Ronald Clabo

Did you ever ask yourself " How did I get here"? Well my journey to becoming the person I am today is a long and some time troubling one. As a high school student at Sierra High School in Whittier Ca. I found school very boring. I wish I would have had the oppertunities that are available for todays students. The tragedy of the Vietnam War greatly affected me as I believed as well as most of my friends that we would be drafted and die in Vietnam. This event led me to an adittude in school of why learn all of this when I just going to die in a year or so in the war. I did enroll in college but my heart was not in it. I lasted 2 semesters and just quit going as my draft number was going to be called soon and then it was over for me. My number was 150 and thats were the military said they would be drafting to. As I have reflected back at this time I have wondered why I got married knowing I could make my wife a widow in a very short time. Well imagine my shock when the word came out that the military would only need to draft to 125. what a relief!

I was able to get a job in the glass industry making containers from pickle jars to beer bottles. It was very hard and dirty work. the temperture would reach 140 degrees in the summer and many people quit within the first 30 minutes of work. Not me! I stayed for 25 years working my way up from a person that swept up the broken bottles and relieved the bottle makers for their breaks to the supervisior in charge of repairing the machines. To be finished latter