Not a lot has changed since I last reported (not counting the graying hair, falling arches and aching back). My wife, Kathi, and I are still employed with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in Sacramento. She is the Publications Coordinator for the State Forest Program, preparing materials for the public about the programs and activities that occur at the State's eight research forests. As Deputy Chief for Environmental Protection, I oversee the Department's compliance with state and federal environmental laws for the activities it permits, including prescribed burning, fuel break development, forestland conversion and timber harvesting. With "climate change" in the headlines daily, the State's forests, with their tremendous capacity to both sequester and release carbon, are under tremendous pressure to provide solutions to a worldwide dilemma.

We live in Davis, California, a University town ten miles away from our jobs, with our son, Ian.  Ian is now a junior at Davis High School and is in his first year as a varsity rower with the River City Rowing Club. His workouts - day and night, wind or rain - have toughened him to the point that I no longer challenge him to father-son arm wrestling matches.  We are looking forward to the decisions he will soon be making about where to further his educational goals.

My mother, Kathryn Robertson, passed away late in 2007, after a relatively short struggle with Alzheimer's.  In closing up her home in Lafayette, where she had lived since my father's death in 1973,  my sister, Kathy, and I "rediscovered" the ten years we had lived in Japan through the numerous books, photos, works of art, letters, scrap books and knick knacks the family had collected and cherished. Dusty Chochin year books, Tokyo American Club newsletters and ASIJ music and theater programs awoke many memories about our lives that had been forgotten.  Even found my old pachinko machine and menko cards, reminding me of how we "wasted time" in the days before Game Boys and Pokemon cards.

I still periodically look at the class website and am looking forward to the update and hearing what the class of '74 has been up to since we last reported.

Allen S. Robertson