My Memoirs

By Roger Meyer

Begun: January 30, 2006

Table of Contents

Stories. ii

1.     My Early Years (1939 – 1944) 1

2.     A Little Boy (1944 – 1948) 2

3.     A Young Farm Lad – Country School (1948 – 1948) 3

4.     Our Own Farm – “City” School (1948 - 1952) 4

5.     High School (1952 – 1957) 7

6.     Off To The City & College (1957 – 1960) 9

7.     Living in St. Paul, Finishing College - Marriage (1961) 11

8.     California, Here We Come (1961 – 1965) 12

9.     Back to Minnesota (1965 - 1968) 15

10.       A Promotion to Seattle (1968 – 1970) 16

11.       Another Promotion to Los Angeles (1970 – 1972) 17

12.       And Back to Minnesota Again (1972 – 1977) 18

13.       Warming Up in San Diego (1977 – 1979) 20

14.       Home in Eden Prairie (1979 - 1997) 21

15.       Retiring in Plymouth (1997 - ) 21

16.       Roger & Theresa’s Life Timeline. 31

 1.   Stories

Making Hay

Planting Corn

Why College?

Going Into Programming

My Speech Class

Graduation Weekend

My First Day at Control Data

My First Computer

Barbershop Singing

Corks thru Table

Saving Astronauts

Boston Computer Museum

Visiting NASA

Disneyland

Disneyworld

Singing Star Spangled Banner to the Dogs

2.   My Early Years (1939 – 1944)

I was born in Los Angeles  just before the Second World War.

One of my early memories was the citywide blackout during the war. We were allowed one red light on if the curtain shades were all pulled. The blackouts were at night. They’d last a few hours, but we’d just go to bed and they’d be over when we got up. And we’d hear anti-aircraft guns, called ak-yak guns firing in the distance. I’ve learned since then that supposedly Japanese submarines were occasionally spotted off the coast of California.

I also remember riding the streetcar to visit my dad’s Standard Oil gas station where he ultimately became the manager. The streetcar went by a wooden fence… don’t know why I remember that.

3.   A Little Boy (1944 – 1948)

I remember very little about our house in Blue Earth. But we only lived there for one year while a new ‘tenant’ house was being built on my grandfather’s farm where my dad worked. That farm was out east of Blue Earth about 5 miles south of Delavan. (See map)

My grandfather had a couple of interesting tractors. One was an old steel wheel with lugs John Deere. Another was an ‘M’ Farmall, as well as several others. One day when I was quite small, probably about 8, my grandfather asked me to drive them ‘M’ pulling a wagon behind him while he combined oats. Then when the Combine hopper got full, I was suppose to pull up beside him with my wagon behind me so he could unload.

Well, that was the first time I was allowed to drive a tractor and all by myself. And he had shown me the various control devices: throttle, clutch, brake, etc. So the first time his hopper was full, he stopped, got off his tractor, and waved me to pull up beside him… which I did. But… when I went to push the clutch in to stop, I was to weak to get it to disengage. He finally had to come around on the ground and pull it in himself to get me stopped. We then did some exercises on how to stop the tractor. For a small, very young ‘farmer’, it was rather ‘scary’.

Our tenant house was about a block from the main house where grandma & grandpa lived. So we got to see a lot of them.

During these years, three brothers were born, Jim & Tom & Mike, each about a year apart. In fact, since I was the oldest, I’d help my mother with the ‘little ones’. One day I was coaxing Jim to walk… and he did. He took about 4 - 5 steps to me. So I always tell people that I taught him how to walk.

One other memory of that farm: we were in the barn where we milked about 40 cows hauling out the cow manure. I remember my Aunt ‘Chump’ running up to the barn door telling us that the war was over.

4.   A Young Farm Lad – Country School (1948 – 1948)

By 1945, I was 6 years old, and ready to start school. But school was about 2 miles away. So every morning someone had to take me to school.

The one room schoolhouse was located ½ mile north and 1 ½ miles west beginning on Grandpa Coulter’s farm which was later called the Paschke farm because Lester Paschke took it over when Grandpa retired.

School was only 1 room. And we had all 8 grades in that room. Some grades only had a couple kids in it. But my grade had about 6 kids.

