him of doing it to get away from her for a week.
During the summers, from the 1950’s until the early 1970’s Harold would spend his summers as a National Park Ranger at Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California. The day after school closed in June, Harold, Mary and Paula would hit the road heading north to Lassen. I can just imagine the smile on Harold’s face as he headed north to Lassen.
Rest In Peace, Harold.
calherewecome 