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In 1979 I married Rose Marie Matulionis. Rose Marie was raised and educated in Maryland and had obtained a master's degree and professional background in public health. She continued to work in the field of public health in Vermont during the first few years of our marriage. Shortly after our marriage, Rose Marie and I continued renovating The 1860 House, where we both lived and worked, into a small, high quality bed and breakfast inn. I continued to practice law and Rose Marie ran a real estate rentals and sales office which she and I set up in the adjoining carriage house offices. I also had an ownership interest in a local restaurant for a few years.
In my spare time I continued to enjoy healthy outdoor activities. I ran in local races and also completed a few marathons. One summer Rose Marie and I bicycled for 3 weeks along the coast of the Pacific Northwest. In 1984 I placed 2nd in the local Stowe Wintermeister competition which combined downhill ski racing, cross country ski racing and speed skating into a multi-event winter weekend. While I was living in Stowe, my father continued to live alone in Middlebury. After my father and mother's legal separation, Dad began to date Vera Morse, a widow whose husband had died many years earlier. I'm told their first few dates were very stiff and formal - neither had dated for most of their adult lifetime. During the last half of my parents' marriage, Dad had developed many health problems and had undergone several serious operations. Now he faced his most difficult health crisis - serious angina and heavy blockage leading to the heart muscle. Initially, doctors in Vermont determined his condition to be inoperable and his prognosis very poor. Luckily, with assistance from his local Middlebury doctor he was able to identify a new heart clinic in Milwaukee that agreed to re-evaluate him to see if they could operate. Dad was very unsure about what to do. He still had many questions about the operation, its likelihood of success, its side effects and the prognosis if he was inoperable or chose not to have what was, in 1977, this relatively new operation. I was able to assist him through the medical library at U.V.M. in obtaining copies of relevant medical journal articles and information. After reading these, he formed a list of questions to be answered by his doctors, and information that he needed in order to make his decision. Thereafter he was much more informed about his options and was comfortable making a decision to have the heart bypass surgery in Milwaukee. Today, some 22 years later, he is an obvious beneficiary of our advances in medical science. At 86, he has lived much longer than anyone in his family. At the time Dad had to make his decision, this kind of information was available only by photocopying the medical journal articles and other documents. Today, such information is routinely available to all of us - in many cases, free - over the internet, giving us all the opportunity to be much more informed about decisions we may need to make.
Dad and Vera married in 1980 and they have since enjoyed many years together. From a son's perspective, it is nice to see him active, happy and productive and it's nice to have a stepmother I appreciate and respect. In a larger sense, the many extra years medical science has given Dad is but one example and a part of the reason why our world population has doubled in less than 50 years to 6 billion. Although birth rates worldwide are declining for many reasons, it is likely that our world will add at least another 3 billion within the next 50 years and we will all live with these increases. Most of us will live longer than our parents. While our increased longevity is wonderful in a personal sense, the resulting increasing population means that in order to live our lives, we will use more of our world's limited land and resources, create more sprawl, and threaten the environment with which we interact in ways we still don't fully understand. Consider for a moment the changes in our surroundings experienced by Dad in his 86 years, They are truly astounding, and this change is continuing at an ever faster rate for each of us. |
