Dick Hatfield, (Engineering, 1993) treats retirement as a career change, which needs advance planning and offers new challenges. First, time takes on a new meaning with no deadlines or schedule and offers a freedom that has both pluses and minuses. One can be stimulated by the opportunities or depressed by the sudden availability of time. In his case, being involved with people and adding to his hobbies have occupied his time since retiring from weapons engineering and resource management. On the people side, he got his amateur radio license and assists with communication at many public service events. He joined the Symphony Board, served as Secretary and now as Vice President. His is past Chair of the LLNL Retirees Association and has helped to find speakers for the luncheons. As a tinkerer for many years, he recently took up metal machining, adding to his precision target shooting, photography, travel (one major trip per year), fiddling with the computer, and enjoying a good "read". Life is full of surprises, and retirement is no exception. Loss of his spouse two years into retirement messed up a great deal of the advance planning. But that is part of life, and, if one has a bit of optimism, it can be treated as a challenge.

Dale Davis (DNT N Program, June 2003) and Vern Davis (Procurement, 2000) have moved to Cypress, Texas, just outside of Houston and is a short hop to Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio. Galveston, 50 miles to the south of them, is a wonderful place to tour - lots of 1850’s homes, a WW2 submarine exhibit, and an airplane exhibit at the Galveston airport.  Also, the Battleship Texas (BB35) is docked in Houston Harbor, near the San Jacinto State Park battlefield memorial.

They recently had an addition to their family – a new granddaughter born on August 19^th, the second little girl for their family.  Her name is Grace, the same as the tropical storm that just passed through their area (weather is much different in Texas).

Dale recently attended her 40th high school reunion in Tulsa, Oklahoma and they will travel to Washington, D.C. next month for Vern’s 45th reunion.

 Tom Lincicome (Electronics 1991) and wife, Joan (telecommunications 1990) recently took a trip to Italy to visit their son Michael. They enjoyed early morning hot air balloon flights with Michael, who works for Bombard Balloons. They also attended the famous Palio horse race in Sienna where the town square is covered with dirt and ten horses are ridden bare back around the square three times. The horse that completes the race is the winner, with or without the jockey.

They returned home, packed the RV and headed to Folsom where they were present for the birth of their first grandson, Parker David Lincicome. He arrived several days early on August 27th.

Please send any news or input (please include the date and department from which you retired) to Jane or Gus Olson. E-Mail: Gus@LLNLRetirees.org or Jane@LLNLRetirees.org .

This article appears in the October 3^rd issue of Newsline