This page is about me, Forrest R. Prince, and my life and some of the people, places, things, and adventures in it. How old am I? I was born November 23, 1954, and you can do the math.
My grandmother, Elsie Dell Mead, was quite the shutterbug. That’s her photo of me, above, and so is this one, below. If there’s such a thing as photography being in the genes, I got it from her, although I really only came to it much later in life.
Although I have dozens and dozens (hundreds) of photos of myself in old photo albums and shoe boxes, I’m going to spare you excess schmaltz, and let this collage suffice.
On this page I’m going to write a bit about my childhood, my adult years and education, my retirement, my personal philosophy towards life, and SCIENCE! But before I go on I have to say that the most important and wonderful thing that ever happened in my life was, and is, my son, Ryan. He was born April 18, 1989.
CHILDHOOD AND HIGH SCHOOL
But I’m sort of getting ahead of myself. My childhood should come first if I’m to keep to any sort of chronology here. Ah, yes, my childhood. What can I say? Ordinary, I suppose, with a plethora of extraordinary moments, which I also suppose is ordinary enough for the ordinary child. I was very outgoing, personable, rambunctious, adventurous, and often got injured, most of which was by misadventure. My earliest years, in Pomona, are rather fragmented memories these days. Pomona was where I first started school, kindergarten, but the very next school year found me no longer there. Dad, by this time a California Highway Patrol officer, had applied for a transfer up here to Quincy, California, and we made the move in September of 1960. Dad was very wise to have done this, getting us (Mom, my three sisters, and me) out of the city and up into a very rural, small mountain town living environment. I can never be grateful enough for this happenstance in my life.
And what a house we moved into. A huge house. Which was only because that was the only house at the time in Quincy big enough for the six of us that Dad could find as a rental. Eight bedrooms. What kind of house is that? What I recall, from memory, is that this house was a maternity house, whether it was built for that reason or not I don’t know, but there we were and there I was and the first thing that I can remember happening is running into the back yard and seeing a swing hanging from a sturdy old apple tree. So I immediately jumped on, and the next thing I knew is hearing someone bellowing, angrily, from across the street. Scared the beejeebers out of me. I thought the man was yelling at me! I went running, crying, back out front, and of course this scared the heck out of Dad, who immediately went to investigate and find out what in the world was going on. Well, it turned out the man was not yelling at me but rather at one of his own teenage sons, and the poor fellow was utterly mortified at having scared me so badly and entirely unintentionally, and I actually remember him profusely apologizing to me. He was George Brazil, one of the school bus drivers as it turned out, and from that day onward he and I were good friends. But wow, I start my life out in Quincy with a scare? Yup, and lots more to come, but way more good times than bad.
Here are some photos of that house, taken recently. 135 Railway Avenue, Quincy, CA.
It is known that childhood years seem to the child as if to take forever, but in looking back it seems the years sure rolled by quickly. I learned to snow ski and water ski before I was out of grammar school, I was in both Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, and lived in two other houses after the first one pictured above before we moved into our custom-built house in 1964. I remained living there right up until graduation from high school.
Yes, high school, and if you were an ordinary teenager high school is probably one of those things you’d just as soon forget about as not. I’m no different. I had a lot of great times, for certain, and among myriad other things I learned how to play a trumpet, use an electric arc welder, drive a car, and ditch school (once!) without getting caught. But I was an underachiever and that wasn’t entirely my fault. My parents started me in school a year earlier than I should have and I was always a maturity-year behind my class peers. Suffice it to say I never went to jail during high school and I did graduate on time. Academically, meh, this speaks for itself.
One of the finest things I accomplished in high school was taking Aviation Ground School (see Line 7, 1970-71 school year). It was an extra-curricular class and went at 7:00 a.m. for one semester. As you can see I excelled in this class. It came with a couple of hours of actual flying lessons, and so with an instructor in place (of course!) I was piloting a small airplane two years before I graduated high school. Regrettably, I never did go on to get my Private Pilot License, but to this day I love flying in small airplanes and I do it any chance I get.
