I thought the first post should just be my life in a nutshell. Then the rest of the posts will come from all parts of this great journey called life. Forest Gump's mom got it right, life really is like a box of chocolates in that you never know what you get. That is certainly the story of my wonderful life.
1964 - 1966 Salina, Kansas
I was born on August 2, 1964 on Shilling AFB in Salina, KS. This air force base no longer exists, but it was home to big bombers of the Strategic Air Command, of which my dad was a part of and pilot in. Today, a few of my closest friends are friends because our parents were in the Air Force together. The Stone Family, including Harold (named after my dad) and Berry, were also born in Salina. So were the McEnrues of San Angelo and my friend Mike and his sister Carolyn. I haven't seen Mike in a long time but still close friends with Stones. We always brag that we have been friends since before we born, which is really true. My older sister Valerie was also born in Salina.
Here is another little known fact. My real name is Harold Walker Strasner II and Josh is only a nickname. I have always gone by Josh. I don't ever recall anybody who knows me calling me Harold. So where did Josh come from? Wanted Dead or Alive was a TV series starring Steve McQueen from 1958 - 1961. Steve McQueens character was Josh Randall, a bounty hunter who had a sawed off shot gun. I am pretty certain my dad had a man crush on Steve McQueen and apparently I liked to turn everything into a gun. So he called me his little Josh Randall, or Josh. I was fortunate to spend the last four days of my dad's life next to his bedside. One of his last full sentences he said to me was "you can legally change your name....". Strange famous last words, but that was my dad.
1967 - 1969 Riverside, California
My dad was transferred to March Air Force Base in Riverside, CA . My little sister, Nancy Kay, was born there (at least I think she was, may want to fact check that. We may have made a stop in Sacramento too, but it was for long if we did.). We moved to a house located at 6375 West View Driver, Riverside, Ca. Funny I have never forgot that address. I guess it is because it rhymes. I attended kindergarten at Castle View Elementary. This is also when I met two people who became my best friends in California - Cyndi Harrelson and Micheal Traburn. I found Cyndi on Facebook and have been able to reconnect with her, and that has been great. I have not spoken to Mike since 1981 when he was somewhere in Michigan going to high school.
1970 - San Angelo, Texas
Dad was sent to Korea, which was the Strategic Air Command for the little fiasco occurring in Southeast Asia. He was gone for over a year, so we rented a house in San Angelo, Texas so we could be close to my mom's family. My mom grew up in Eola, Texas. Eola is a very small farm community just outside of San Angelo. We had plenty of family around. Our house was located on Rice Avn in San Angelo and I attended first grade at Travis Elementary school. This is where I met a lot of friends that I would end up growing with, but didn't know it at that time. My dad returned to March AFB so we packed up and moved back to our home in Riverside.
My alley neighbor was Scott Smith. The Smiths became very close to our family, and remain very close today. Scott and I were the best of friends during my elementary school years. More on Scott later, but we went many years without seeing each other. I finally got to see him and spend time with him before he died of AIDS. My next door neighbor on Rice was also a close friend was Joey Johnson. Joey and I were very close that year. More on Joey later, but he died tragically in a car wreck with a few other class mates during my Sr Year. He was actually driving back to San Angelo from Brownwood after a football game, I think.
1971 - 1974 - Riverside, CA
We returned to our same house on West View Dr and I proceeded to attend 2nd and 3rd grade at Castle View (or was it Castle Hills??). Mike and Cyndi were still there and we had a lot of good memories. I also have a lot of strange memories, especially of the motorcycle gangs. We were close to the home of the Hells Angels and there were many other motorcycle gangs. I was most intrigued by a club that was all African-Americans. They had HUGE afros and the coolest looking choppers. Very long front ends and painted in some pretty bright and wild colors. They were awesome. We would see them on the freeway and they would just surround you when we were going down the road. Funny the things we remember. More on So Cal later.
1974 - 1975 - Eola, Tx
My dad retired from the Air Force after a very long and successful career in 1974. He retired as a Lt Col and had spent 28 years flying, which was his dream. More on that later too. They decided to settle back in Texas, although my dad was the from the Oklahoma panhandle. We all moved in with my grandparents in Eola, Texas while my parent started looking for a place to live. I remember they made a trip down to Victoria, Texas because it was close to the gulf of Mexico and my parents loved the water. It didn't take long to figure out that the land near the water in Texas was a little different than the land near the water in California. I also remember looking a huge house in Mason, Tx that had huge columns. They liked Mason but I think my dad struggled with what he would do for a living there. I attended the 4th grade in the same old Eola school house that my mom had attended. In Riverside, we and multiple classrooms for my age group with about 15-20 kids in each room. In Eola, there were about 6 of us in the 4th grade and we shared the same room with 3rd - 5th graders. I was the only kid in sandals and got a whipping with a big wooden paddle by an 80 year old teacher on my first day. I think for laughing. I also got beat up right after school by a big hispanic kid.
