The Early Years
I was born on September 19, 1941 at 9:17 A.M. to Myron Dale Bailey (23 years old) and Anne Bernon (Field) Bailey (20 years old) in Middletown, Ohio. For the first few years I lived in Middletown. My father was a pattern maker for Armco Steel and my mother a homemaker. During that time, I was told that I walked up to the neighbor girl and said to her "Lay down baby, I want to talk to you." I do not remember anything coming out of the conversation so I guess the line did not work. During this same period, I "borrowed" my aunt’s cigarettes and proceeded to get sick behind the barn. At some point, we moved to Ashland, Kentucky. My father eventually was promoted to Superintendent of the Armco foundry in Ashland. During my life in Ashland, my sister Linda and brother Tim were born.
My School Years
I attended Condit Elementary School for the first grade. After my first grade, my parents divorced. My mother remarried a Navy officer who was attending Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. I attended a school in Bath, Indiana for the second grade. After the second grade in Bath we moved to Vallejo, California, then to Monterey, California, and then on to Imperial Beach, California. Needless to say I did not do very well that year so the teacher recommended that I redo the third grade. That summer, my father, his parents (my grandfather and grandmother) came to visit. I went home to Ashland, Kentucky with them for the summer and stayed three years. I attended Condit School for the third, fourth, and fifth grades. During those years my buddy was Jon Verity. His grandfather was the founder of Armco Steel. One of our favorite activities was archery, probably the result of seeing Robin Hood at the movies. The summer after the fifth grade, my mother and stepfather came to Kentucky to take me back to California. I went to Imperial Beach Elementary School for the sixth grade. It was during this time that I had my first crush, Barbara Rice. The junior high for that area was in Nestor, California. I started the 7th grade in Nestor. The middle of the 7th grade was spent in New Orleans, La., where I attended Behrman High School. It was at this school that I became excited about school, especially history. The end of the 7th grade was back in Imperial Beach at Southwest Jr. High in Nestor. The 8th grade was started at Southwest Jr. High and ended in Long Beach, Ca., at George Washington Jr. High. I ran for a student council seat, was elected but we moved back to Imperial Beach before I could serve. The 9th grade was back in Imperial Beach. At the end of the school year we moved to Danville, Illinois where I attended Danville High School for my sophomore and junior years. While in Danville I had my first paying job. I was a paper boy for the local newspaper. I also became interested in Astronomy and was a member of the Danville Astronomical Society. When Sputnik was launched I was a member of a Moon Watch Team that attempted to spot and track satellites. I also ran track (880, mile) while at Danville High School. My senior year was at Mar Vista High School in Imperial Beach, California. During my senior year, I ran cross country (JV letter) and track (660, 880, and mile). I was one of four who gave speeches at graduation.
My Family
I am the oldest of 8. I have one brother, Tim, one sister, Linda and 6 half-sisters, five from the union of my mother and stepfather (Richard G. Sipe) and one from the union of my father and stepmother (Francis). Tim is currently living at home in Stanford, Indiana. Linda is currently living in Maryland. The Sipe girls are Riki, Molli, Staci, Juli and Jami. Juli and Jami are twins. The Bailey half-sister is Patricia also known as Patty. Riki and Molli live in Fairbanks, Alaska. Staci lives in Austin, Texas. Juli lives in Indianapolis, Indiana. Jami lives in Bloomington, Indiana. Patty lives in Lexington, Kentucky.
My stepfather spent his career as a U. S. Naval Officer. He served aboard LST’s and a Mine Sweeper. He was the skipper of a LST (USS Tom Green County) and a Mine sweeper (USS Excel MSO 39). He resides with my mother on a farm outside of Stanford, Indiana.
My father was Myron Dale Bailey. He was born in Middletown, Ohio. During the depression he lived on our family farm (more hills than farm) in rural Ohio southeast of Hillsboro, Ohio. He passed away in his sleep in 1973 when his heart burst.
My mother is Anne Bernon Field. She was born in Climax, Kentucky which no longer exists. A good part of my mother's life was devoted to taking care of the family while my stepfather was out to sea. She currently has an antique shop on the property at the Bittersweet Farm outside of Bloomington, Indiana.