When you’re class was to be the teacher’s focus, you went to the front of the room where the teacher ‘taught’ you the subject matter: reading, history, arithmetic, etc. I remember listening particularly careful to the 5^th & 6^th graders sessions because they were but a couple years ahead of me and I knew that was what I’d be learning in the near future.

After attending school for 2 ½ years, we moved to Frost where I attended ‘city’ school. I remember the kids all teasing me about moving to and attending that ‘big’ ‘town’ school.

These years were difficult in some ways because it was when I started having ‘chores’. I had to bring in ‘cobs’ for the cook stove fuel. I had to haul water in from the windmill. I helped feed the calves in the barn. And winters back then seemed a lot colder than they are now. Of course, each of those chores involved bundling up and going outside.

5.   Our Own Farm – “City” School (1948 - 1952)

Frost was a very small village with a population of only 354. But it had a couple of grocery stores, a couple bars, several gas stations, several restaurants, the elevator, a hatchery, a creamery, and several churches.

We moved to a farm a mile south of Frost (and ¼ mile east – see map) when I was in 3^rd grade. The school consisted of a single brick building. But in 7^th grade while they were building a major addition to the building, they parked a ‘1 room schoolhouse’ beside the brick building and that’s where I attended 7^th grade. By 8^th grade, the addition was completed and the ‘1 room schoolhouse’ was gone. But! Then they added 6 rooms for grades 1 to 6. So in 8^th grade, my friend, Buckey Legried, and myself played tag on the concrete footings of the new grade school. Luckily we didn’t fall and get hurt… but we sure got muddy.

Our farm near Frost was 240 acres. And we raised cows, pigs, chickens. So we also had considerable non-tillable acreage devoted to pasture and hay. Our main crops were corn, beans, oats, & flax. All were sold for cash with some hold back for feeding the livestock.

When we first moved to Frost, my father hired a high school student each summer to help with the farm work. These hired hands included Jim Wesner, Gene Wangen, Darrel Toesch, and Don Folven. But when I was about 13, I became the ‘hired hand’ (reducing cash flow expenses).

My first task to help the hired hands was feeding chores which I probably began when I was about 11... First, came the chickens, later the pigs, and lastly the cows. Collecting eggs was also an early assignment. And sometimes I had to wash the eggs because then we got a better price for them. Pigs were fed ear corn and then we filled their 30 gallon waterer. These years, I also began functions involved driving the tractor of which we had two: a 1947 John Deere Model B and a Massey Harris Model 20.

One of my earliest tasks was driving the tractor which was pulling a hay wagon which was pulling a hay loader while my dad and the hired hand ‘leveled’ the hay in the wagon. My job was to steer the tractor so that the hay windrow went between the tractors’ front wheels and one of rear big tires. Occasionally, I’d accidently drive on the hay which would cause my Dad to holler at me to ‘wake up’ and ‘don’t drive on the hay.’ ‘Driving on the hay’ caused it to get matted into the ground and then not get picked up and thus it was wasted.

I also drove the tractor pulling a wagon with and end gate seeder on it planting oats while my dad worked in the wagon filling the seeder. And I drove for picking up corn that fell off the stalks. In fact, one year we hired teams of help to pick the fallen corn after a particularly bad wind storm. After I became the hired hand, cultivating corn and beans became a major task. It was particularly hard because if you tractor veered of the row, it dug out the crop and ruined it. So it required the utmost concentration and physical coordination.

A few years later, I tried planting corn. But the rows were so crooked that my Dad promptly replaced me, doing it himself. After all, the ‘straightness’ of the corn rows was a measure of the farmer’s skills. And straight rows did make cultivating and harvesting easier.

Summer was devoted to field work on most days. In the spring, we tilled the soil, plowing, discing, ‘digging’, dragging, and planting. Then after the corn came up, we cultivated the rows 5 times, 3 times with the rows, and twice across the rows. That was interspersed with mowing, raking, and putting up hay. By summer, oats were ready for harvest. That involved my dad or grandpa driving the tractor pulling the combine and me following behind driving another tractor with a wagon behind in it which we emptied the combine into. One day while helping Grandpa Coulter, I was driving his Farmall, model M. When he stopped the combine, I pulled up beside him and couldn’t get the clutch in to stop the tractor because it was so stiff. I nearly ran over him before he got the tractor stopped.

