What were you doing at age 24?

[Jim Bow]

Just read a blogpost by Dakota Meyer. He spent his 24th birthday giving a talk about the total FUBAR that led to his Medal of Honor citation, and of those friends, he lost that day, who never had a 24th birthday.

When I turned 24, 1970, I was just out of the Navy, freshly married, and sucking up unemployment payments and GI Bill. Looking for work.

Where were you, what were you doing?

[Michael Beckman]

I have no idea.

[B_B]

University, working part time, engaged.

[purri]

Riding a Harley with sidebox for a living and off my face...

[PhaseLockedLoop]

I left a three-year job programming 1401s and started a job at the DT&I Railroad, in Dearborn, programming a 360 in BAL. It was 1968, and social developments left me very nearly insane: MLK and Bobby Kennedy shot to death, evening news reporting the "kill ratio" in Vietnam, Hubert Humphrey on the tube babbling about the "politics of joy." (Hunter Thompson accurately described him during this period as a "shameful animated corpse.") Not a good year.

[Gerarddm]

Lessee...1972. In Providence RI, as sales manager and evening programmer at WBRU-FM, " high over beautiful downtown Providence". What great times.

[varadero]

East bound through Suez on Cariad.

[AussieBarney]

Driving a White Roadboss, a semi, for a compny that did heavy haulage. Up to and including 95 tonnes.

[PeterSibley]

Around Cape York and the Gulf of Carpentaria working on a 40 foot prawn trawler, a good year.

[Farfalla]

A climbing bum!
Work in London in the Spring, climb in the Alps in Summer and Yosemite for Autumn, then Glencoe and Ft. William to work in pubs and ice climb in the Winter, a couple of trips out to Chamonix for skiing and ice climbing. A good year

[Captain Intrepid]

I was halfway through my training as a mate... wait, I still am!

[JMAC]

I was working at Wood Boats in Norwalk CT with a plan to leave the next year and move to Maine, build a house, start my own woodshop...the Mother Earth News influence has served me well.....

[LeeG]

Living a decadent and tortured life.

[2MeterTroll]

Tendering in Alaska, sitting for my mates, and modeling.

[skuthorp]

West Aussie at the start, UK then Norway for xmas.

[TomF]

In University doing PoliSci, and singing at the Conservatory and with the Pacific Opera on the side. Having a fabulous time with my then girlfriend, before it turned into a simply horrible and very brief marriage a couple of years later.

[Paul Pless]

I like to tell folks that after my dad died and my mom got sick that I dropped out of grad school to come home and take care my mom and the family business. But, I was really working half days, and smoking a lot of weed, and either fishing or playing golf every afternoon. . .

[hanleyclifford]

A freshly graduated "butterbar" waiting for my turn to kill a commie for mommie.

[Y Bar Ranch]

Flying jets

[Dumah]

Married, one four year old child, just starting my career at the Dartmouth Marine Slips.

Cheers, Dumah,
Halifax, NS

[Keith Wilson]

In the Peace Corps in Costa Rica, and traveling through Central America with my future wife.

[katey]

Working on a PhD in visual psychophysics.

[elf]

Almost finished my penance for not being grown up enough to be in college. By the end of the year I was on track for a BA with emphasis on non-performance music. Living with an array of roommates and cats in a lovely 2 bedroom flat a couple miles from the U of W music school.

[David G]

Just finishing up my two year woodworking/design program at the local college. Backpacking, surfing. One year away from meeting my wife, but living with a wonderful woman who I am still close friends with.

[Todd D]

Working as a naval achitecture technician, buying my first sailboat and hiking/camping a lot.

[Whameller]

Looing at my platoon as we trained to defend West Germany against 3rd Guards Shock Army, GSFG and wondering if I was up to it.

[potomac]

Graduate school. Living in a little apartment in a quiet neighborhood. Quite a pretty retention pond filled with bluegill and bass- an easy thrill on dry fly. The whole world still opening up.

[Dan McCosh]

Married, two kids, graduated, working as a reporter on an outstate newspaper.

[Jim Mahan]

Spying on the Chinese communists from Osan air base in South Korea via the U2 and the SR71. A remote tour unacompanied for a year. Got my first divorce halfway through.

[Dan McCosh]

Now I think about it, by then I was editing a suburban Detroit paper, covering the riots in Royal Oak.

[emma55]

US Air force 509 th bomb wing .

[Bill R]

Chief Engineer at a Top 40 radio station in Syracuse, NY.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

The only thing memorable was my sister driving me and my little ditty bag down to the draft board where I was to be sworn in and shuttled off to who knows where. Kruchev was very bellicose at that time making my future look very militaristic.

[G.Sherman]

Teaching art in a rural farm community.

