Craig Milroy
Hello everyone.......We'll see how this works out, since I'm finishing at the last moment and a bit "off the cuff"....its midnight on July 6, under the gun like an old yearbook deadline ha ha ha.....
I admit that some of the bios were some real surprises....I never thought that I'd see Mindy with firearms, Mitchell Klein as a jui-jitsu monster, nor imagined that Kane Fisher, Elizabeth Behrens,and David Smith would end up building, dismantling, and detecting the detonation of (respectively) nuclear weaponry (if you three ever decide to form your own little nuclear state, let me know; it would be fun to have honorary citizenship).
I also never imagined how successful everyone would turn out to be....it’s true that Los Alamos is a remarkable town, and produces remarkable people. Everyone is pretty damn ambitious and successful, whatever path they choose....and its FANTASTIC to see that people have chosen a wide variety of paths...yes, some of you are rocket-scientists, which we expected (funny thing about LA is that people EXPECT you to be a rocket-scientist! People from other towns would act surprised: "wow, did you hear 'bout so-and-so, he's a rocket scientist now", and that would be real news, but not here, baby)...but there were also folks like that crazy Cummings kid who lived up the street from me...he used to do back-flips off the jeep trails at the ski hill, and later ended up on the US Olympic free-style ski team....I also remember being in a bar somewhere watching ESPN2 and seeing Brian Riepe winning a mountain-bike race...and also hearing that Danielle Fisher was in a movie and a TV show and was chosen even though she didn't even audition for the parts, etc etc.
So, since nobody turned out to be Charles Manson or Martha Stewart, and since nobody has been on Jerry Springer.....or Geraldo, or even on the late-night news in one of those cute little orange “I’m going to the pokey” uniforms....I feel that its OK to spill the beans on some of the less responsible stuff we all did, now that you are all extremely responsible, NON-criminals leading model-citizen lives that the 7th-grade you's would never have imagined or expected (and because it no longer matters anyway, especially since your kids won’t be reading this)…so here goes…hopefully it will be amusing (or at least embarrassing):
I remember moving to 536 Grand Canyon Drive from Wyoming, and my first day at Chamisa school…I was in Mrs. Simondson’s class with a bunch of you, and we used to play “500” and “boys chase girls” and “girls chase boys” at recess…Joy Torres was the only one faster than me (I was sure I would be a pro athlete one day)……I also remember the puppet show that Matt Filer and Mark White and I put on during recess one day (with Jimmy Buffet soundtrack) and you ALL stayed inside to watch – NOBODY went out for recess (I was sure I would become an entertainment mogul)…..I remember how Carl Eckhardt, David Virchow, Jeff Sanchez and I (Chamisa’s relay team) competed in the Elementary School Olympics…I remember when Chris Pollard was considered “a bad influence”…hahahaha love you Chris!!
I remember playing "kick the can" in the summertime with all the neighborhood kids (Stacy, Brenda, Mickey Matusak, Valerie Appert, the Robinson's, Filer's, Erickson's, Colston's, Hinsley's, Lyons', Buzbee's, Lemon's, Miranda's, O'Dell's, Guido's, Beaches, White's, Forehand's, Steele's, and Virchow's) and how later we all rode the same rowdy bus to Cumbres with Mrs. DeVries, and how we played that game with the pocket knife, a book, and your spread-apart fingers...