Before the advent of crop spray, we manually chopped the weeds out of the oats and flax and beans. “Involuntary” corn also had to be chopped out of the beans. (This is the term used for last year’s “left-over” crop still in the field.)

Fall was a time of harvest of the corn and beans. And sometimes harvest ran into the December if it was rainy. Harvest involved use of the combine for beans and the corn picker. My dad always ran the combine and corn picker. My task was to follow along emptying the on-board hopper into a wagon and then hauling the wagon back to the farm buildings where I unloaded the crop into our granary.

By the time I was 14, cows became a major responsibility. Feeding and milking cows every morning and evening is probably the worst job on the farm because of its repetitiveness. In fact, it was a prime motivator to go to college after high school. Bye the time I was 18, I was so sick of milking cows, I’d have done anything to earn a living that didn’t involve cows.

Of course, my father wanted me to farm with him as my occupation. To help me get started, he offered to give me a percentage of his percentage of each year’s gross profit (revenue minus expenses). However, he didn’t own our farm and was on a 50 - 50 split with the landlord. So my share would have had to be very small. So I declined his offer which I know disappointed him. And went off to college in the big city.

6.   High School (1952 – 1957)

In high school, my forte was math & science. I used to ‘correct’ Mrs. Besser, the higher algebra teacher, and help her teach it. Due to the small school, Chemistry & Physics were taught on alternating years by the school principal & science teacher, Mr. LaMont.

Since the school was very small (our entire Senior class was 15), everyone also participated in high school sports. So for basketball & football, I was the student manager… sometimes keeping the game statistics, sometimes running the ‘sticks’, sometimes running the coach’s errands.

Music was a most interesting subject for that very small high school. We were called a class ‘C’ sized band. Our most memorable band director was Bobby Griggs. Bobby had polio as a child and had no control of his legs, so he walked with crutches all the time. He lacked a degree in Music and was eventually released for that reason. However, he taught our small Class C band to play some of the finest music in the world. Each year we would perform 2 pieces at a band contest. Some of the pieces we performed included: Von Suppe’s Light Cavalry Overture, Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, together with an assortment of ‘standard’ high school band music such as War March of the Priests, Pomp & Circumstance, and marches such as Washington Post, Semper Fidelis, etc.

We also all performed each year in our marching band where the highlight of the year was to march in the North Iowa Band Festival in Mason City. In the evening, we’d perform in a mass band of about 100 bands under the direction of a world renowned musician. One year we played for Mr. Music Man himself, Meredith Wilson, who was from Iowa.

For the last several years of high school, I also performed each spring at the District then State solo contest playing French Horn. Each year I received an ‘A’ rating. My most memorable performance was play Berceuse from Jocelyn. This experience was probably key in later getting a music scholarship at St. Thomas.

I also sang in the school choir. In fact, one evening as a young lad, before my voice changed, I sang Danny Boy as a solo Soprano. Several years later when I was in high school after my voice had changed, I sang the same piece as a solo Tenor.

A large, poor family rather limits what the family can do for entertainment. One of things was to visit other large families. So, occasionally the (Theresa) Bleess family and the (Roger) Meyer family would spend an evening visiting on one place or the other. Eventually that led to Roger and Theresa dating most of their Junior year in high school. But eventually we broke up and went our separate way during our Senior years.

After high school, Theresa went off to study Nursing in Rochester at St. Mary’s while Roger went off to St. Thomas College in St. Paul.

7.   Off To The City & College (1957 – 1960)

The eldest son was finally off the farm. In September of 1957, my folks hauled me up to St. Thomas College in St. Paul. My tuition was paid by a ½ Music scholarship and a ½ football scholarship. But I still had on-campus room & board as well as books to buy. So my parents departing message was “get a job.” One of their friends, Garnet Carr’s brother was a store manager of a Red Owl grocery store about 2 miles south of St. Thomas. And so I was supposed to go apply there, which I did. But I didn’t hear anything from them. So when my folks came to visit me on Thanksgiving weekend, they asked about my job. However, I was so homesick, I just wanted to ‘get out of town.’ But they said we had to stop by the Red Owl store and check on my application. I did that and wouldn’t you know, they wanted me to start work as a ‘carry out’ boy the next day. So I didn’t get to go home for Thanksgiving and see my siblings.

