As I approach 70, I am filled with mixed emotions. I have had a great two years leading up to turning 70. The number of my grandchildren has double from 3 to 6. I had two girls and a boy born within 6 month giving me an equal number of girls and boys. I get great joy playing with all of my grandchildren. For example next week, my two older grandchildren and I are going skiing for week.

Last year, I caught the biggest rainbow of my life in Montana fishing near the Madison River, one of my favorite rivers. I had a great horseback ride with Jim and Sody Jones along the backbone of the Gallatin divide. I developed a deep love for the wilderness around Bozeman where I went to school in the 1960’s.

George Latus came to Salt Lake City with his racing team. George lived by me while we were growing up, helped me fix my 55 Chevy in high school and taught me how to change a clutch in my Buick Skylark at college. He kindly invited me and my older grandchildren to be his guest at the race. Even though my children and I are rookies at racing, George showed us a great time. My granddaughter fell in love with his race driver. George has always been good to me. My two years after the reunion have been fun and it was great to share experiences with longtime friends.

I wrote a book on my genealogy that I hope will be useful to my descendants. I was able to find link in my genealogy to the people who came over on the Mayflower, earlier pioneers in Utah and connections into the English kings. It was fun to write and learn some of these stories.

As I turn 70, I have been fortunate to have had good health. I do work at it by consisting exercising and continuing to work on mental projects. This year I will be doing my son’s accounting books. I have not thought about accounting since college. Thankfully, I have daughter who is a CPA who educates me from time to time. I do see that I am a little slower on the physical side and my memory is not as quick as it used to be. There is country song that reflects how I feel. It has line that says something like, “I am not as good as I once was, but I am as good once as I used to be.” I am sure that is not totally true, but I like to believe it is.

My thoughts in my 70’s is observing my descendants and what is some interesting trivia. Alex Holman plays on the Helena High basketball team, now in his senior. He is third generation of Holt’s to play basketball for Helena High. My son, Chris, was the second generation to play. I have granddaughter who has US and Spanish Passport. I told my son, Chris, when she is old enough, we should train her to do the Luge. We have Luge track here in Salt Lake City and Spain did not have any Luge athletes in the Winter Olympics. Since she is only 1, we have reasonable time to wait before that is possible.

In my plans for the future I want to go as hard as I did in my sixties as long as I can. My wife and I have a trip planned to Nepal in March. My younger sister is doing a church mission there. My goal is to fly around Mount Everest. I have given up the idea that I can walk 7 days to the 18,000 foot elevation base camp. I am still working on my goal to fly fish around the world. I still have not caught a Red Fish in Louisiana or Peacock Bass in Brazil. It is on my bucket list, but I have not put it on my calendar yet.

I reflect as I reach 70 about what age will do to my ability to have the stamina to do the things I want. I am excited to watch my family grow and make their contributions. In some way I would like to help them as my parents helped me. I hope so. I have included some pictures of my adventures and family since the reunion. May your 70’s be as great as your imagination allows.

Well in 2020, I am halfway through my 70's. It has been fun for me. I have traveled to China and Nepal. I took a plane and traveled along the Himalayan chain to see Mount Everest and rode elephants in southern Nepal. I travel to Mexico City to visit a cousin who was serving a church mission. It was extremely interesting city from poverty to super wealthy. I saw the most expensive TV in Department store there. The price tag was $40,000. I continue to fish around the world. I have been to Christmas Island a 1000 miles south of Hawaii and to Cuba just before the pandemic. I had my home flight cancel from Cuba and had to fly through Canada to get home. Except for 2020 and the loss of classmates, the 70's have been to good to me.

My most embarrassing moment in high school was at the Missoula Sentinel basketball game in Helena. Missoula Sentinel basketball team was one of the best ever basketball teams to play in Montana. Our team had played them in Missoula and lost by 36 points. Their guards were as tall as our center. Helena had had an ice storm so Missoula fans came to Helena on a train. The stands were packed. Our team was playing a stalling game only taking the best shots. I think our team was ahead. I was put in the first half of the game. I got a break away on fast break. I think Gary Eathorne, our classmate, was on the left. Missoula had one defender in front of me. To this day I do not know why I decided to do something fancy, I threw the ball behind my back. I missed Gary by a mile and the ball went into the stands. I was immediately pulled from the game. The funny part was that I was so excited about this game, I was wearing my jersey backwards. Needless to say, I did not play the rest of the game.

I graduated in electrical engineering from MSU and received my masters of business administration from U of M. I began my career as 1st Lieutenant in the army at the Pentagon working on a computer model that was used to help the army go to zero draft. My highest rank obtained was Captain at the end of a 2 year obligation. I then became a second line manager at Montana Dept of Highways. I managed the development of a new accounting system that was part of a larger project of building the first statewide budget and accounting system for the State of Montana. In 1974 during the month of July and August I joined IBM, married the love of my life and moved to Billings. In Billings my team won the conversion of Honeywell to IBM computers for Husky Oil in Cody, WY. I moved to Cody where I helped Husky convert all their computer applications and help them design, build and implement a new data center. I moved to Dallas, TX with IBM to teach new IBMers how install large systems software. I did a quick leave of absence to Belgium where I studied advanced computer science technologies and I wrote a case study to be used in Europe education classes. I moved to Washington DC to manage large federal projects. My largest win was $2 billion project to re-engineer the Navy supply depots around the world. Montana was still in my soul. I took a demotion and moved back to Helena to work on Montana's largest accounts including the state of Montana. IBM reorganized and I was sadden that I needed to move to Salt Lake City. My territory expanded to Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Utah but my product line narrowed to software only sales. In 2006 I retired from IBM. I still live in Salt Lake City.

In 2011, my wife and I started marrying off our last three children. My first son was already married for several years and had three children. In September of 2011 my second son married a German girl and were married in World War II bombed out hunting lodge in Frankfurt Germany. In December 2011 my second child, Kate, was married here in Salt Lake city. In August of 2012 my last son, Brian was married here in Salt Lake City as well. We suddenly looked around and ourselves with no one in college and realized we were empty-nesters.

Flashback to my return from Washington DC to Montana, I was very busy traveling with IBM. I needed an activity that I could spend day or week depending on the busy schedule. I fell in love with the sport of fly fishing. As I became better at the sport, I fished different rivers in Montana. My sons like to fly fish as well and they talked me into my first salt trip to Ascension Bay in Mexico for Bonefish. I had such a good time I began traveling to new fishing venues. I like both freshwater and salt water fishing. My fishing trips have included Utah, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, California, Alaska, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Belize, Russia and Norway. The species of fish that I have taken are a good many varieties in the trout family, Bonefish, Maco and Blue Shark, Dolly Varden, Chum Salmon, Chinook Salmon, Steelhead Salmon and many others. I am still have many places on my bucket list that I want to visit. Some of these fish and venues I want to visit are Tiger fish in Africa, Peacock Bass in Brazil and Red Fish in Louisiania. I still enjoy fishing in Montana and return each year to fish somewhere fun.

My wife loves to travel to more urban and historical places. She was a language major in college and speaks fluent German and to lesser degrees in French and Spanish. I expect we will see some of the major cities of world as we become more senior citizens.

Our plans are to stay in Salt Lake City. We like being close to grandchildren so there could be move in our future depending where are kids permanently settle.