I met Scott Steele and Daniel Krantz in 3rd grade and we rode our bikes EVERYWHERE... we'd go to Daniel’s house on Wednesday afternoons when Chamisa was off and his mom wasn't around (she worked at Pinon school, REMEEEEBERR?????), and "cause trouble"...we would play “freeze-melt” while we ate lunch and one time I made Dan laugh with a mouthful of bean and bacon soup and he tried to hold it in but the soup (a big bean, actually) came out of his nose (I've never eaten "Bean and Bacon" soup again)....we got a lawn-dart stuck in his brother Doug's head, and Dan almost died one afternoon while we were practicing our ski-jumping skills into a pile of leaves (ski pole squarly into the sternum)....we found a playboy magazine somewhere along the bike trails behind Dan's house, and used to sneak out of his house at night to TP houses all over White Rock…when I went to college, my buddies in California thought it was nuts that we would sneak out at night and walk around the neighborhood ("isn't that dangerous"?????) and that I knew everyone in my school and they could never believe that Los Alamos wasn't buried somewhere in Los Angeles.......a few of them didn't even know what the milky way looked like until we took them camping in Joshua Tree National Park ("Dude, what's that big white smudge up there?????")...Dan and I also used to talk smack to Pat Martell (Daniel's next-door neighbor) until he wigged out and then we'd go hide in the house and call our mom's to come rescue us from little “Damon-Omen Martell”, who we SWORE had gone ballistic over nothing.
Bret Martin had the coolest BMX bike in town.......a Red Line.
I remember meeting Mark Morris and Greg Hirons at Canyon Vista Pool when we were 9 and had just played against each other in a soccer game....we talked about the game for a few minutes and then Greg borrowed a nickle for an ice-cream bar....a true friend indeed, he paid it off over the years with 1000's of unforgettable memories (like when we got an apple stuck in your mouth in the lunchroom in 8th grade and had to smush your jaws together to get it down) and with above-and-beyond-the-call sportsmanship and friendship, which included spending an hour or more with me on the phone every night during our senior year helping me with calculus even though you had many other AP courses and committments.....Mark and I played on every sports team imaginable together over the years.
I remember all the little league teams….especially when David Virchow and I were scared to death because we made the majors as 10-year-olds, and Mr. Bannister summoned us to his classroom in front of all the 5th-graders to talk us into it….Joe Foster and Mike Esquibel and Rick Ulibarri were like big brothers to me, and I’ve got a picture that PROVES that Rudy Ulibarri looks EXACTLY the same now as he did when he was 11 (I’ll try to scan it and post). Playing under the lights, bubble gum, frito pies, all-stars, great times….
Dean Hurst sat in front of me and Dave Smith in our 7th grade science class (taught by Mrs. Groves and her incomprehensible southern dialect), the poor guy had the bad luck of breaking a microscope on his first day. We were taught “Sex Ed” that year, or at least Mrs. Groves' version of it, but we couldn't understand what the hell she was saying, and probably would never have figured out what was supposed to go where, so it was really lucky that we sat behind Dean who had "been there and done ALL that" (or so he said, and 7th-grade boys will believe anything)...anyway, if he hadn't given us all the low-down nitty-gritty I'm not sure how my life would have turned out, so VERY special thanks to you, Dean...we thought Dean was a real wildman, but when I went to live in Atlanta, I finally understood that this was just the way Southern boys are....Atlanta has about 20000 Dean-Hursts, which makes it a REALLY crazy and fun place to live, and Tennessee is even crazier.
A few of you mentioned Mr. Max's science classes, which I remember clearly to this day…I remember how my two lab partners (Janna and Chanda) liked to snort ground-up sweet tarts (this seemed totally insane at the time, until I got to California and heard what other kids did in Jr. high school.....); there was also a sarcastic kid named Mitchell Klein who sat in the back and had a brutal sense of humor (as many city council members in different places are probably now aware), and a guy named Jim Rokop who invited me over to shoot BB-guns after I had moved to Barranca Mesa....we took his pellet gun out and shot out a bunch of car windows (our brush with juvenile delinquency)...I have to be careful about what I say about Jim, since I was his "guinea pig" when he was in grad school (we were both in Nor-Cal at the time, and he needed someone to practice administering psychological tests on....he never gave me my test results, for better or worse) and I think I was also partly to blame for his 1st marriage getting off on the wrong foot...we disappeared to go out drinking the night before, and camped out and then went to the beach in the morning and finally showed up 45 minutes before the wedding; his ma-in-law almost had a psychological post-office incident and the rest is history.....sorry, Jim. He was even nice enough to recover my automobile when it got stolen by a crazy crack-head in Oakland while I was in Brazil....