So, my Freshman year at St. Thomas, I walked/bussed to that grocery store and earned enough money so that together with what my folks could help me with, I bought my books and paid for my room and board.

That first year, I lived in Ireland Hall. The floor dean was a rather somber Father Krause. My room mate was Mike Beck, pre-dental student, from Bismarck. Across the hall was Hank Brill and John… Our living arrangements were very strict. We had to be in our room (studying) from 7 to 9 every evening and lights had to be out at 11. Between 9 and 11 we were free. So we frequently walked 3 blocks to the corner drugstore for a cherry coke served by a cute young female soda jerk.

With those strict living rules, Hank & I figured out a way to run a wire across the Hall via the ceiling connecting (tube) radios in our rooms. We’d plug a microphone into some of the tubes and were able to communicate. Invariably, we’d talk too loud and Farther Krause would come down the hall to our rooms and tell us to stop talking and study.

So our second year, Hank and I decided to live off campus, in a 3^rd floor attic/apartment on Marshall Avenue. And that year, I got a job in the college bookstore, on campus, so that I could work whenever I wasn’t in class.

When I started college, I listed Chemical Engineering as my major. But by 2^nd semester, I was doing so well in Math that I talked to my advisor, Mr. Madigan, about switching my major to Mathematics. Of course, he said fine. So that’s how I got into Math.

During the summer between my Junior & Senior years, Theresa had seen my brother, Gary, in Blue Earth and asked about me. Well I had thought she was a really nice girl, so I contacted her again and asked her for a date. That was the beginning of our lasting relationship. We dated the remainder of the school year. One wintry day, I even flew, on a commercial jet – special fare of $6.60, to Rochester to see her. Finally in the spring, I asked about marriage and gave her an engagement ring. We were married after my Junior year on September 3^rd, 1960.

8.   Living in St. Paul, Finishing College - Marriage (1961)

Consequently, we had some new problems to solve during my Senior year. St. Thomas had no married-student housing. And we had no car, so we had to live close to someplace that Theresa could walk to work. We finally decided on an apartment building at Chestnut & Smith in St. Paul which was about 5 blocks south of the Charles T. Miller hospital where Theresa would work. Then I would take the bus to St. Thomas, about a 7 mile ride.

Senior year at St. Thomas was interesting with several interesting ‘stories’.

Early in the year I realized I needed to decide what I wanted to do with a degree in Mathematics. My advisor told me of 3 fields that hired Mathematicians. The first, of course, was to become a teacher. For some reason, I was not at all interested in teaching. Another occupation was to work as an actuarial mathematician at an insurance company. And that didn’t interest me either. The third field was computer programming. That sounded interesting.

So I went down to the St. Paul Hill Reference Library and asked for books on computer as I wanted to better understand just what was computer programming. The librarian told me that they had only 3 books on programming in the library and the 2 were out. But she gave me the 1 remaining book from which I decided to pursue a career in computers and programming.

I interviewed with 3 different local companies: IBM, Univac, and Control Data. Control Data was the ‘darling’ new company that made me an offer which I accepted. I began work at Control Data on June 12, 1961. I was the 1042^nd employee - my clock number was 06042.

One - not humorous at the time - story: As a senior I had taken the maximum number of credits in Math & Physics. So my advisor recommended I take some other types of classes. In fact, he recommended Speech 101. Grudgingly, I agreed. However, standing up in front of the class giving a speech was just too hard for me. So I did it once, but after that I skipped a lot of classes. On the Thursday before graduation in June, I was crossing the ‘quadrangle’ and Dr. McCarthy, my speech professor, & head of the department, saw me. He knew me from my working in the bookstore as the Student Manager that last year. Anyway, he hailed me down and asked if I wasn’t in his speech class. I, of course, said yes. And he asked if I’d missed a lot of classes - and I said yes. Then he asked if I was going to graduate the next day (Friday) - and I said yes. Finally he asked me if I need his credit hours for graduation - and I said yes. Then he told me that so far I was failing his course. But! If I’d go up to the little theater with him and give him 2 impromptu speeches, he’s pass me with a D. So I did and I graduated on Friday.