My grandparents owned a cafe. I don't even know if it had a name. Everyone just called it The Cafe. It was a great place for breakfast and a burger for lunch. At night, it was the place all of the farmers gathered for a Bud and a game of pool. This is also where I was shooting pool and that big hispanic kid walked in. I hit him with my pool cue. My first bar fight. We became good friends after that.
1975 - 1982 - San Angelo, Texas (Los Lomas)
My parents bought us a house at 103 Camino Real, San Angelo, Tx in 1974/1975. This is the place I officially call home and my mom still owns this home. I went back to school to Travis Elementary and reconnected with my buddies from the first grade, especially guys like Scott Waller, who I still stay in contact with. Scott Smith and Joey Johnson were still there as well. However, we lived a pretty good ways outside the city. It was a magical kind of place for a kid. We lived in a normal neighborhood that had 15 houses. Those 15 houses shared a private park on Lake Nasworthy that was about 17 acres. It was awesome.
This is also were I met a new group of friends that would have a huge impact on my life. The Harwells lived there and Kevin & Cherisa were close to my age. The Perrines lived right down the road and Larry & I became the best of friends. His older brother David was always right there. Then the Detlofs moved into the neighborhood after living in South America for many years. They had a lot of kids, but Dana was my age as well, so she joined our group. We had a lot of fun through Jr High. In High School, the group was mixed up with the Detlofs moving and the Kothman's moving in. Jim Bell was now part of the group and that was fun. The Ballingers were up the road and the Dicks were down the road. Very happy to reconnect with Lori Dick on Facebook. There were many others in our group, such as Brian Woods, Ruth Menuod, and Nita Rollins. I love these people like family and thankful to Facebook for finding them. I need to reconnect and spend more time with this group. They are really special to me.
While I went to school with a lot of people in San Angelo, since I lived out in the country, I never really was super tight with anybody outside of Las Lomas. However, I had good friends I grew up with - like Ronnie Staubaugh, Whitney Gillis, Scott Waller, Terry Adams, and many others. I mention these people because while we didn't hang out a lot growing up, those people are very special and a big part of my life today. It is funny how seeds planted a long time ago sometimes don't really grow until the environment is right - that is true in relationships with friends, family, and God. More on that later too....
1982 - Big Year
In 1982, I was a Sr in high school but only taking one class and then a work placement program, along with my buddy Scott Waller and Nita Rollins. After that class, we all went to work somewhere. I went to Bowman Lumber Company, which was managed by my neighbor Mr Woods and my buddy Brian Woods worked there as well. I met a whole new group of friends through Bowmans and had no idea the impact these friends would have on my life. Our cashier was Julianne Lindsey, who was from Brownwood and a Jr at ASU. Her roommate was her best friend from Brownwood, who was none other than Nancy Gill - my future wife. Gary Johnson and I became very close as well during this time. Then we met Bill Bethel, who was friends with Julianne and worked at the nursery next store. His roommate was Nick Moosher who was in the gang. Then it turns out that Gary Johnson and Bill & Nick were really apartment neighbors but had never met. It was strange.
In my high school life, things kind of turned tragic. We had an unusual amount of deaths in my Sr Class. This include the death of my 1st grade neighbor Joey Johnson in a car wreck, with few other classmates, returning to San Angelo from Brownwood after a football game. My best friend, Larry Perrine, was fighting a few challenges of his own after being thrown out of high school. One night, he and I went out for a night of shooting pool and talking about life. He laid out his new plan to become a truck driver and thought he had it all figured out. He dropped me off about 11:00 pm and started to drive out towards Abilene where he was working. He ran off a very remote road and wasn't discovered until noon the next day and died in route to the hospital. His death really hit me hard, but more on that later.
So this is the year that I made a huge transition. Not only from "high school years" to "college years" but the people I met in 1982 are the people impacted my life for the next 30 years. It is also the last time I stayed in touch with a great group of people that I had grown up with.
1982 - 1985 College Years in San Angelo
Nancy and I soon began dating sometime during 1982 and 1983. Hard to tell when because we were such close friends before we officially started "dating". She was in her last two years at ASU so I decided there was nothing wrong with going to school at ASU. I had planned on attending Texas Tech, but didn't even try after meeting Nancy. When Nancy graduated in December of 1984 she moved to Round Rock, Texas to manage a Bealls Dept Store. I had several more years of school left and thought that Nancy and I were probably over. I was sure she would move on and meet somebody and that I would transfer to Texas Tech. Then I found myself driving to Round Rock a lot. Pretty much any free evening I would drive the 3 hours just for dinner with Nancy and drive back. One day I said this is nuts, why don't we just get married. So we did. I quit my job at Allwoods Lumber in San Angelo on Saturday, got married in Brownwood at her grandparents house on 4th street on Sunday, and started my new lumber job in Round Rock on Tuesday. I think we talked about getting married in February (Valentines Day) and were married on June 2, 1985. I had no money and we were beyond broke, but happy.
