Ed Plonski

Having missed the date for the SATs in high school, I further messed up & put all my eggs in one basket by applying to only one college - Hofstra. Lucky for me I got in. I barely made it through to get my BS in Physics in 1961. A couple of months out of school, I got a job In Flight Test Instrumentation with Grumman & in a couple of years they got into the space program . For the rest of my 10 years there I ran a vacuum physics lab. During my last year there, I joined the Grumman Flying club & got my pilots license- the fulfillment of my boyhood dream.

At that point, I was married with three boys, Brian, Zach & Graham. I took a job as a Product Marketing Manager with Veeco Instruments in Plainview, trying to sell surface physics instruments made in the UK. In just under a year , the company got out of their contract with the UK company and I was unemployed. My wife had this dream of living in a little white farmhouse in New England, so we sold our house in Greenlawn & moved to Langdon NH. I really loved raising our boys there on 36 acres that couldn’t be more different than where we came from. It took a couple of pretty tough years to get into a job that could support us, but after I got into the semiconductor industry selling capital equipment to manufacturing companies it was OK for awhile. Then we learned about the economic cycles that the industry goes through. Every three years it went from boom to bust!

In 1977, my wife sprang the news to me that she had had enough & wanted a divorce. My life took some really heartbreaking turns after that, especially after she remarried and moved away with the boys. Then in 1980 I had an unbelievable year. A couple of years of prosperity led to my buying my own plane. A custody battle with my ex resulted in my getting custody of the boys. One night, a little friendly horsing around with my oldest son, Brian , got me a broken leg, just 4 days before my new plane was delivered. The company I was working for demanded that I move to Vermont or face losing my biggest account, IBM in Essex Junction, so we moved to a house in Jericho VT. The boys & I led a jolly bachelor life for a few years, while I experimented with several relationships that all crashed & burned. Then, the inevitable happened. The boys grew up and moved out. I was a basket case for a while.

In 1985, I met Inge. She got to me just after my youngest son moved out, my last fling was flung, and I was barely afloat and rudderless. I learned of her from her neighbor, who was the mother of my youngest son Graham’s room mate at UVM. She told me about Inge’s husband, who had died of cancer a year before, and suggested that I take her out with them to an annual event that we both attended in the past. We got along pretty well and so did our kids. So here we are. We never did get married, but we’ve been living together for 17 years. In ’93, I sold the plane after my final job in the semiconductor industry fizzled. In ’95 we ended our boating experiences on Lake Champlain that we loved so much, after having the business that I made the huge mistake of buying go belly up. Now, Inge is semi- retired from her career at UVM. I have bounced around at dozens of crazy jobs; the latest is driving motor couches. Inge’s 93 year old mother lives with us and can no longer leave the house, so we’re pretty tied down now.

We are blessed with the greatest grandchildren I could ever have dreamed of. Inge’s daughter Sam has a 12 year old daughter, Chelsea, and a six year old son Cody, who live only 4 miles from us and we get to see a lot. They are truly a joy to be with! My son Brian, has 2 boys and a girl , Josh, Caroline and Jack, living in Kentucky. He works for UPS as a pilot (the dream I once had) in Louisville. My middle son Zach, has a boy Kyle and a new born girl, Amanda & is a VP in an advertising company in California, near LA. My youngest son Graham has a one year old girl, Megan. He works in Boston & lives in Southborough Mass; closer than my other sons. We see them the most, but never enough. They’re all happily married , successful and healthy, so I really have a lot to be grateful for.

The reunion in Florida would be wonderful to come to. I don’t know if I can get there, but I would really
love to.

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