The End of a Decade

The New Year came pretty quickly, and with it a brand new decade. I am approaching this new era with hope and optimism. I have a little ritual of my own where I write out the highlights of the previous year on New Years Eve and then write down my resolutions. I seal the letter in an envelope and keep it until the next New Years Eve when I open it and read it once again. Sometimes I am happy with myself for meeting the goals I have set. At other times I look back and wonder how the time passed by so fast, and realize that I didn't come anywhere close to attaining my goals.

With the new decade arriving, I began to look ahead, imagining the possibilities and the events that may unfold by the time we reach the next decade, 2020. By that time all of my boys will be graduated from high school, the two oldest should be college graduates by then. Could this be the decade that Patti and I become grandparents? Then I began the more somber imagining of who will no longer be with us when we reach the year 2020.

Overall the past decade was a good one for me and my family. The year 2000 came while we were still living in Pikeville, Ky. I was the night manager at a grocery store when Y2K arrived. I remember having to work until midnight in case their computers crashed. I had to ring in the New Year on the phone with my wife. In the spring of 2000 I was offered a job as Team Manager at Sykes and stayed with them until the doors closed in April 2004.

I took that opportunity to move back to California, something that we had dreamed of doing ever since we made that fateful decision to move back to Kentucky with Mom and Dad in 1989. Shortly after moving back to California, I was offered a position at our local newspaper and have been with them since.

This decade would see many happy times, visits to the beaches and redwood parks, hiking, biking, camping, activities that I had not participated in for years. My love for animals has grown and I have had the pleasure of the company of many animal companions, including ones I never imagined that I would meet. We have our cats Simba and Tika, my ball python Greta, Mojo the bearded dragon, Emma and Fievel my rats, and Hades the beta fish.

Sadly, some animals would come and go in my life including my ferrets Scamp and Skittles, Scabbers the rat, my frog Peepers, our cat Sassy, Charlotte the tarantula, and Piggy our guinea pig.

This past decade saw the deaths of several friends and family members. Most notably were the deaths of family friend Mary Cobb in 2006, my mother-in-law Kay Dean in 2006, my grandmother Ruth Boyd in 2008, and the passing of my mother, Suzanne Boyd, in November of 2009.

We moved twice within the last decade, our first move was from Kentucky back to California in 2004 to a home that we rented from Patti's cousin for several years. Then in 2008 we moved again, this time just a short drive down the road in the same town.

I have made many new friends during this decade, more than any decade that I have lived through. I have a hard time keeping up with all of my friends from Sykes, there were so many. I have made several friends who have come and gone at the newspaper, as well as a group of Goths that I met up with for a couple of years when we first moved back to California.

One of the biggest changes in my life during the last decade, one that I never would have imagined, was my decision to leave the Christian Church. It came as a result of a very painful experience at the church we were members of in Kentucky. This experience caused me to examine what I believed and why. The results were surprising, and I found peace with my faith once again in a very personal, Nature based spirituality.

This past decade also saw our oldest son Ryan leave the nest and join the army. We had the opportunity to watch Ryan graduate from OSUT in Ft. Benning, GA in October 2007. My Mom and Dad were able to come along with us and we had a great time together. Ryan has already served a tour in Iraq and hopefully will be returning home for good this summer.



We started out the decade with Patti homeschooling our kids. When we first moved to California, Patti had to work outside the home for the first time in years. When I was promoted to Classified Sales Manager at the newspaper, she was able to quit her job and return to hearth and home. With so many problems in the public schools, we decided to bring the kids back home again, our two oldest boys joining charter schools and taking their courses at home, and Alex being homeschooled for the first time. We have tried both ways and have found that homeschooling has given our children a much better, more personalized education than the public schools can provide.

I anticipate all of the good things coming my way in 2010 and am excited about beginning a new decade in my life.