1985 - 1089 Round Rock, Tx
I transferred from ASU to Southwest Texas State University in San Marcus. We lived in Round Rock, Texas, where Nancy worked at Bealls. I worked full time at McCoys Lumber in Georgetown, Tx. This was challenging. I was a Computer Information Systems major taking 15-18 hours a semester with all of my class on Tuesday and Thursday. I worked 40-50 hours a week in Georgetown on M-W-F-S. When I graduated, I went to work for EDS at First City Bank in downtown Austin. I had an office on 9th and Congress and life was pretty sweet.
Should also note that Nancy and I wanted a big family. We were probably not only the youngest married people in the Austin area, but the only ones driving a mini-van with the expectation of kids. The kids never came. From the 80's to mid 90's, we spent all of our savings on infertility doctors and experienced multiple mis-carriages. We even miscarried twins. We then were convinced we were not meant to have children of our own and started down the adoption path. Then came prayer and Sarah in 1995, and Ross in 2006, but more on that later.
1989 - 2001 Dallas, Tx
In 1989, I went through the EDS Systems Engineer Development program in Plano, Texas and was transferred from Austin to Plano. We packed up and moved to North Dallas. Nancy got a job at Bealls managing their Colony Store, and then their Allen store. I continued to work for EDS and ended up getting an apartment in NYC and commuting out of NYC for about three years. Sarah was born in 1995! We started going to church full time and my faith journey started, and ended, and then started again. Then in 1998, Nancy quit Beals and I quit EDS on the same day. She became a technical recruiter and I went to work for a small high-tech company based in silicon valley. Life was crazy and hectic. My company was acquired in 1999 and I went to work for a Dallas based software company and continued to be a part of the crazy dot-com technology era. I traveled a lot all over the US during this time. My travels also took me to London a lot.
My faith journey really took off in the 90's. More on that in the next post.
2001 - 2013 Houston, Tx
In 2001, my buddy Robert Vaio talked me into quitting my job in the software business and become a management consultant for Arthur Anderson Business Consulting. They brought me in as Sr Manager and had a partner track outlined for me. Nancy quit working all together. They also moved us from Dallas to Houston. I started at AABC in Sept 2001. In November 2001, the news broke about Enron and AABC. Our office was being investigated by the Justice Dept. Life was interesting. I left AABC as it was being dismantled, although they were eventually found not-guilty of anything. I went to work for KPMG Consulting that became BearingPoint.
Ross was then born in 2006. This was quite the shock and huge surprise since Nancy was 45 and I was 42. Certainly not what we were thinking but what a blessing. Work was interesting in that i started working out of Angola, Africa as well as spending large amounts of time on the West Coast and London again.
BearingPoint was suffering as a company so I left and went back to EDS. I was Sr Sales in the Energy sector and went back to traveling the world supporting BP and Chevron. In 2008, I had an opportunity to join a European based consulting firm called Logica and left EDS. This was a good move. I actually became the CEO of North America for Logica. EDS was acquired by HP, so it was a good move.
In Feb 2009 our world was rocked when Nancy was diagnosed with Stage 4 Breast Cancer. She had triple negative, which is rare and not a good prognosis. She went through two years of brutal treatments of chemo and surgeries. All this while I was working hard at my new job leading North America at work. We had amazing support from our family at Clear Lake Presbyterian Church and Nancy had her last surgery in November 2010.
In Feb 2011 we were rocked again when I was diagnosed with stage 4 Colon-Rectal cancer that had spread into multiple organs. I continue this fight today. In 2012, Logica was acquired by CGI - yep, I work for the Canadian consulting firm that created Healthcare.gov and run their Oil & Gas sector as a VP.
My cancer battle was influential in our decision to move from Houston to Brownwood in Sept 2013l, which takes us to today.
Today
That is my life in a nutshell. I didn't mention much about my faith journey but will. I talked about some friends but have many more. I mentioned the loss of a few close friends, but experienced a lot more - such as my cousins death in 1982 while water skiing, my EDS colleague Mike Flores passing in a tragic boating accident along with his son and father-in-law, losing my buddy Robert Vaio to an embolism. All of these losses have had a dramatic impact on my life and I will talk more about those in future post.
All in all, I have had and still having a great life. I have met fantastic people, traveled to really unique places, and have had fantastic experiences with a a fantastic family. I have had very unique work experiences and challenges that I have overcome. My faith journey has taken me from a Christmas-Easter Christian to a guy heavily involved in all aspects of church and a very close relationship and dependency on Jesus Christ. I will certainly post more on what that means.
If you didn't pick up on this already, but the place I was born no longer exist, the elementary school I attended in San Angelo no longer exist, my college still exist but under a new name, every company I have worked for no longer exists due to acquisition other than my current company CGI. I am not sure what all this mean, but stuff happens and change occurs, so deal with it. More on that later too.
The reality, I am starting this blog for myself and my kids more than anything. I really have no idea if I have 9 month left on Earth or 6 years - but really, who does? I can summarize it by saying I have the worlds greatest wife, kids, family, and friends. My life has been, and still is fantastic. There is absolutely nothing I would do differently and realize that God really does have a bigger plan for all of us. Thank you for reading.
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