The Unsinkable Betsy Smith

Every once in a while you meet someone who just lights up and completely energizes a room simply by walking into it. Betsy Smith is just that special kind of person. She has a such a joy of life, sense of adventure, incredible love of family and gift for making the lives of many people better just for having known her, that you absolutely want to bask in her glow and have some of that magic pixie dust that seems to emanate from her bounce your way.

I knew I wanted to share her story with all of you, and when she was so generous to answer my call for Christmas family traditions, I was certain we had our perfect December Blog! Kind and generous to a fault, Betsy shares with us not only her wonderful holiday family traditions, but her sense of joy about life, despite the profound loss of her husband at way too young an age. She also gives us a peek at an amazing organization, P.E.O., and her unique and many faceted contributions to their good work.

Here’s much more about the life and times of the fabulous Betsy Smith!

The Unsinkable Betsy Smith!

Betsy, like so many of us, you are not a native to California. Tell us a bit about your childhood, where you grew up, your family values, how you met your beloved husband and how in heck you ended up in California!

I was born in New Jersey and lived there all my life (except for the four years I spent at Marietta College in Ohio) until I moved to California in 1994. After college I taught 7th - 10th grade English and speech for four years. (Fun fact: during the six-week cycle class that every 9th Grader took, I taught Meryl Streep in a speech class. I also taught her in a sophomore English class!). During the last two years of teaching I became a certified speech therapist. I was offered a Federal Fellowship to get my Master’s, so I took a leave of absence, earned my Master’s, and then went back to my school district to set up the speech therapy program, K through 12.

It was during that time that I was invited to the home of a colleague for Thanksgiving dinner one year, where I met this young physicist, Neville Smith, from Yorkshire, England, who was working with my colleague’s husband at Bell Telephone Labs. Neville had just moved to New Jersey from Stanford where he had been doing a Post Doc. He proposed on New Year’s Day and we got married the following March! Our first daughter, Kaci, was born in 1972 and our second daughter, Libby, was born in 1974, and I became a stay at home mom, staying active outside the home as well with volunteer work.

Over the next nine years, my volunteer job in the school library turned into my being a paid librarian. I became very active with the schools (PTO), Girl Scouts, the Youth Commission and I ran a Junior Garden Club as part of the local Garden Club. In fact, we had three juried flower shows in our home! In 1992 I received the Youth Advocate of the Year Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Youth of Somerset County from the Board of Chosen Freeholders. Then I realized that when schools cut their budgets, one thing they cut is the librarians but not the speech therapists. I therefore returned to speech as a therapist for the Somerset County Educational Commission that supplied Speech Therapists and Supplemental Ed teachers to non-public and private schools. I drove a mobile classroom to the Parochial Schools.

With the divestiture of AT&T, Bell Labs began to go downhill. Once it was taken over by Lucent things got really bad and my husband was very unhappy and depressed about work. So on February 28, 1994, he took his 25 years and retired. On that date he punched in and out at Bell Labs and we got on a plane and flew to California. On March 1st, he started work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab as the Scientific Director of the Advanced Light Source (ALS). He was thrilled to be back in, as he described it, "Paradise!"

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Neville with his beloved daughters, Kaci and Libby.

We met you at a time of great loss, Betsy, but I have to say that you have the most positive attitude and resiliency of almost anyone I know. How were you able to muster such courage, grace and strength in the face of the loss of Neville at such a young age? What advice would you have for others in a similar place in life?

Basically I am a very upbeat and positive person. I think that helps a lot. We did not have much warning. Nev told me that he did not feel well around July 10th and he was gone on August 18th. He went to work the week before he died, with my assistance, and even went to an off-site retreat all while being on morphine. I think what helped was that I don’t think I would have done anything differently. He was very accepting and resigned to the situation. He did not seem to suffer until the very end and it could have been so much worse for him. He died at home, we were all with him and as the hospice nurse said, "in 30 years of nursing I do not think I have ever seen anyone die so quickly or so peacefully." Another thing that helped was that he had said in the past, "I do not want a funeral but if you feel you have to do something, throw me a party!" So we threw him three parties and these kept us busy for a year.

