Hey there Grads....A note From Si Wrigley!!! Thanks for your story Si !! See you at the Reunion!

After graduation, I studied at City College of San Francisco and after two years transferred to San Francisco State.  Union Oil Company hired me in their Education Development Program where I wound up driving a tractor and tank trailer (semi) for nearly three years, never leaving the city limits.  I worked four ten hour shifts commencing at 10:00 PM and ending around 11:00 AM.  Not real conducive to an education or sleep but I made it work.  In 1967 I enlisted in the USAR ( army reserves) and was trained as a Dental Laboratory Technician.  (Numerous times I said; “I will never do that for a living.”)

In January of 1968, I moved back to my hometown of Eureka and enrolled at Humboldt State where I graduated in 1973 with a BA in Business Administration.  During the summers I leased a Salmon Trawler documented at 27 tons and commercially sought Salmon from as far north as Westport, Washington, to Morro Bay, California.  Fishing at that time made for a lucrative income and there were not a lot of Government regulations.

I married my wife Barbara in August of 1973, moving to Concord where I was employed at Walnut Creek Dental Laboratory.  The Laboratory, when I first arrived, was two corporations which formed a partnership doing work under one roof.  There was a total of seven employees in the two corporations.  One of the corporate owners was one of three early pioneers of non precious metal.  Gold was no longer on a Standard and the space program enabled us to fuse porcelain to non precious metal.  Sounds like a big deal and it turned out to be just that.  Dentists liked the inexpensive metal.  In the next five years we grew to sixty plus employees.  We had accounts in forty-two states and seven foreign countries.  We decided to diversify by purchasing dental labs in California and Nevada.  The Labs that we acquired became Satellite Laboratories.

In 1978, one of the corporations sold.  This meant that the partnership was to dissolve and any Satellite Labs would have be sold.  Chico Dental Laboratory was on our prospective list of acquisitions.  I was fully vested in the partnership from the beginning so I purchased Chico Dental Lab.  My employer gave me his blessing and I was off to Chico where I have been ever since.

I grew up fishing and hunting.  It was a family tradition.  I hunted deer until the late nineties and I am still waterfowling and upland game hunting.  Occasional squirrel hunting to help my Almond Farmer friends out.  Squirrels can be very destructive.  The fishing, throughout my life has been mostly fly fishing and primarily for steelhead.  As long as my eyes hold out and the magnification allows me, I will continue to tie fly patterns down to a size 22.  I’m still wading (with a wading stick) up to my armpits in hope of alluding that monster steelhead.

I spent thirty plus years trap shooting nine of which I shot registered targets.  Twenty six weekends throughout the year and three week long shoots at major events.  Practice was two to three nights a week so needless to say it was very time consuming not to mention costly.  I made enough to cover my expenses with some left over.  Made the record books numerous times.  Winning a shoot off against a five time world champion for runner up champion at the Grand Pacific in 1996.  This event took in all the western states and three Canadian Provinces.  Another memorable win was at Oregon in 1993 where I was the Out of State Champion.  Met and made many friends, enjoyed the traveling and truly enjoyed the competition.

I took up golf in 2000.  I’m sorry I didn’t take it up sooner.  It’s a great sport!  A game you love to hate.  A huge learning curve.  I’m a bogie golfer who every now and again  gets into the low eighties.

In June of 2006, I was diagnosed with AML (acute myelogenous leukemia), with a sub category M5b, which is a monocytic form, and comes with a death sentence.  I am not going to get into any detail because you can figure out the ending.  I’m here, writing this post St Mary’s Bio.  A great deal of chemo, radiation and a bone marrow transplant.  One of my sisters was a ten plus perfect match and was my stem cell donor.  God has other plans for me.

Currently I am doing a variety of volunteer work.  Keeps me off the streets!  I assist oncology nurses and patients in Infusion Therapy at Enloe’s Cancer Center one morning a week.  I also work a shift at the main campus at Enloe Hospital as a Spiritual Support Volunteer.  Every Wednesday I’m a Eucharistic Minister bringing communion to the Catholic patients at Enloe.  Saturday mornings you will find me on the first tee at the Bidwell Golf Course being the Greeter and Starter.  As you can see, I stay busy!

I hope to make the reunion.  There’s a little glitch currently, which Brian Moyer is aware of, and I am hoping will not interfere with our gathering.

If any of you recall, I couldn’t make the walk in 1964, I had the measles!