We were SOOOO cool to be 9th-grade high schoolers…..there were about 20 of us on the Freshman boys basketball team (with Coach Reid)…I remember when Mark Morris almost killed that poor kid from Espanola…..do any of you remember HANADWEDAD???????
The soccer memories could occupy another 20 pages, so I’ll save that for later….once the Eagles, Warriors and Blast, we became the Spartans…Rocky Polk was our best player….many tournaments won, lots of fun at Air-Force soccer camps, etc. etc…remodeling Jiri Kubicek’s first home and building the second one: ”hey guys, you wait for bus or what???? You needa 2 pair shoes…one a good, one a NIIIIIIIICEEEEEE”……one of my dad’s medical colleagues lives in one of these homes now, and when I proudly told her that we helped built/remodel it, she said “aaaa…so that’s why the floors are so crooked”…….Tony’s Pizza every Friday night with Mark Sapir and then off to someone’s home…..
Baseball was always my next-favorite game, and I remember how tryouts lasted for about 6 months (lots of hail out on Bomber field)..…how Mickey Matusak used to sing "On the Road Again" on the bus to away games, how he and Isaac Varela would always have fake fights, while Mark Gordon would have real fights with other teams...how Ken Hansel ran over the Santa Fe first baseman who stood up and punched him and we all sort of sat around looking at each other not sure what to do and then Mr. Varela came charging out onto the field yelling "let's kick some ass boys".....I also remember when coach Hiller stopped practice early one day and pulled us all into the dugout and told us about the Virchow's car accident......
Every time I hear a U2 song from “The Joshua Tree” I remember the “People to People High School Ambassador” trip to Northern Europe….and all those crazy kids from Tennessee…
I REALLY remember everyone on the yearbook staff in Senior year…..craziest class ever! Doug Weiss and I were the photographers and so we got to hide in the darkroom whenever Mrs. Breen would go berserk (this is when everyone else wished they were photographers too!)…I abused my press pass more than anyone in the history of journalism (movies, events, food, you name it)…the staff decided that we would like an "inclusive" yearbook that captured a little something about everyone, so Doug and I had a list with everyone's name on it and the kinds of things you were involved with so that we could catch you in action......not sure we succeeded but we did try....and because of this I remember something about all of you…probably even some things that you wished I didn’t remember, but no worries….
By the way…someone should invite our teachers as well, since I'm sure they would appreciate hearing about our successes...I have spoken with some of them over the years, and I fill them in on the positive details and I think this is really satisfying for them...my sister-in-law is a teacher and it sounds like it REALLY sucks. It would also be fun to see if Mr. Kovakavich could still pick any of us up with one hand and wave us around while screaming and yelling....
Well, crap.....I could go on but its 2 am now and I'm working tomorrow, so I'll make this short.....