Graduation was a really big deal since I was the oldest son of both my parents & grandparents and first to ever graduate from college. So the graduation ceremony was Friday afternoon in the stadium. Attendees included my parents, Theresa’s parents, my maternal grandparents, and my Aunt Chumpie, Theresa’s grandparents, & selected siblings. And we had a little party in our studio apartment in St. Paul.

The next morning, Saturday, Theresa woke me saying she thought we needed to go to the hospital as she was beginning to have contractions. Several hours later, we started our family with the birth of our son, Dan.

That next week, I had off. But the next Monday, on June 12, 1961, I started work at Control Data who was located at 501 Park Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. My first day, all new employees were taken to Charlie’s Restaurant Exceptionale in downtown Minneapolis for lunch hosted by a Control Data manager. Our host that day was Ray Allard. My immediate supervisor was Irv. He was a designer of a Fortran compiler. My job that first day and first week was to draw boxes on vellum paper around text typed creating an extensive program flow chart. It was really boring. And I began to wonder if I really wanted to be a programmer. Eventually, I started writing machine language code and have enjoyed programming ever since.

The first computer that I worked with was the Control Data Model 1604. It occupied a large room. It had 32,768 words of 6.4 microsecond memory where each word was 48 bits or 8 characters. The components had to set on a false floor under which were cables and air conditioned air. Power required a 400 megawatt MG set. Peripheral equipment, all purchased from other companies, included and IBM 088 card reader, IBM 544 card punch, Analex high speed drum printer, and 8 magnetic tape drives. Many years later in my career I visited the Boston Computer Museum and there it was: a Control Data 1604.

9.   California, Here We Come (1961 – 1965)

During the summer of 1961, I began my career at Control Data as a programmer. My office was in a non-air conditioned bull pen with about 60 other programmers. To cool off on those particularly hot days, we’d go to the computer room until the computer center manager kicked us out.

One afternoon, a meeting was called of all programmers in the company. It was announced that all programming was moving to Palo Alto, California, because they couldn’t hire enough programmers in Minnesota. They would pay for relocating the employees. And to let them know if you’d move. I called Theresa that afternoon and the next day we notified my manager that we’d move.

So in the Fall of 1961, we packed up our old car, a 1949 Chevrolet, and started for California. In route, we stopped in Frost for a few days with our parents. We also stopped in Randolph to visit my grandmother and several aunts & uncles. When we were driving over the Donner Pass which was under construction (building I-50), we hit something and blew out a tire. And had to go buy a new tire. That old car was in such bad shape that we had to take along a case of oil and add oil almost each time we bought gas. But we made it to Palo Alto, staying in the University Motel on Bayshore Freeway until we found an apartment. We eventually settled in a fourplex in Sunnyvale near El Camino Real and Lawrence Station Road beside a tomato field and an orchard of walnuts.

After about a year in California, Kathy was born at O’Connor Hospital in Santa Clara. We were so happy because now we had a boy and a girl.

In those days, many of our friends were our work mates from Control Data. All of us had little children. One New Year’s Eve, we went to a party, put the kids into the bedrooms to sleep, and drank & sang folk songs till the wee hours of the morning. The next day, the kids were wide awake, because they’d had a good nights sleep and we were exhausted because of the lack of sleep. We didn’t do that again.

Two of my early problems in California was writing reports, and giving presentations. I didn’t like writing and didn’t think I was very good at it. But presentations were absolutely terrifying. One day, one of my cohorts, Ken Kolence, suggested that I join him for an evening of barbershop singing. He proposed that if I could learn to sing with 3 other guys in a quartet in front of people, I might be able to speak in front of people without getting so uptight. That evening I attended my first barbershop singing meeting and the rest is history. It’s been a wonderfully rewarding hobby for myself, my wife, & my family.