The first was tied in with the October "User’s Meeting" at the ALS. The ALS is a user facility where people come from all over the world to do experiments. So we had about 200 people at an open house at our home. The girls put together 15 18" by 24" picture boards which were all over the house both indoors and outdoors.

Kaci, Betsy and Libby in Yorkshire, England, at the celebration of Neville's life.

The next was on what would have been his 65th birthday. We had a celebration of his life at a hotel in Leeds, England, near where his parents had lived. Many relatives, friends, college classmates, and scientific colleagues came. Before the party we had taken half his ashes to the local cemetery to be "strewn." The unofficial Yorkshire National Anthem is "On Ilkley Moor Ba Tat." So we took a small urn to Ilkley Moor and his sister, his daughters and I sprinkled his ashes next to the calf of "the Cow and the Calf" rock formation.

Then finally on the anniversary of his death, we took the other half of his ashes to New Jersey where they were put in a cemetery plot that my grandmother had purchased before my parents were married. My ancestors have been buried in that cemetery since the 1600’s! We had another celebration of his life at a restaurant in our old hometown. Friends of the girls, teachers, neighbors, colleagues, my relatives and many others who could not come to either California or England were able to participate.

Your volunteer efforts are nothing short of stunning. But I think your favorite has to be the work you do for P.E.O. Tell us about P.E.O. and the role you play in their organization.

When we moved to California I decided that I would not get a job. I decided that my job would be to become active in my new community. I joined the Section Club whose purpose is to provide service to the University community, to raise funds to aid and support deserving students and student-related groups of the university and to foster study and international understanding. It is made up partly of spouses, domestic partners, current and emeriti faculty, senior staff members of LBNL and LLNL, etc. In the olden days it would have been called the Faculty Wives’ Club. Nev had come from industry and I had never been in an academic environment but within less than 10 years I was Secretary Elect, Secretary, President Elect, President, and Past President/Parliamentarian. Presently I do orientations for the International Students and Scholars Committee every month at I-House (that is the International House at Cal Berkeley) and the Lab for the visiting international scholars. During the last two years I chaired the S.O.S. Committee which gives emergency grants of up to $500 to students in crisis. These students are recommended to us by campus liaisons. It is a very rewarding job.

When I moved to California I was already a P.E.O. I became a P.E.O. in 1983 through the Principal of my daughters’ elementary school. Being a P.E.O. was what made it so easy for me to move to California, in my 50’s, as I knew that I would meet P.E.O. sisters here. I was here 10 days when I received a phone call from a P.E.O. I visited six chapters in the East Bay before I chose the one I transferred to.

P.E.O. was founded in 1869 by seven college students at Iowa Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. It is now an International Philanthropic Organization of over 250,000 women, celebrating the advancement of women, educating women through scholarships, grants, loans and the stewardship of Cottey College. The organization is focused on motivating women to achieve their highest aspirations. Presently P.E.O. has six international philanthropies and the state of California also has several grants available to women. Since 1907, more than 98,000 women have been the recipients of these philanthropies with a total of $251 million given in financial assistance. In addition, since 1961, the P.E.O. Foundation (a nonprofit corporation established to encourage tax-deductible giving to the educational and charitable projects of the P.E.O. Sisterhood) has managed more than $73 million in more than 800 funds. One tenth of the P.E.O. Sisterhood lives in California. There are over 500 chapters in California and over 22,000 P.E.O.’s.

Presently I am the State Chair of the P.E.O. Program for Continuing Education which was established in 1973 to provide need based grants to women in the United States and Canada whose education had been interrupted and who later found it necessary to return to college to be better equipped to support themselves and/or their families. In October 2009 this grant was raised from a maximum of $2,000 to a maximum of $3,000. Since 1973 this philanthropy has awarded over $33 million to more than 31,000 women. P.E.O. - Women Helping Women Reach for the Stars!

