We visited Lane Tech, which I graduated from (June 1960)

June '73 here.

My late next door neighbor here in California was '42.

It seems half my class is now in California in either computers or medicine.

(Sad, most of the machine shops that were across from the lunch room, and
elsewhere, were gone.

This happened within the last year or so. I tried to get a campaign going to
save the shops. No interest. The new principal (replacing Mr. Schlichting after
his retirement, he had been my computer science teacher back in '72-'73) didn't
answer my FedEx letter. He also didn't answer any phone inquiries on the topic
from another alumnus, a retired Air Force 4-star whom they've had speak at
homecoming etc.

Also the foundry
and forge shops are gone too.

On my last visit there, Mr. Schlichting let me take one of our old foundry
textbooks out of the storeroom, seeing as they weren't going to be using them
anymore anyway.

Foundry and machine shop were some of the most unlikely useful courses I ever
took, anywhere. They gave me an edge in college (masters degree, mechanical
engineering) and work, and I still use and build on the skills I learned there.
It's too bad the professional "educators" don't "get" it. But that's OK, we can
export all those jobs to the Third World. Wait, I know, we'll have teleteachers
based in India, leading our classes via cheap broadband connections and
webcams. Let's see how they like it...

Pete