During this stint in California, we didn’t stay in the same place for the whole 4 years. After a couple years, we traveled on TDY () to Minneapolis, Chicago, & Lansing, Michigan, to use various computers to debug and checkout the operating system. During our temporary duty in Minneapolis (from California), we rented a duplex near 40^th & Central. Later, we ended up living in a long trailer house in Okemus, Michigan - near Lansing. Eventually, Theresa stayed at Frost on the farm for the month before David was born. Then I traveled back to Blue Earth when he was born. But I had to go back to work shortly thereafter. So 2 weeks after he was born, we arranged that Theresa’s Dad would drive Theresa, Dan, Kath, and newborn, Dave to meet me in Dixon, Illinois, which was about halfway between Blue Earth and Lansing.

During our last year in California, I received a call from my boss one Sunday morning at about 4 AM. He said I had to take a business trip. I told him I had been working over 60 hours a week and today was Sunday. He said that the Gemini 5 capsule was circling the earth and that a bug in our operating system software was preventing NASA from bringing the capsule back to earth… and that I was the most knowledgeable person in the company to quickly fix the problem. So I did and it was fixed. My reward was to be able to fly the Apollo Lunar Lander simulator - a big deal in those days. Anyway, I crashed on the moon as I wasn’t too good a Lunar Lander pilot.

10.               Back to Minnesota (1965 - 1968)

In 1965, Control Data asked us to move back to Minnesota where I worked in the Arden Hills plant managing a small group of people who installed the software on computers coming out of manufacturing.

An interesting assignment during these years was traveling to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, where I met Seymour Cray, the computer guru who founded Control Data along with Bill Norris, the president. Seymour had his own lab (on his own farm) and I worked with his staff to collect the parts of the software for a new computer he designed called the 6600. Then I took that software back to Arden hills where we installed it on each 6600 coming out of manufacturing.

During those years, we bought our first home in Circle Pines. The house was a Vern Donnay (builder) model near Lexington Avenue and North Road at 266 Galaxy Drive. Dan started kindergarten while we lived in that house.

When the kids were small, we had to come up ways to entertain 3 young minds, particularly at the dinner table. Occasionally, we had wine with dinner. So, I’d ‘pound’ a wine cork through the table and make it disappear. The kids all thought that was great sport and wonder, to this day, ‘how did you do that?’

But eventually the organization changed and I was asked to find another job in the company. One of my mentors, Bob Duncan, helped me get a job in a new field, for me, in Seattle, Washington, as District Manager of Applications Analysts. Bob introduced me to another mentor, Boyd Jones, the Regional Manager in San Jose.

11.               A Promotion to Seattle (1968 – 1970)

Our first task in Seattle was to locate a home. After analyzing the geography and considering where I would be working, we rented a home on the north end of Mercer Island. It was a most interesting home and we thoroughly enjoyed our 2 year stint in Seattle.

During this assignment, I and the District Sales Manager were allowed to select an off-site location for a special district employee meeting. So, Roger Shober and I selected Timberline Lodge as our site. And, of course, since it’s a renown ski lodge, I had to learn how to ski. So, we have several fond memories of Timberline. One is my little kids watching their dad in an outdoor pool having a snowball fight. Another is sitting around a 4 story tall roaring fireplace with the kids playing with the St. Bernard dogs. And, of course, we have many memories of skiing the mountain (Mount Hood), both above the Lodge and on the trails below. All in all, it was a wonderful experience.

The 2 years in Seattle were difficult, job wise. We changed facilities a couple times while I was there. My people worked at 2 major accounts: Boeing & Bonneville Power Administration in Portland. And my boss was in San Jose. So, I did a lot of traveling. However, the company liked my work, and I was asked to accept a promotion to Regional Manager of Applications Analysts in the Southwest Region, with an office in Los Angeles, near LAX.

12.               Another Promotion to Los Angeles (1970 – 1972)

So, after 2 years in Seattle, we moved to Los Angeles. We first rented a house in Torrance near the Del Amo refinery. After a year there, the owners returned and we had to find a new home. This time we rented a home on Palos Verdes, one of the nicest areas in the metropolitan are. And our home was on top of a hill at an elevation of about 2000 feet. So we didn’t have the smog. Each day when I drove to work, down Crenshaw Boulevard, I could see the yellowish, greenish smog as I drove down the side of the hill into the valley.

The kids attended a very progressive grade school named, Soleado. We all enjoyed it.

My job involved managing 5 managers covering a territory of southern California, Nevada, Arizona, & New Mexico. So, again, I did a lot of traveling.