Not only do you give generously of your time to P.E.O, but you have also set up a very unique situation in your guest home for out of town guests in a way that directly supports P.E.O. Tell us about that and what inspired you to make this available.

My home has an in-law apartment. In fact a tenant came with our home when we bought it. Our daughters were both in college on the East Coast when we moved to Berkeley. When they graduated they both came out here to see what it was like, found jobs, met partners and stayed. In fact at one point or another, they have each lived in the apartment. When Kaci moved into her own home (Libby already had done so) I decided that I did not want a permanent tenant. I wanted to be flexible. I use it for houseguests, I rent it to individuals that I have known who come to the Lab for short periods of time, and I do Bed and Breakfast for P.E.O.’s.

Once a year, our magazine lists contacts of chapters willing to do B & B for fellow P.E.O.’s. One of the ways we make money for our philanthropies is by providing these B & B’s for each other. I have benefited from this B & B system everywhere from Massachusetts to Ohio and also in Oregon. Most people just share a bedroom and bath in their house, but I am lucky enough to have this little three-room apartment. I am getting some regulars whose children live, work, or go to school in Berkeley. It is fun and I am meeting a lot of nice people. It becomes a philanthropic endeavor because guests don’t pay me --- instead they write their checks to P.E.O., Chapter EL which is my chapter. I love P.E.O. and I love volunteering and being involved.

Hand crafted block print holiday cards.

Another interesting tidbit about you is your creative streak --- which extends through your whole family! The latest artistic endeavors of yours that I learned from you are these absolutely gorgeous holiday cards that you and your family have created over the years. What a lovely tradition you set and have continued to pursue! We’d like to learn more!

When our first daughter was born we made a block print birth announcement. It was so much fun that we decided to make our own block print holiday greeting cards. For the next 33 years during the Thanksgiving week-end we would hand print cards. My husband designed and cut the blocks. I got him all of his supplies. He printed the cards and I got to do the envelopes and the sentiments inside (since they were all blank). As the girls got older they contributed their ideas for the designs.

We only missed one year – 1974 - when we moved and had our younger daughter all within the same month!

When my husband passed away in 2006 the girls asked to make the holiday greeting cards. This is what they printed up and pasted inside each card:

"Neville created his own Christmas cards for 33 years. This year we chose 4 of his (and our) favorites: Cardinal 1979, 2003; Santa 1976, 1985, 2002; Snowflakes 1981, 2005; and Poinsettia 1988, 2004. Lovingly reproduced in miniature by Kaci and hand-printed by Kaci and Libby in his memory."

Betsy's card tree displaying the family collection.

I have tried to carry on the tradition by making my own cards. I do not make block prints but I either paint a picture and reproduce it or I make copies of photos I have taken.

We have one more holiday tradition. Nev always gave everyone a book for Christmas which he put a lot of thought into. To honor this tradition, we now each give each other a book every year.

You have a passion for travel! And you have combined that passion for travel with opportunities to honor your husband’s memory as well as visit and connect with his family and your mutual friends. Tell us about the journeys you have taken, why they have such importance and meaning in your life, and what you have planned this next year.

I talked about all the traveling I did to honor Neville that first year. Also that year my best friend from college said that she, her sister and their husbands were planning a cruise and tour to Alaska and wondered if I would like to join them -- I did! It was wonderful.

Also in 2007, Nev and I were planning to live in Berlin for the months of July and August. There was going to be a scientific conference at the very end of July and into August and we wanted to be there at that time. Nev had been conference chair when it had been in San Francisco. Since he died in 2006, the conference committee flew me over, put me up in a hotel for a week and had a tribute to Neville on the last day, with me as the guest of honor. We had lived in Germany for a total of 10 months on an Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship for senior scientists to work with a German colleague. It is for 12 months spread over 5 years. We had lived in Juelich, Germany (near Cologne) from September, 2000 to March, 2001. Then our host moved to Berlin and we lived in Berlin April, May, and June of 2005. The trip spanning the conference was supposed to be our last two months.

