Bio, 2009: Jed Lohmann
Not long ago a persevering Wiley Cook tracked me down to be included on the class contact list. So you may rightly credit (or blame) Wiley for what follows.
45 years! Mon Dieu, as we all learned from Miss Rosalie Becker. So I dug out the old yearbooks to refresh my memory and to recall various events, such as that outbreak in the hallways, or that scene in the cafeteria, or the incident in the girl’s locker room, etc. We all know whom the guilty were and we’re not reluctant to say. Fortunately there are few photos of me in the yearbook, one being the mug shot we all got, missing the number plate around our neck and height indicators behind (which will be forcibly attached by someone to this missive). Another was when I appeared in that radical club known as Hi-Y (Hitler Youth?). I’m proud to report that was my last association with a political group. As for my buddy Wiley, well he must be on every fifth page, so we have photographic proof of what he was up to. But enough of those times.
After one year at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri I transferred (due to, shall we say, grade irregularities that had only the remotest connection to beer and girls) to OSU and earned an engineering degree, the military draft being an academic inspiration, along with classmates Wiley Cook and Bob Walton. Marriage came in my final year of study. Then I was off to the remote, treeless plains of West Texas to begin my career as a “migrant worker” with a major oil company. The wife, from “sophisticated” Tulsa, found that part of Texas and in particular the admittedly non cosmopolitan community of almost 10,000 souls not to her liking (and possibly me too) and returned to Tulsa, leaving me single again.
Soon after I was sent to Houston for a couple of years followed by a posting to Chicago HQ. Next I took an unpaid sabbatical, as it were, and left for California to earn an MBA at Stanford University. My youngest brother tagged along to earn a PhD in engineering.
After graduation I rejoined the company and was sent back to Chicago where I met and married (32 years and counting) a pretty flight attendant from Atlanta (a/k/a the Trophy Wife). Finding the Chicago winter again tedious, we returned to sunny California to a small oil company, for which I had worked part time while in grad school. When the company was later sold we were off to Amarillo and then Fort Worth for two more small oil companies. Next was employment with a bank in Dallas, though the timing could have been better, as the bank was caught up in the banking failures of the mid-80’s, leaving me self unemployed, as the saying goes. By now I had one son from the first marriage and two more from the second.
Tired of being a “wage slave” I started my own oil company thus reducing my chances of unemployment somewhat, and have lived in Dallas for the past 23 years, ending my itinerant years. I am slowing winding down the current phase in favor of other pursuits, namely further study (self directed) on the history of the American West (I liked Andy Murphy’s class, what can I say), Economics (re-reading Adam Smith at this time), and genealogy. We are also rehabilitating a small farmhouse in central Texas for weekend use and as a possible retirement home.
Son # 1 owns his own advertising agency and is married to an Army Captain in the medical corps, and they live in Colorado Springs. He was a reservist in the Marines, and Bush # 1 activated him for service during Desert Storm. He and his unit were sent above the Artic Circle in Norway. Possibly his commander was unaware of the location of Iraq, or perhaps it was thought Saddam might try a sneak attack over the pole or maybe there was a blue eyed, blond haired Al Queda outpost. You’ll have to ask the Government.
Son # 2 likewise joined the Marines (my father was Marine in the South Pacific during WW II) as a reservist. On this occasion it was Bush # 2 that again pulled one of my sons out of college, this time for service in Operation Iraqi Freedom. This son went straight to Kuwait and participated in the liberation of Iraq, with his unit fighting their way to Baghdad (maybe you saw it on TV, it was in the news). I guess this commander had a better knowledge of geography than the first. On returning, like son # 1, he finished his college degree. He now lives and works in Denver and is available for marriage (sorry, no dowry).
Son # 3 has a medical issue that, thankfully, rules out military service (he’d join if he could). His poor Mama doesn’t want to go through that risk again. He lives and works here in Dallas and is also available for marriage (again no dowry).
Best wishes to all of our classmates and may you never again suffer from a mug shot, even the one the state inflicts for driver’s license.
©2009 Stillwater High School Class of 1964