Great story fellow SU Orangeman! Or as we say now, Orangeperson.
I got married to s fine young woman who bore my children. While working a couple of years as a bread truck driver I taught myself the two semesters of calculus that I had flunked, and on the basis of that effort to recoup, was tested out and invitedby the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University to matriculate as an engineering student, where I never missed the Dean's List.
To shorten an otherwise long tale of an enriched life of experiences, the outcome was that ten years after the B. S. degree, I eventually persevered to obtain the Ph. D. degree in Ceramic Science. My life as an inventor and innovator with several corporations and universities, was concluded by retiring from the Dupont Company, where I was a Senior Research Scientist.
Ted Koppel went on to become one of the best world-recognized news communicators, and I to my own niche of electronics innovation. But now after having left active scientific research twenty-five years ago, an old missionary took the time to disciple me in the Ways of God. Now, I am committed to the Lord in an eternal vocation as a teacher of His new born-again babes in Christ.
Only God knows the end from the beginning. For us it is a never-ending adventure, full of surprises. Another of the happy serendipetous coincidences has been to become acquainted with your own exciting achievements, which to me are quite beyond my own, with the possibility through these forum exchanges of becoming your FRiend and encourager.
A salud, mon Amie! Toute la Vie, thou Saltine Warrioress of Onandaga! Be an Old Pilot, not a Bold Pilot!