After high school I went to college at UCSD (Revelle College, if it matters). David Lawrence and I played on the soccer team, which won 3 Div. III national championships... unfortunately I didn't get to play in any of those (the first year I was a redshirt, the third year I was on exchange, and the fifth year I caught pneumonia and had to sit out)....I was an exchange student at St. Andrew's University in Scotland my third year and have never quite been the same (as everyone has loudly noticed). After I finished at UCSD, I took a year out to travel and learn French to further my goal of becoming a development specialist...I lived in Paris where I worked in a bar at night and went to art exhibitions and studied French during the day...I got as far North as Scotland (expelled twice from the UK!!!) and as far south as Egypt and Kenya….you are ALL angels compared to the people I worked with in the bar……
Then I went to grad school at UC Berkeley, where I finished 2 Master's programs (engineering and public health) and then did a fellowship at the Center's for Disease Control for about 6 months, and then worked in Brazil for 7 years, first on a fellowship and then as a consultant for Pan American Health Organization and several engineering consortia.....if you google me you might find a few articles related to child health, biostatistics, HIV, and (shortly) Rwandan drinking water interventions.....I worked as an engineer and infectious disease specialist and spent a lot of time in neighborhoods like the ones you see in all those Brazilian films (City of God, Carandiru, etc etc)...its a crazy world down there, and I can vouch for the fact that those films are pretty close to the mark....I learned that I was blessed to grow up somewhere where children only snort sweet tarts (I actually mentioned this to show how people in our little small-town overreact to innocent stupid Jr.high fun)...in Brazil children from the favelas snort (and shoot) the real stuff, live on the streets, sell weapons, drugs, their bodies, stolen goods, and kill each other over food scraps.....the "joke" in Brazil is that 90% of the population is starving to death and the rest are on a diet....this is starting to change, though. Of course, I never suffered any of this myself....yes, I worked in neighborhoods without water, sewage or trash collection, on child health studies where I got to meet 30-year-old grandmothers, STD studies where I met prostitutes and HIV-positive 9 year olds, I caught salmonella and campylobacter and dengue (twice) and other strange parasitic diseases...but I also played soccer on the beach, played guitar and sang in bars, lived in a penthouse that overlooking the ocean and was perfect for parties with 200 of my closest friends, many of whom truly consider me as part of their family now....and I've been through Carnival 8 or 10 times, if I remember correctly......
I'm not married and I've carefully verified that I don't have any children....unfortunately I got so spoiled in Brazil that I think marriage is out of the question unless I end up moving back down there some day. I actually really enjoy being single, but I realize that as I get older and have no more single friends to hang out with (thank GOD that Kane Fisher’s wife still lets him go rock-climbing with me) and as I get too old to do single-guy stuff anymore, marriage might eventually be a good choice....maybe by our 25th or 30th reunion I will have a hot South American wife....by then some of you will have kids in their 20's, so I only hope that she is older than your children will be by then, if only by a few years.....
So now I have been working in Albuquerque for about 2.5 years, and it seems pretty tame. I'm in a time warp since the same songs are still on the same radio stations here. I work at a company that develops water treatment technologies (I do things like “electrochemical engineering”, “water-process engineering”, and miscellany that nobody else could be talked into) but my feet are getting itchy again and I am also scoping out PhD programs… I have run into several of you, including Mark Morris and Jeff Croasdell (both promised to invite me over for dinner and then didn’t, but DON’T WORRY, Imagonna call you after the reunion and INVITE MYSELF over, so be prepared hahaha)….…I spent the first 1.5 years getting organized and adjusted and studying for my engineering certification exams.....and then another 6 months or so trying to get back in shape before I finally decided that I needed to get serious, so I have been working out with a semi-pro soccer team for the past few months, rubbing elbows with a bunch of whipper-snappers who are 10-15 years younger than me (and all of you, too!!!) and are still full of energy and GGGRRRRRRRRRR.......I'm getting my butt kicked, but not as badly as I expected (pretty close, though)......I pulled a groin muscle and just sprained my ankle last week.....I'm supposed to be in Peru for a hiking trip on the weekend of the reunion, but if it doesn't heal by then I will cancel and just show up out of the blue...it would be GREAT to see y'all...I would especially enjoy being able to snort sweet tarts with Janna and Chanda's children (Sheila Ruminer's step-nieces and nephews!!!!).....or teach Jim Rokop’s girls to shoot out car windows with Mindy's gun....I will have the following email address until they pry it from my cold, dead computer keyboard....
bilmil@hotmail.com
ome things never change.....I hope that the LAHS88 website stays up forever, so that people can update it from time to time and so that we can eventually learn which of Sam Nasise's grandchildren becomes president.....I give Topher the nomination for best entry so far, but its not over by a long shot yet.....
God bless Joe Louck, Matt Walter's, Les, Natalie, David and Heide and all those who won't be there.....