My Navy Years (1 year, 11 months, 22 days, 15 hours and 7 minutes)
I went to boot camp in San Diego between my junior and senior years of high school. Fifteen days after I graduated from high school I was on active duty in the Navy aboard the USS Evans (DE-1023). I started as a Seaman Apprentice on the deck gang. I later became a Quartermaster. In the Navy, Quartermaster is involved in all aspects of navigation. During the time I was on the Evans, we went to the orient once. I visited Hawaii, Hong Kong, Philippines, and Japan.
The most exciting thing that happened while on the Evans was the morning we were refueling from the carrier Kersharge and had a failure in one of the steering pumps. At that point we made a hard port (left) turn directly into the side of the carrier. We did no significant damage to the carrier but a 30 foot section of our bow was pushed back at few feet. We could do no more that 14 knots otherwise the bow moved too much.
I finished my two year enlistment on June 22, 1962, followed by monthly meetings for two years followed by two years of inactive duty.
My College Years
While in the Navy I attempted to get the Navy to pay for my college. I took the exam for the program in an officer's stateroom while someone was jack hammering the deck above me. I never found out how well I did on the exam because I was disqualified because of a slight red/green color blindness. That was a blessing in disguise, otherwise I might have ended up having a career in the Navy. I applied to San Diego State University and Indiana University. Because I was at sea all the time, I could never take the qualifying exams. Indiana took me based on my high school grades. Later on San Diego State accepted me as well but I had already chosen to attend Indiana. At that point, my family was living in Indiana on the U.S. Naval Ammunition Depot in Crane, Indiana. My first semester I rode a Navy school bus from the depot to IU with kids ranging in grades from kindergarten to high school. My second semester I rented a room in Bloomington. The remainder of my IU college years I stayed in Foster Quad (Magee Hall). At Indiana, I majored Mathematics, with a minor in Astronomy. I also did all the course work to teach math to high school students.
The Women In My Life
I suppose the most significant woman in your life is always your mother. While that is the case for me, I got most of my values from my grandmother, Mabel E. Bailey. She could do anything, from building a house to playing a piano by ear. The three years (3rd, 4th, and 5th grades ) I lived with her, my grandfather, and father were the most formative for me. Otherwise I might have turned out much different. She was a most wonderful individual.
While Barbara Rice was my first crush, and a Miss Universe from Scandinavia my second, my first significant girlfriend was Annie whom I met during my senior year of high school. Annie was from Guam. She asked me to the Sadie Hawkins dance but I could not go because I had to baby-sit my siblings. At my mother's suggestion I invited her to help. We dated for a couple of years until she was at San Diego State and I was in the Philippines in the Navy.
While at Indiana I had a couple of short term relationships. My senior year I met Barbara, a lovely lass from Cincinnati. We dated the remainder of my senior year and off and on for the next 5 years when I visited Indiana.
While attending a concert in Mountain View I met Marylouise. We dated for approximately five years before we married. At the time, Marylouise was teaching in a Catholic elementary school. Most of our married life she taught elementary school in public schools in East San Jose, and Fremont, California. For the past two years she has been a principal at one of the better elementary schools in Fremont. We have two wonderful daughters, Alison and Elizabeth. After nineteen years we separated and divorced.
Alison was born on July 20, 1976 in Santa Clara and Elizabeth was born on January 14, 1981 in Hayward. Alison graduated from Sonoma State University with a degree in Biology and is currently working gin a lab. Lizzy is a freshman at the University of California Irvine. At the moment her major is Economics. She plans to spent some of her college life in Spain.
My Working Years (In Progress)
Following graduation from Indiana in 1967 (BA, Mathematics) I started work at Lockheed Missiles and Space Company in Sunnyvale, California. The job involved supporting US Air Force satellites. After 5 years at Lockheed, I married Marylouise and went to Santa Clara University where I earned a MBA, with a concentration in Economics. After Santa Clara I worked for Electronic Data Systems (Ross Perot's company) for 4 years. The first year was in San Francisco followed by 6 months in Des Moines, Iowa on special assignment. Following the assignment in Des Moines, I went to Dallas, Texas to be trained in programming in COBOL and Assembler. After training I went back to San Francisco as a systems engineer in support of the Medicare account. Following EDS I went to work for Crown Zellerbach as an EDP Auditor. I worked at Crown until Sir James Goldsmith bought out the company and sold off the pieces. Following Crown I worked for Fujitsu America as an EDP auditor for a year and then went to Kaiser Permanente (HMO) as an EDP auditor. After two years in audit, I switched to a client service organization in the data processing area of Kaiser. My job function has changed several times but I remain in the data processing area, currently as the project manager for an online medical record system.