We had no honeymoon. I got off active duty August 1st. I started work September 4th, which was her birthday, and got married in October. We got married the day of the wedding and I flew up for the wedding and flew back that evening of the wedding, went back to San Carlos.

The honeymoon was going to be at my parents’ house, but they went to Mexico for three months, so we didn’t get our apartment until a few months after we were married. No honeymoon. Since then, we have had a couple trips in Hawaii. Last month, we got back from Cancun.

Early Marriage Years

Nancy: I worked for four years. We lived in an apartment in San Carlos. Then we bought the house we live in now. We never had much money, so we never took a lot of fancy trips or anything like that. We got a dog. We would work on the backyard on the weekend, then during the week we would come home at night and the dog had torn everything up. One time the dog dug a hole in the fence and let another dog into the backyard they took everything out of the whole backyard.

When we were engaged and still going to Oregon State, we went to the beach once, and there was a boxer there all by himself. We played with him for awhile and we said “When we get married, we are going to have a boxer.” So we did.
That was our first dog. Now we have our sixth dog since we’ve been married. Our first dog’s name was Pedro. His father’s name was Diablo.

Kids

Our vacations usually consisted of us dragging them to the Northwest to see their grandparents, because they were 1000 miles away. Before air conditioning, it was super hot because we would go through the Central Valley, and Eastern Washington, it was 95 or 100 degrees.

We took them skiing since they were about scouting age, about 9 years old. They were active in girl scouts and went on trips and things. Both girls were raised to love the outdoors. They had sailing lessons when they were about eight or nine years old. The sailing club I was in gave lessons to the youth. At that time, they didn’t like it, but when they got older they mentioned it to their peers, and they thought it was neat, so then they liked to sail. To this day, my oldest one got first place in the fall series.

When I am racing, I am still very competitive. And if I am not racing that, then I am racing at El Toro. My parents used to sail on a 25-foot boat that they used to take up to British Colombia. I own that now, and it just sits up in the cabin. I have had it since about ’66. I started sailing when they bought a boat. Two days before Susan was born, I bought my first Flying Junior. Nancy is mad at me always.

First she complained that I didn’t do anything for her in the hospital. All of the other fathers helped out. But I took the position “What more do you want, I gave you a child.” So, when Susan was born, only fathers were allowed to be there. I bought her a box of candy, spent some time with her, then I left and went sailing. She did not like that, but we are still married.