This past September I had a wonderful trip. I went on an eight day Danube River Cruise from Budapest, Hungary to Passau, Germany. I went early and had a few days in Budapest on an extension. In Passau I was picked up by a young woman, Irmgard, who twenty-eight years ago had stayed with us in New Jersey during the month of July. For some reason a whole class of students from Linz, Austria came to New Jersey and we agreed to host two girls. (Editor’s note: Typical Betsy!) We have stayed in touch with her all these years. She and her husband had a long week-end with us in both Juelich and Berlin. Ten years ago we visited them on our way to a conference on Lake Lucerne. In September I was able to spend three days with her and her family. Her boys are the age she was when we met. She even invited the other girl who stayed with us, Elena, over for dinner and it was great to see her after all of this time. By opening our home through the years to these girls and to Rianne, mentioned below, Nev and I enriched our lives, and the long-lasting relationships that we created continue to give me joy.

What travel would you like to still do?

Next year I am planning on going to England, Holland, and Germany in August. I am going to visit the cemetery on the anniversary of Nev’s death to see his name in the Book of Remembrance. I want to contact relatives and friends that came to his celebration of life. Then I will be going to Holland to visit my Dutch "daughter," Rianne, and her family. Rianne lived with us for a year on an American Scandinavian Student Exchange Program, ASSE. She and her family are part of my family. Our whole family went to her wedding when she got married. When we had the open house for Nev, she came all the way from Holland. After I visit Rianne, I am planning on taking the train to Juelich to visit the friends I made when I lived there in 2000-2001.

Someday I would love to be able to take my whole family on the Alaskan cruise and tour. I also would love to take a cruise through the Panama Canal and I wouldn’t mind another river cruise. About every other year or so I visit my sister at her cottage in New Hampshire. I also love hosting visitors to the Bay Area and showing them around. I like being a travel guide.

Betsy and grandson Vincent

You are such an industrious woman, Betsy, with so many diverse interests! What else should we know about you and what else would you like to share or discuss?

I adore my grandson, Vincent, who was named after Neville. Vincent was Nev’s middle name. Vincent was born in 2008 and is just a little over two and a half. He is loved and adored by the whole family. He is funny and talks all the time. He is a good, calm, mellow little boy. He has added so much to our family. I do not think there is another little boy so loved.

Superhero Vincent was Super Why for Halloween.

I enjoy the various sections of the Section Club. As part of the Music Section I sing in a chorus which meets for 2 hours every Tuesday morning during the Academic year. I love singing in this chorus. I belong to the Berkeley City Club and am a Docent there. I love to read and I am in three book groups. I love to swim which I do at the City Club and when I don't have time to swim I like exercising on my treadmill. I love theater. I attend Cal Performances, Cal Shakes, Aurora, Berkeley Rep, ACT, the San Francisco Opera and others.

Betsy has very generously offered to take calls and emails from any of our readers who’d like more information about volunteering with P.E.O. or donating to the P.E.O. Foundation, renting her guest home, travel ideas or just to hang out and have a great meal! Here’s how you reach Betsy: betsysmith510@sbcglobal.net 510-843-1643.

I think you’ll agree that Betsy is inspirational. We feel incredibly fortunate to have the truly unsinkable Betsy Smith as part of our extensive family of amazing clients. We hope her spirit and message of life’s many joys is one that resonates with you during this lovely holiday season! Thank you, Betsy!

The Power of Social Media

Featuring Tony Knox, and his community building Eagle Scout project.

Just a few weeks ago we published our latest blog featuring Vietnam Vet turned author, Tim Haslam. His story motivated many of you to write to us and some of you to purchase his book. But what I never imagined is the impact his blog would have on one young man in the home stretch of his Eagle Scout project.

Tony Knox with his proud parents, Annette and Mark Knox.