I didn’t play sports, although I went out for wrestling one year, my Freshman year, and that was enough to re-convince myself that organized sports and serious competition were not my bag. But I did participate in sports, in a way. I worked concessions. I was the popcorn popper kid. And during home games I always got out of seventh-period P.E. on Fridays to help stock the concessions bar. Not really a scam, but it sort of felt that way to me.
eARLY ADULT LIFE
Upon graduating high school in 1972 I had no aim in life but I did have a place to go. I moved away from Quincy to the Eureka, California, area and for fifteen months I lived in a Christian commune, but that’s about all I’m going to say about that. I left disillusioned (and with good reason for that), and eventually dropped all pretense of religious faith. I returned to Quincy, found work in the spring of 1974 working for a logging company, then did some saw mill jobs, got very tired of that kind of work, and moved to Durango, Colorado in the spring of 1975. I found work there driving a delivery truck for the Pepsi Cola bottling company in Durango, fell hard head-over-heels in love with a wonderful young woman, proposed marriage to her but was (very wisely on her part) declined, felt squashed over it and returned to Quincy in late 1977 and back to work in a saw mill. I was not enjoying my life. Something had to change, and when the change came it was a big one. At age 24 I joined the Navy.
How I came to the decision to look at the Navy is not a story worth recounting (another failed love affair) but this I knew at the time: I could not stand mill work, I was of a brain that desperately needed industrious and intelligent exercise, and I needed a marketable skill and thus a practical, vocational education, and it had to be affordable, meaning free. Better still: I needed to be paid to go get this education. The Navy had that, and more: several guaranteed years of a job after completing school. So I contacted a recruiter, took the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, scored very highly, and after contemplating my options decided to pursue electronics. As it turned out, aviation electronics, meaning learning about things like radio and radar and weapons delivery control systems.
THE UNITED STATES NAVY
Briefly then, on August 29, 1979 I took the oath of enlistment in Oakland, CA, went to eight weeks of Basic Training at San Diego, and received orders to attend aviation electronics school in Millington, Tennessee, situated about fifteen miles northeast of Memphis. While there, over the course of a full year, I undertook three phases of electronics training, ending with an advanced course, and graduated with honors. Because of my class standing (1st of 23; I don’t mind bragging about that) I was allowed to pick among available orders. I chose to go work on the Navy’s newest jet at that time, the F/A-18 Hornet, which most conveniently meant I would return to California. Shucks, that was a clincher to the deal. After all, I didn’t join the Navy to see the world. Getting stationed, on shore duty, within an easy half-day’s drive back to Quincy was ideal as far as I was concerned.
Looking back, six years of Navy service passed very quickly and pleasantly, for the most part. But my body betrayed me: I could not keep my weight down, and even though I wanted to make the Navy a career it was not going to be anything but a battle, a battle that I could not foresee winning. So when my contractual obligation was up in 1985 I got out. I am proud to say I was wearing E-6 at the time, a First Class Petty Officer. It was the Navy’s loss, really, more than mine. An E-6 is taken to be 100% career-oriented. Oh no, it doesn’t look good to the command when an E-6 decides to not reenlist. That’s a failure on the Navy’s part. And here you go: to the Navy, looking like this in uniform (I’m so fat, eh?) was unacceptable.
I would love to regale you with hair-raising tales of swashbuckling derring-do, legendary sagas worthy of adulation and weeping, all on my part and due to my actions during my days of Navy yore, but the truth is my time in the Navy was pretty much the commonplace 9-5 daily job, or the eight-hour evening shift or the eight-hour graveyard shift, Monday through Friday with weekends off. Because the F/A-18 was a brand-new jet to the Navy and the world, my squadron, VFA-125, was the only squadron in the world to have the production version of the jet. The Hornet was to replace the old Navy A-7 Corsair and the Marine Corps F-4 Phantom, and this transition takes some years. VFA-125 was a training squadron, its mission being to train both veteran and new pilots into the Hornet and to train ground support personnel in maintenance and administration, so actual combat squadrons could transition efficiently and rapidly from the old aircraft to the new. By the time I got out there were as yet no combat squadrons flying the Hornet. These things take time and a Navy time table is unfathomable.
