ClassMate Bio

Written: July, 2002

Ian M. Etheridge - Deceased

When I was born I first lived and grew up in New Dorp. In 1954 my family moved to Great Kills, but since I was to graduate that year from PS 41, I was given the choice of transferring to PS 8, or staying in PS 41. I chose the latter. Likewise that September I had a choice of attending Tottenville, or New Dorp High School. I chose New Dorp. I now know from reading The Trumpet that that was a terrible mistake.

 

             In 1955 my parents bought a home in Eltingville, so I moved to Eltingville. In 1958 I enlisted in the Navy, and after basic training at The Great Lakes Naval Training Center, I went to Navy Aviation school in Norman, OK, and then to Aviation Electronic Technician school in Memphis, TN. In the three years, three months, and 23 days of an undistinguished Naval career, in which I never set foot on a ship, I was discharged, and returned to Eltingville. I attended Wagner College for a year, then left to work in the Signal Department of what was then the Staten Island Rapid Transit. At that time the S.I.R.T. was owned by the B&O Railroad.  At the same time I went to night school at R.C.A. Institute. After a year at the S.I.R.T. I left to go to R.C.A. Institute full-time.

 

            It was when I first returned to Eltingville, that I got a CB radio. I had always been interested in radio, electronics, and amateur radio. It was “over the air” that I first met Dick Miller, and Werner Feldhaeusser, both from the Tottenville High School Class of 1960.

 

           After graduating from R.C.A. Institutes in 1965, I worked for CBS Labs in Stamford, CT, as an Electronics Technician. In 1962 my parents bought a home in Aiken, SC in anticipation of their retirement. In February of 1968 they retired to Aiken, and that September I moved to Aiken. Since there were no jobs in electronics in South Carolina at that time, I became a real estate salesman; I also went to work for The Postal Service part-time, as a substitute rural mail carrier. After working part time for seven years, I became a full-time rural mail carrier. I guess I found a home there, as I retired in 1999 with 30 years Federal service.

            

 

           

In my "office" at home.

With my "personal" tour guide in the Russian Far East, 2000.

Cruising the Caribbean, 2001.