Proud mom, good friend, colleague and client, Annette Knox, sent me an email a couple of weeks ago letting me know that not only was she moved by Tim’s story, but that her son was as well. Turns out her son, Tony, was in the final phase of planning the dedication of the Moraga Veterans Memorial --- a memorial that he envisioned, raised funds to build and actually helped build, and install. An important element of his project was the dedication ceremony taking place this past Veterans Day: 11/11 at 11:00, in the Moraga Commons. Because of that blog, Tony asked Tim to speak at the dedication ceremony.

So of course, I had to attend! I was prepared to be wowed by the memorial, which I was! But I was not prepared for the amazing presentation and program that Tony put together. Beginning sharply at 11:00, we were treated to the Color Guard presentation of the flag accompanied by moving bagpipe ceremonial music. Moving on, and led by Tony Knox, speakers included two high ranking retired Naval officers, Moraga Mayor Ken Chew, a retired Scoutmaster, Supervisor Gayle Uilkema and yes, our own beloved Tim Haslam! All the speakers did a great job of saluting and honoring our military and thanking Tony for his meaningful work in bringing this memorial to Moraga. Tim added to the importance and tone of the day by reading a passage from his book, bringing us into the jungles of Vietnam during a time of tremendous loss, and letting us experience the reality of what our brave men and women experience when they serve in combat. Being outside on a beautiful day in a park aside, you could have heard a pin drop as Tim read from his memoirs. Tony’s concluding remarks were very poised and warm, a remarkable presentation by a remarkable young man.

Tim Haslam’s address next to the newly installed Veterans Memorial.

Here are the words that Tony presented in the program for the memorial ceremony:

"I have been involved in scouting for seven years. The Veterans Memorial is my Eagle Scout project and must be completed before I obtain the rank of Eagle. Scouts who obtain their Eagle rank learn to develop skills and values that are recognized throughout their lives. I’ve had many fun experiences with Scouting, but I believe the most important part is the development of my character and my morals.

During this last summer, I was looking around for an Eagle Project when John Haffner, the President of the Kiwanis Club and President of the Military Officers Association, suggested that I create a Veteran’s Memorial for the Town. The project seemed appropriate for me because I have many family members who served in wartime. I was glad to have the opportunity to honor both my family and Veterans of the Lamorinda Community. I enjoy my freedom as a citizen of the United States, but this freedom is sometimes taken for granted. The project seemed like a great way to honor the people who fought for our freedom.

In order to create the actual memorial, I located a granite boulder, and made a design that we engraved onto the boulder with the direction and help of Ken Kramer. My fellow scouts and I actually helped out in the engraving process, which included cutting out a stencil and sandblasting the design into the boulder. This was quite a fun process because I got to see my hard work coming together. We also prepared the spot in the Commons for installation of the boulder, installed the boulder, and prepared and sent out the contribution request. I also planned this event and my fellow scouts have assisted me in bringing it about.

The Eagle Scout project challenges a Scout in areas such as leadership, planning, communication, fundraising, management and teamwork. This has been a difficult but rewarding project and I hope it keeps our Veterans in the hearts and minds of our citizens."

Tony is in the final phases of his fundraising for this project so that it can be completed, sealed and the installation made permanent. He is looking to raise $1,700.

We at Ballou Plum have made a small donation, and LPL Financial will be matching it. Both my father and brother have served in the military, my father during the Korean War in the Navy, my brother during peacetime (thankfully) for 20 years in the Air Force. Many of you know that Marilyn’s husband also served in Vietnam in the Army, both in the infantry as well as a dental specialist serving in MEDCAPS (Medical Civic Action Programs), organizing doctors and dentists to go out into the field to serve Vietnamese civilians.

I know that many of you have also served, or have close family who have served in the military.

If you would like to contribute to Tony’s final phase of fundraising, you need only send a check payable to Military Officers Association of America and mail it to:

Military Officers Association of America, Contra Costa Chapter
Moraga Veteran’s Memorial Project
PO Box 2305
Walnut Creek, CA 94595

Ballou Plum will match the first $500 our clients and colleagues contribute, so please let us know if you do so!