I will share one story though, and it’s one I’m proud of. After having been promoted to E-5 and wearing that rank for a couple of years my turn came for “Temporary Assigned Duty”, six months away from my squadron and my shop, as a shift supervisor for Ground Support Equipment (GSE). GSE maintains, warehouses, and dispatches common equipment such as tow tractors, work stands and ladder platforms, hydraulic pump service sets and light stands. These are dispatched to and returned from the several combat squadrons at Naval Air Station Lemoore on an as-needed basis. GSE is operational 24/7/365, meaning it’s always open and never closed. I was assigned as one of two shift supervisors on the midnight shift, 2400 – 0800 hours (midnight to 8 a.m. for you landlubbers). I was responsible for ensuring all the dispatching of the equipment, the maintenance of the equipment, and the keeping of related records and documents was all performed correctly, and that all the enlisted personnel assigned as crew to my shift did their jobs correctly and above all, safely. I was in charge of a crew of about eight people, E-4 and of lower rank. On my shift I was the boss.
Like me, the “underlings” were also assigned out from their duty squadrons to GSE on a temporary duty basis, and this made GSE a place squadrons could be temporarily relieved of any misfits or poor-performers they may have had in their ranks. As guessable, this story concerns one of those “slackers”.
Now, by no means do I wish to convey the impression that GSE was nothing but all fouled up. Quite the contrary, in order for the squadrons to run smoothly GSE had to run smoothly, and that meant, of course, that assigned personnel were all present and accounted for. I could not ensure the equipment got moved around without the people to get it done. If I was short of workers this was a problem, especially if someone simply didn’t show up for work as scheduled. This was known as an “unauthorized absence”, or UA in Navy jargon. That exact thing happened one night. “Smith” didn’t show up for work, didn’t call in, and wasn’t on liberty or leave. The Navy takes this damn seriously.
The next evening there he was, as if nothing had happened. He explained that he was just not feeling well and, “oh, sorry ’bout that, what’s the big deal?” By regulation I should have “written him up”, passing him on for disciplinary action. But I cut him a break. It was, after all, the very first time he hadn’t showed. I told him in no uncertain terms that this was his “last chance”; one UA I can let slide, but never again. You guessed it: there was an again.
When Smith failed to show up for his shift a second time I did not hesitate. First I called him at his home telephone number, but no answer. I filled out the UA report and put it in my Chief’s inbox. When Smith came in the next night I informed him I had put him on report for unauthorized absence and there were going to be consequences. He was not happy and thought this was unfair, harsh, and mean. So, he went to Captain’s Mast (non-judicial punishment), received a fine, and got a black mark on his service record. He resented me for this. But hey, it’s on my head if I let something like this go uncorrected.
About two weeks later I was working my shift and had a call of nature to attend to. I sat down in one of the stalls in the “head” (Navy jargon for a bathroom) and there on the wall of the stall, in large, black Magic Marker letters, was written “Petty Officer Prince is an asshole.”
Yes! I was thrilled! I made the sh*t-house walls! I had done my job correctly. That’s just the way it is in the Navy, or any branch of military service, or even in the civilian world most times. In order to carry out one’s responsibilities it often means someone is going to be put out, and all the more so when someone is not pulling their weight. The boss may be seen as a heavy, but she’s got her job to do just like anyone else.
I will say, in closing out this chapter of my life, that I did get the experience of being out on an aircraft carrier, albeit for short duration. That is one of the most exciting and equally dangerous places to work, perhaps one of the most dangerous of all places to work that can be imagined. There really is nothing to compare with the flight deck of an aircraft during operations. You can watch all the YouTube videos you want, but you’ve really got to be there to fully understand what it’s like. It’s an experience I would never trade for all the wealth in the world.
Life AFTER THE NAVY
Having purchased a three-bedroom house in the small community of Armona during my years stationed at NAS Lemoore (south of Fresno, CA) I decided to stay put after my discharge from the Navy. Perhaps I should explain the house, first. I had been renting a very small place (I was single at the time and just living by myself) and one day when I went in to pay my rent the fellow in the realty office remarked “Aren’t you tired of paying rent? Wouldn’t you rather own?” I certainly agreed with that but I said how in the world could I afford to buy a house? He replied “Is there a buddy you could trust, that might also be interested in becoming a home owner?” Well, there was, and he was interested, and so we ended up “tenants in common” in a nice three-bedroom house, renting out the third bedroom to a military mate, just three bachelors and an eight-foot octagon HOT TUB! in the backyard inside a gazebo. We are talking Party Central!