[bobbys]

Decided to leave the Garden state and see the elephant , Put my bee u till full bride in a Chevy after i lied to her telling her there were great shopping centers filled with shoe stores some where over that rainbow,. Driving west to parts we have not seen and friends we have not met as yet., No Direction known, No Telephone ,All we had in the Back of a pickup My Tool box and my hands my card, Brash and bold yet charming and witty i won the hearts of those i met sept a few cowboys wanting to cut my hair, A fast lesson in the pugilistic arts persuaded them otherwise. Stole some Wyoming plates changed the Garden state ones and beat feet out of town before Boss hogg could catch me. Visited the Indian Nations and saw Yellowstone, Panned for gold in Colorado with a tourist pan did not see my fortune there and went to Jackson Hole looked cold and moved on, Sat on the plains and felt the wind, Kept moving west till we hit the ocean and could travel no further, Saw the necessity of a boat to keep on going west so set up our happy home till such boat could be built or bought or stolen..

At 24 i pretty much knew everything there wuz to know about and no body could tell me otherwise. This did not always work to my advantage in hindsight.

Looking back Im amazed how smart i wuz seems i forgot a lot of that smartness.

[Norman Bernstein]

Married, and two years into an 18 year career working for Analog Devices... at the time, designing and building test fixtures for their products. I was asked to build a fully automatic tester for digital panel meters, that could be reprogrammed for different types of product. At the time, I had few computer skills, and minicomputers were way too expensive and PC's didn't exist, so I built my own computer..... 256 words of instruction and data, each word 44 bits wide.... one level of subroutine... the ability to add and subtract... programmed by a paper tape reader. That 'computer' was used for the next 20 years.

[Jim Ledger]

1976. Living on the houseboat, digging clams. Had built these two, a thirty foot inboard garvey tong boat and a thirty six foot houseboat. The one could tow the other...and did.

[ahp]

I was grad school at the University of Michigan

[JBreeze]

Finished 6 months of investigational chemo and started 5 months of therapeutic radiation after the big C was diagnosed.

[Hal Forsen]

At 24 I'd already finished a 4 year hitch in the Navy and was working in Hollywood building sets and props and working on shows.
That was the year a buddy and I did a surfing surfari; driving and surfing from L.A., south almost as far as Acapulco.

[Todd Bradshaw]

Far right

[ron ll]

Climbing rigging Seattle to San Francisco.

[Ted Hoppe]

Living in San Francisco off Haight Street just after a stint as a spook in the Navy, going to school, riding bmw motorbikes, catching nearly every home game both the Giants and A's played, learning a great deal about great food and much about beautiful women in a foggy daze. I was already done with the Man by then, Courtney Love and many others lived across the hall, members of Metallica lived & practiced in the apartment below.

[emma55]

1976. Living on the houseboat, digging clams. Had built these two, a thirty foot inboard garvey tong boat and a thirty six foot houseboat. The one could tow the other...and did.

Jim it sounds like you born into is ? Father , Mother , Granddad where did this Woodworking / Boat builder . Start from ? This is the story I want to here !

[varadero]

Reading all of the above, I feel sorry for todays youth. What a bunch of well lived folks. I guess we spent all the moneys

[Curtism]

By day, working at a custom boat shop in Sarasota building wooden molds for a 62' f/g trawler/yacht and lofting large commercial powerboat hulls. Evenings were spent building small boats and other personal projects. What I wouldn't give for even half of that energy now . . .

[Robbie 2]

Working,skiing,hunting,fishing,travelling.......ba sically enjoying a life of complete freedom.

[leikec]

I was desperately trying to find a baseball team that would hire me, with zero success. I thought all of my memorabilia was lost in one of my many moves over the years, but a few weeks ago I found this (I've cut some of the personal info out for security):




This report put the kiss of death on me because of the arm problems...and the funny thing was that my rotator cuff never really bothered me again. I did develop elbow problems the following year, and I attempted to switch to playing first base because I could hit a little.

I remember being extremely embarrassed about being graded so low on my fastball--I took a lot of kidding about that. And the "B" for "attitude" was probably given because I stared down the umpire a couple of times (not a great idea in a minor league spring training game ).

By 1982 when I was 24 I was working out with SMS (Missouri State now), playing in the Ozark Baseball league, working a couple of crummy jobs, and taking a few night classes.

Looking back, I probably should have moved on away from baseball sooner, because I only had moderate ability, and also because it was an era where being able to pitch and get people out as a prospect was less important than having a power arm. Scouts still look for power arms today, but clubs are more willing to give a finesse pitcher a shot than they were back then.

And please--no cracks about my "D" for foot speed...

I'm the guy you want to be with if a bear is chasing you...the old "don't have to outrun the bear, just have to outrun you!" thing...

Jeff C

[B_B]

University, working part time, engaged.

Completely forgot about our epic road trip - Winnipeg to Newfoundland down to New York and Virginia Beach, then back home through Chicago. All in a 10 yr old Ford Escort Station Wagon that behaved wonderfully (couple blown tyres, one because SWMBO hit a pothole in St.John's at some speed, the other on an Expressway in Chicago because I must've picked up a nail or something) until we got to within 10 km's of home when, in sweltering 35C heat, it overheated. Waited for it to cool down and got home safe 'n sound.

[obscured by clouds]

Surfing and training to be a ne'er do well