While we lived in LA, we purchased a Gottschalk Black Forest tent from Tom Miller, my counterpart in Sales. And that’s how we got started camping. One vacation, we spent in the Sierra-Nevada Mountains with the Hall family. We had a wonderful time. And those camping experiences would lead to many wonderful camping trips for the next 20 years.

My job in LA was rather catastrophic. After my first year, while I was on a business trip in Minneapolis, Control Data announced that they were reducing their field staffs. They had decided to close the Southwest Regional office. That meant I didn’t have a job. The let me stay on for a year as a District Manager, but that relationship was doomed. So, after 2 years in LA, we were asked to find a different job in Control Data.

13.               And Back to Minnesota Again (1972 – 1977)

Of course, I turned to my mentors, and soon had a position lined up heading up a programming department who wrote the code for terminals at the Roseville plant. Eventually, I became the Chief Engineer of all terminal development at Control Data.

This time, we bought our second home located in Fridley. It was a most interesting home, a split entry, with a large living room window overlooking part of the Mississippi River valley. The kids went to school across the street from the house.

On a trip to Blue Earth, my brother, Gary, had gotten a new motorcycle and had an old Yamaha 80 that he sold me. Upon returning to the Cities, I located a Yamaha 60. So the 2 boys had their introduction to mechanics and toys. We had an open field near the house and that’s where they rode while Dad sat in the middle of the field and watched.

The field had a steep hill on one side and the boys soon pestered Dad to allow them to ride up that hill. So, I told them that they could go up that hill as soon as they demonstrated their proficiency at hill climbing. Of course they wanted to know that that meant. So I told them that they should slowly ride their motorcycles a short distance up the hill and then turn the power off. And roll back down hill turning crosswise of the hill, then turn down the hill and ride down and off. Well they wanted to try that ‘right now.’ Of course the first few attempts resulted in falls, skinned elbows, but eventually they demonstrated their proficiency and I allowed them to climb the hill to the top.

While we lived in Fridley, we purchased a used tent-trailer for camping. When we went to pick it up, the guy also had a Grumman canoe for sale which we purchased. We had many wonderful camping experiences during these years.

Working during these years was fun. The microprocessor chip came into existence and we used it in the design of terminals. Our first usage was the Intel 8008 which was the ‘heart’ of both our batch terminals and our interactive terminals.

During these years, I was assigned to work at the Plymouth plant for a few months. This group designed terminals that were used on IBM computer. It was the ‘plug compatible’ division. That plant was just east of the freeway from where we would later live.

Again, after several years, I was asked to find another job in Control Data. After talking to my mentors, I found a job in Australia. After talking to the family who agreed to go, the company decided they didn’t want me to do that. After a month or so, they offered me a job in San Diego at the Minicomputer Division. So, we again packed our belongings and moved to San Diego.

14.               Warming Up in San Diego (1977 – 1979)

San Diego is a lovely city and we had a wonderful time there during the 2 years we were there. When we first arrived in the city, we were living in a northern section of the city in a tall hotel along the ocean. On one of the weekends, we decided to rent a motorhome and do some site seeing. By the end of the weekend, we were having such a good time in the motorhome that we decided to ask Control Data if they would pay for it instead of the hotel room. They didn’t care. So we ended up living in a motorhome for the remainder of our time till we moved into our house.

Our home was located in west end of the city next to Cowles Mountain. On the other side of the mountain was El Cajon.

As a result of the motorhome living when we first arrived, we ended up purchasing a used Executive motorhome that we used extensively. We camped at the Silver Strand State Beach on North Island on many weekends. We also camped in the desert several times. And we camped in the mountains east of the city. So that’s how we upgraded from a tent trailer to a motorhome. We even celebrated Thanksgiving one year in the desert and Theresa’s Uncle Rich joined us for a visit.

My work was at the La Jolla facility where Control Data managed their mini-computer product line. I was in the Marketing department. After a couple years of mediocre performance and with the division performing poorly, I was again asked to find a different position in Control Data.

By 1979, the personal computer was beginning to appear. I purchased a single-board computer called a KIM-1 which contained a 6502 processor, the same as used on the Apple II. We eventually mounted the board, power supply, and (tape recorder) storage in a briefcase.  Dan has the system, although it hasn’t been powered up for probably 25 years.

