Bio, 2009: Fritz Efaw
November, MMIX.
Ann,
Thank you so much for everything youve sent me about the 45th reunion of the class of 64, including the class picture. Due to health problems, I wasnt able to travel to Oklahoma, but Ill see you at the 50th, God willing. I hadnt planned to write a bio note, but after reading the variety of amazing paths everyone has taken Im persuaded to contribute my pebble. If Ive missed the deadline, use it some other time.
Lets see, I was at St. Francis for grades 1 and 2, then Lincoln for 3 through 5, Eugene Field for grade 6, and SJHS for grade 7. Thats everywhere but Washington, Jefferson, and Westwood, so I was in a class or two with most everyone. Looking at the senior pictures, seeing reunion photos, and remembering the boys and girls we were, does more than anything to recall the song in Cymbeline:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
The allusion may be to dandelions, but chimney sweepers is what were all, including me, with my scraggly beard, coming to resemble.
My father died in 5th grade, my mother remarried in 7th grade, and I finished high school at Harding in Oklahoma City. That was only 5 years after I left Stillwater, but what an eventful five years they were! They encompassed the entire Kennedy administration and saw the birth of the modern civil rights movement. They began with Elvis induction into the army at Ft. Smith, and ended with the Beatles hitting no.1 in the pop charts. They began with Cassius Clay training to win a gold medal at the Rome Olympics and ended with Muhammad Ali taking the title from Sonny Liston and announcing his conversion to Islam. They stretched from Steve McQueen in The Blob to Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove (or, if you prefer, John Wayne and Rick Nelson in Rio Bravo to Clint Eastwood in Fistful of Dollars).
From there I went to MIT. Larry Flesner and I may have met once or twice, but we didnt get to know one another. I worked briefly for the Air Force on electron microscopy research at Hanscom AFB near Concord, Mass., then moved to London, where I lived for most of a decade, working for the Univ. of London as a computer programmer. I also got a degree in urban planning from the LSE, worked to organize airmen on bases in England, and helped establish a chapter of VVAW. In 1976 was the adventure with Don Katz, Ron Kovic, and the rest.
Back in the USA I lived on W. 23rd St. in Manhattan, commuting to a job in Princeton with Mathematica as a writer and programmer. I continued working with vets in VVAW at a time when the VA refused to recognise PTSD. I moved again to New Jersey to get a Ph.D. in economics at Rutgers, then to Tenn. for jobs at Vanderbilt and then the U. of T. @ Chattanooga.
The bad news is that about 30 years ago I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. For years it wasnt much more than a periodic inconvenience. Around 5 years ago it became whats called secondary progressive, and over the last 18 months Ive been confined to a wheelchair and in hospital several times. Ive taken early retirement on SS disability. M.S. is a hateful disease; very unpredictable. Bummer.
The good news is that in 1994 my wife and I adopted a beautiful baby girl in St. Petersburg, Russia. The now ex-wife is in Denver, and Juliane lives with my sister in Marietta. Shell soon be reaching the age we were back in 1964, Im with her every moment I can be, and shes everything I live for. But most f you know all about that.
As I said at the beginning of the note, Ann, I missed the 45th due to health problems, but Ill see you at the 50th, inshaallah. Until then, God bless you.
Fritz
©2009 Stillwater High School Class of 1964