Thank you to two men from two different generations for your inspiring contributions to our well being. Tony Knox and Tim Haslam, we pay tribute to you!

A man of honor serves his country and shows us the true value of resiliency and community

Featuring Tim Haslam – Team builder and forward thinker!

I met Tim and his wife Diana when we simultaneously began our adoption process. We have held hands, hugged a lot, eaten overly frosted birthday cake, bravely forged relationships with birth families, and watched as our four adopted children grew. And they are still growing! I admire them both more than words can say, as each of our families grapple with the small victories along this complicated set of paths we undertook. When Tim told me he was writing a book, I had to wonder how he would ever find the time? In addition to working long hours, he and his wife also remodeled their home, doing much of the work themselves, volunteered extensively, and found time for camping, fishing and all sorts of other outdoor family activities. I’ll never forget the day that Tim presented me with a signed copy of his magnificent memoir --- ah, but I’m getting ahead of the story. I’ll let Tim take it from here…

Tell us about where you grew up, how that framed your ethics and viewpoint on life and what lessons were learned that you’ve carried forward during your remarkable life.

I was born in Hollywood…yep, the movie place in Southern California, and raised in a pretty typical, "Leave It to Beaver" like, middle class neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. My dad was an executive at 20th Century Fox and headed the wardrobe departments there. I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to work my summer vacations at the studio while in college. It was pretty exciting even though most of my work involved brooms and shovels. It was actually pretty hard work and, as my dad had a really good reputation around the studio, I was strongly motivated to maintain the family reputation for work and contribution.

My neighbors in Van Nuys included doctors and lawyers, school teachers, airline pilots and salesmen. Most all of the women were stay-at-home moms who worked as hard as their gone-from-home husbands. There were various religious denominations represented on our street as well as atheists and agnostics, none of which seemed to matter to anyone as this territory was generally accepted to be private and personal with tolerance and acceptance easily blending our different beliefs. There were Republicans and Democrats, and everybody seemed to get along really well…and so that’s what comes to mind when I think of a neighborhood…everybody was different and unique and yet it was all a natural part of "our" neighborhood…we were all neighbors and neighborly. It was a stable and safe place to grow up. All the adults were great role models who had learned a lot of their own life lessons during the Great Depression and the Second World War although none of them ever talked about those experiences; they seemed to be too busy tending to the responsibilities of their present lives and the futures of their kids. I could go to virtually any house on our street and be welcomed and feel at home. Yet I would be expected to behave myself and show proper respect for everything and everyone within the various homes. It was really great that there was almost always somebody to play with as a kid and we rarely ever had to be driven anywhere to be entertained. I walked to public schools and as I grew older my neighborhood expanded in geography but not in character.

I think these experiences still constitute my frame of reference for most of my perspectives and attitudes, and I think of it through rose colored glasses as the good ole days. Respect, responsibility and hard, honest work were in ample evidence everywhere…oh, and always a lot of fun too.

You served in the military in Vietnam and have written and published an amazing and very interesting book about that period of your life and the life of our country called, Stars and Stripes and Shadows. Can you share with us what prompted you to write this book and the book’s focus and themes?

One evening in the winter of 2003, at our dinner table, my son Austin, then 11 years old and keenly interested in GI Joes, said something like… "You were in a war weren’t you Dad?" I told him I was and started to fumble about trying to say more. I think he lost interest within a few seconds but it set something in motion within me. The next morning I took my laptop to a little coffee shop in Alamo with the intent of writing some of the things I could remember. My mom had kept all the letters I had written home while I was in Vietnam and so I had those to help rekindle some of the long buried memories. Once I got started I really couldn’t stop and so, four years later, the story was told. Certainly this was never undertaken as a commercial endeavor, but the spread of the book has reconnected me with many of the men I served with over there and that has been of immense value to me. One of those men told me that he had spent 35 years trying to forget about that war and the last five years trying to remember. I think that’s been true for a lot of us.