But all parties must end, and there it is. I ended up giving up the house, working a crummy job, then a slightly better job, and one day accepting an invitation from a coworker to go out on a blind date with a lady who was a good friend of my coworker’s wife. The lady and I hit it off well, we were both in our early thirties, and marriage followed. Nine months after our marriage we conceived our son, I found a much better job (and stayed with it for over ten years), twelve years passed, our marriage failed, and I was on my own once again, my son choosing to live with his mother and step-father. Later, when my son was a sophomore in high school he came to live with me. Sadly, his mother passed away in 2020; she and I had long since become friendly to one another again and even though her death didn’t affect me very much it was very hard on my son. Life does go on, though, as it must.
And as this page is already long enough in itself, it’s time to become succinct and wrap it up.
Synopsis: a general survey; education, retirement, world view
In my adult life following the Navy I worked for over a decade as a specialty type of electro-mechanical engineer, using many of the skills I learned from the Navy to design and draft digital control systems for industrial-scale heating and cooling systems in buildings. Eventually I tired of it, the work having become repetitive and boring. I decided to do something I had always wanted to do: become a truck driver. So I did.
All the while during my specialty tech and early truck driving days I was also going to college at night, working towards a Bachelor degree, but I never made it. Much later in life I did finally earn both an Associate of Arts and Associate of Science degree, but the Bachelor degree remains unfulfilled. I’m all right with that, I have the education if not the diploma, and at this stage in my life it just doesn’t matter anymore. I’m retired, I collect Social Security, and I live with an old friend who is a stroke victim. I act as his caregiver, pursue wildlife photography as a hobby, and as far as I’m concerned all is well with my world, although the world, the human world in general, is in precarious shape. That brings me to:
SCIENCE!
As I made mention, I gave up all notions of religious belief, and for that matter belief in the supernatural of any kind, by the time I was in my mid-twenties. No good reason, no empirical evidence whatsoever, exists to support any such beliefs. On the contrary, all the evidence leads to the conclusion that there exists only the natural world, and science is the key to understanding our world. I make the disclaimer right now that I am not a scientist, but the scientific method is how I examine and make decisions about the truth of the world I live in. I identify myself as a Humanist. Humanism is not a religion, but it is a philosophical worldview. My personal definition of Humanism runs thus:
Humanism is a practical and working philosophy of life in which the fulfillment of the needs and wants of humanity, inclusive of all human beings everywhere, forms the core of the philosophy’s value and belief systems. Through sensible thought and the application of the scientific method, Humanism places the continuing betterment of humanity as the pinnacle of human endeavor, and holds that this key value is self-justifying, and that living this one human life to its best possible extent is the be-all and end-all of human existence. This necessarily includes that we humans must look to ourselves for the solutions to the problems that confront us, and recognize that our life history has taught us that reliance on any form of supposed supernatural intervention is groundless, and self-defeating in the end.
Thus Humanism rejects belief in the supernatural, be it god or gods, spiritual force or forces, or any other alleged power that cannot be subjected to critical inquiry through the scientific method and rendered understandable in purely naturalistic terms.
Indispensable to Humanism is the belief that living a purposeful and meaningful life, in and of itself, is sufficient to provide purpose and meaning to human existence.
What do I mean by “science” and the “scientific method”? I mean that every single thing in the universe exists naturally, on its own accord, and can be explained in wholly rational and logical terms, regardless of whether such an explanation happens to currently be at hand. I accept that some things may never be explained; we may never gain the sufficient knowledge to arrive at the needed explanation. This does not mean we should fill the gap with mysticism or nonsense. It just means we don’t have an explanation right now and should work harder to find the explanation. The scientific method is the only approach that can yield reliable, and most important, testable results. In short, the scientific method follows these steps: observe, ask questions, hypothesize, meaning form an initial explanation and be able to make prediction(s) based on what answers those questions yield, test the hypothesis (this implies falsification and rejection of incorrect explanations), rinse and repeat. Despite your best efforts your hypothesis could turn out to be wrong after all. The most important part is being willing to admit you are wrong and to change your conclusions accordingly. Even Albert Einstein had to do this.
If you want something simpler, then try this: every day of your life work to make the world a better place to live in today than it was yesterday and a better place tomorrow than it is today. This may be the best we can do.
I will close this page with some photographs of the three most important people in my life. Yes, I necessarily include myself, because if you are not important to yourself then you’re already off on the wrong foot.
I had said that the most important thing in the world to me is my son, and so he is. Some photos of him, as he progressed though the years.
