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After graduation I enrolled at Southwestern with the intent of continuing straight through to a Master's in Political Science and a teaching job in higher education. However, life intervened, and I was drafted into the Army in January 1967 after having failed to complete 90 credits in three years at Southwestern and San Diego State. So then I decided to make the best of Army life, and wound up getting commissioned a Field Artillery second lieutenant and going to parachute training with an assignment to the 82nd Airborne Division. After that came service with the 1st Infantry Division in Viet Nam and lastly at the Training Brigade at Fort Dix, NJ. I met my first wife at Dix, and after I got out of the Army we got married and moved back to San Diego but returned to Jersey with an infant son in August 1972 so I could finish college. Which I promptly did in February 1984 only with a new wife and baby girl on the way. It took me 21-1/2 years after starting at Southwestern to finally graduate from Rider College with a BSC (Bachelor of Science in Commerce) with an emphasis in Accounting. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a BSC until I had one. I finished fourth in my class (out of four) in the School of Continuing Studies (night school). But my diploma looks just like a regular one. I don't recommend anyone follow my path to higher education. Or professionally, for that matter. My career with the New Jersey Division of Taxation began in July 1973 as an Auditor Intern and I managed to make it to Supervising Auditor in only 23 years. On promotion to Supervisor, I immediately became the second oldest Supervisor in the Field Audit Branch. Which was sort of appropriate because I was also the second oldest father in grades K through 9. Then I became the oldest father when poor old John LaPente died. During this period (1993) I had my lifetime highlight by appearing on Jeopardy. I was fabulous, and made Alex laugh at one of my comments, but I wasn't fabulous enough to avoid finishing third. At that time, third place got you lovely parting gifts and no cash, but I do have a VHS tape of me being on national TV. I retired from Taxation in December 2009 when I finally did some arithmetic and discovered I would bring home about $500 per month more as a retiree than I was bringing home working. Plus, I was totally fatigued from the difficult job of supervising a Sales Tax Audit Group, which primarily consisted of writing performance evaluations once a year, going to lunch every day, and running up my expense voucher. I attribute my being ??? pounds overweight to that last 13 years of my career. Today I enjoy doing whatever my wife tells me I'm going to do on any particular day, playing fairly bad golf, and losing money playing poker at the casinos. It's also been gratifying to discover that, as an older man, I never really had to grow up and can continue to act as if I were still 15. It appears this is not the case with women, but it's probably a good thing that one of the genders matures over time. In a minor irony, my younger son is now a teacher in a suburb of Phoenix and his sister, who attended my college graduation in utero, is eagerly pursuing a position where she works that would require a relocation to San Diego.