In addition to your years of service to your country, you have had a very robust and varied professional career, starting work in the boom days of the tech sector at Burroughs, thriving through the boom, coping with the collapse of tech stock values and then re-engineering your professional focus and your career path. Please share with us how you started your career path, what prompted you to make the career changes you have and how you were able to do so successfully during some very challenging times.

My college roommate was working at Burroughs when I finished college and said I could probably get a job there as I now had a degree. He was right; and that was about all the credentials I had. I was first hired as a material planner and had to quickly learn about transistors and resistors. Not so much about the technical aspects but what to do when the production line ran out of them. I spent three years there and moved up into the position of Master Scheduler with responsibilities for scheduling the whole production facility.

I was never one to be very focused on a career path and so I’d characterize my approach in the early years as one of always trying to move forward keeping my eyes and ears and options open. Most of my career was in high tech and, as I’m a technical illiterate I’ve had to rely on a more basic common sense approach to problem solving and the pursuing of business opportunities. That seemed to work pretty well for me over the years and allowed me to move my way up and play along with the techies. I’m more the analytic type than a "driver" and yet I’ve always really liked working with people and so I think that’s helped me to be able to coach people and teams in a less autocratic argumentative way than is often the norm. Over my working years I’ve experienced mergers, spin-offs, and acquisitions. I’ve ridden the business cycle roller coaster through numerous ups and downs…some gradual and some abruptly steep. I’ve benefited from stock options inflated during the high tech boom times, and my wife Diana and I have had to tighten our belts when boom would suddenly start to look and feel like bust. Today, in my work at Kaiser Permanente, I have a lot of confidence in my ability to draw on these experiences and use them to help guide people into and through opportunities that they might not otherwise have considered. They sometimes even think I’m pretty smart when, in fact, I’m really using my technical ignorance to pull out the basic, common sense solutions to problems.

I hear rumors that you are working on another book and that this one will be Americana fiction. Tell us how you find time to write in addition to being a full time employee in a challenging career, a husband and father and maybe finding a small bit of time to rest and relax. What inspires you?

I’ve been slowly pecking away at another book, a novel this time, for a couple of years. It’s part of my Saturday and Sunday morning routine to go to one of several coffee shops and write for an hour or so. I can’t do it any place that’s quiet and isolated. I like having the noise and motion of living people around me and yet I can easily tune out the specifics of what they might be up to and concentrate on bringing life to the characters in my book. I have this fantasy that someday I’ll have the time to actually write more than a page in a day. The whole writing experience is really fun and rejuvenating for me offering a most interesting set of challenges that involve words, plots, people and places with an objective of taking them all somewhere together in a cohesive and hopefully artful way.

You were personally honored this past September 11th during the 9/11 memorial ceremony in Walnut Creek. Please share that day with us and what that meant to you.

A neighbor of ours, Bryan Welden, is very active in supporting our troops when they return home by pulling together welcome home celebrations for them. Bryan also has been active in orchestrating an annual 9/11 memorial ceremony on the west side of Walnut Creek. Bryan, knowing of my book, invited me, as a Vietnam Veteran, to come to the 9/11 commemoration to sell and sign some of my books. I was happy to take him up on his offer. As I was talking to people passing by my little book display, my wife Diana said I should come and listen to a speech that Bryan was making to a large group of people that had gathered. As I approached, Bryan asked that I come join him and for the next fifteen or twenty minutes the focus of the commemoration turned to me in the form of an overdue "welcome home" from the Vietnam War. I was given plaques, commemorative coins, countless handshakes and hugs. It was awesome. I certainly didn’t deserve any of this but I was honored to be a face for the two million Americans who served in Vietnam and came home to a country consumed by political turmoil.

Tim, Diana and Austin Haslam honored by veterans groups at 9/11 memorial ceremony in Walnut Creek.

What advice do you have for today’s challenging times regarding re-engineering ourselves for longevity in our careers?