On a business trip to Minneapolis to interview, I talked to the CDC VP of Technology re personal computers offering my services to assist the company with implementation. He sort of put me down and suggested I find a job in the office products division… which I did and worked there till the division/company collapse

15.               Home in Eden Prairie (1979 - 1997)

When we moved back to Minnesota, I was working at the headquarters facility on 34^th Avenue South in Bloomington. So we selected a home in Eden Prairie. It was a 4 bedroom rambler on a pond and a very large (2 A.) lot.

Dan had graduated in San Diego. So, only Kathy & Dave went to Eden Prairie High School. After our first year, the school was moved to the current location north of highway 5.

We lived in Eden Prairie for 18 years and have lots of fond memories in that home. The house had a tuck-under garage (below the ground level double car garage) where the boys were able to work on their cars.

As we approached our 35^th wedding anniversary, Theresa and I were going to go on a cruise. But about that time, both David and Kathy announce that they wanted to get married that summer. So they did and we went on our cruise another year. In fact we’ve been on several cruises since then and thoroughly enjoy that vacation style. 

As the kids grew up, we went camping less and less. So we eventually ended up selling our GMC motorhome and going on cruises and packaged vacations.

During these years, I wrote a contest scoring system for the Barbershop Harmony Society which is used at all contests held across North America. In that process, I was also invited to become a judge myself. I did that and have had many wonderful trips all across North America judging contests and then spending a week or two on vacation at the contest city. I was also active in the Great Northern Union chorus singing at all of their 20 consecutive International contest appearances. That also provided cities to vacation in. Cities vacationed in include: Halifax, Pasadena, Calgary, New England, San Jose, Atlanta, Miami, San Francisco, Kansas City, etc., etc., etc.

I am still a certified judge and continue to enhance and debug the scoring program, but will probably step down in a few more years.

16.               Retiring in Plymouth (1997 - )

In 1997, the kids all had their own home, Theresa and I started shopping for a smaller home. We finally selected a ‘detached townhouse’ in Plymouth just a few miles north of where Kathy and Cam live.

When we moved, David and Sarah decided to purchase our home in Eden Prairie. David and Garth and Hannah still live there while Sarah lives a couple miles east of there after their divorce.

Our Plymouth home has been a wonderful place to live. It’s convenient to everything, shopping, the kids, doctors, hospitals, & the University of Minnesota where Theresa was diagnosed with mouth cancer just before we moved to Plymouth.

While living in Plymouth, we both retired. First Theresa was asked to go on permanent medical leave because of her cancer. Then I sold my consulting business and retired on December 31, 2000. So I can say, I’ve never worked in the 21^st century since my retirement date is considered part of the 20^th century.

After retirement, we went on many wonderful trips & vacations. Some places of interest include Halifax, Nova Scotia; Banff/Jasper, Alberta. Our highlight that Theresa thought up and organized was a trip to DisneyWorld stay both at a Disney World hotel and 4 days on the Wonder, a Disney cruise ship. We took along all of our kids, their wives and their children. We had a group of 12. It was just a marvelous trip. Theresa got very tired because of her deteriorating health, but we got her an electric cart to get around in at the amusement parks and she did fine. She also had an electric cart on the cruise ship, and wasn’t the only passenger using one – I think I recall 4 passengers in carts. Our kids had been to Disneyland several time when we lived in Los Angeles, but they still enjoyed it because it was so much fun to watch the grandkids and our kids’ spouses having so much fun.

Finally in 2007, Theresa had a very bad holiday season and ended up with pneumonia. She went into the hospital at the University on January 3^rd and was never home again after that. She was in the hospital for a week and then moved into the Walker-Methodist nursing home for long term care. She felt fairly certain that she was going to die and didn’t want to make our Plymouth home a place where we remembered her dying. It also has the master bedroom upstairs, so she’d had to climb stairs every day.

Rochester doctor.

Her hospital care was

17.               Prescott Township

18.               Rome Township

19.               Jo Davies Township 

20.               Blue Earth City Township 

21.               Appendix A       Meyer Family Genealogy & History

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