Remember I’m a technical illiterate and so a term like re-engineering is probably out of my jurisdiction. I’ve become a "process" professional in the last ten years and so I’ll more naturally reach into my "process tool kit" to answer this one. Basically, in whatever I do—business or personal—there are three things I always try to be mindful of; where I am now, where a better place to be is, and what the obstacles are between the two. These three images are constantly changing as life is always in motion. So, my advice for longevity is to maintain our ability to keep up with the motion. Certainly at my age there are a lot of signals suggesting I should get off this train and take a break for awhile. Beguiling as this sometimes sounds, I know how risky it would be to give in and just watch from the sidelines. I try to keep myself in pretty good shape. I’ve always liked to be on my feet so being outdoors and playing isn’t too hard. Reading and writing keep the mental images moving. My 63 years of successes and failures have made me pretty good at removing a lot of the obstacles in the minefields that keep getting laid in front of us. This doesn’t mean we have to ride the same train we’ve been on for our long careers. Perhaps our "better place" image may require a transfer to another line?

What lessons have you learned that you would like to share with us about having such a full life with so many accomplishments and being fulfilled and happy?

OK, here’s where honesty…not humility…has to rise to the surface. I really don’t see anything that I’ve done as unusual. Certainly I’ve been really fortunate my whole life, particularly when it comes to the people I’ve been closest to. I mentioned the strengths of my parents and the other adults that surrounded my childhood. I’ve always had a lot of great and true friends that have allowed me to participate in lots of things. My wife Diana is the real hero however, complementing my cerebral endeavors with her practical determination and spirit. Any accomplishment attributed to me must be shared with her. Her strengths and courage to take on the day to day things that I shy away from are what allow me to keep moving along to my own rhythms.

Since this is the Ballou Plum Blog I really would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the vital role that Lynn and Marilyn have played in our lives over the last 20 plus years that we’ve known and worked with them. Their guidance, coaching and brilliant stewardship of our "nest egg" has also allowed us to reach this point in our lives with lots of options for finding the "better places" and for getting to them. I particularly appreciate Lynn’s honest assessments of some of my ideas tendered with the same sort of diplomacy that my mother used… "NO, YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO DO THAT!"

What else would you like to share with us about your remarkable life and your thoughts about the times we live in?

Since you’re giving me the pulpit here for a moment I’ll share some thoughts about the state of the American neighborhood today. I’m bothered by the polarization of the folks in this neighborhood and the efforts of partisan politics to keep dividing us up along the simplistic lines of us and them, good and bad, right and wrong, even segregating the neighborhood into red and blue states. This, in my mind is completely inconsistent with the reality of our moving world and a long way from the "good ole days" that I experienced growing up (or perhaps just pretend to remember). It seems to me that every time our country faces a disaster or problem, the reaction from our leaders these days is first to affix blame, then to use the situation to scare everyone into thinking that their way will keep us out of these messes in the future. Back in the neighborhood that I remember, when there was a disaster or a problem, or when any of the neighbors were in trouble, the reaction was always the same…how can I help? I keep listening for these words from those who’d like my vote. If and when I actually start hearing them I’ll have a lot more confidence in our economy and our financial future.

Tim and I worked on his Blog just before the Chilean miners were rescued --- an immediate and excellent example of what Tim applauds as the "How can I Help" approach to life as the better path. I know many of you personally embrace this philosophy in your own lives, and over the years as we share all of your stories, I can only say how blessed we are to be part of your lives! Thank you, Tim, for reminding us about our commonality.

Many of you may be interested in Tim’s book, or in simply discussing your own experiences with him. Who knows --- maybe there’s yet another story to tell? If you’d like to reach Tim, he’d be happy to hear from you at TimHslm@aol.com. For those of you who would like a copy of his book, here is the link to order a copy, or you can simply email Tim: http://www.authorhouse.com/Bookstore/BookSearchResults.aspx?Author=Tim+Haslam