Stephen Carl Doolen

I was born 8 June, 1945 at the Salem Hospital, Salem, Illinois. At the time I was born my father was in the Navy, stationed in Seattle, Washington, and my mother had come home to Alma, Illinois to stay with her parents about a month before I was born. A few months later my mother took me back to Seattle by train. I am told that both of my grandmothers worried about us, but the train was full of service men who watched out for us.

After my father got out of the Navy, we lived in Du Quoin, Illinois for a while, where my sister Teresa Jean (Terri) was born on 24 July, 1947. I don't really remember Du Quoin or much about my sister until she was older though.

My earliest memories are of living in Alma when I was 5 or 6 years old. I attended first and second grades in a four room school house (two grades per room & teacher). My teacher was known to everyone as "Miss Lulu", and I remember liking her and school very much. I also remember spending a lot of time with my cousin Dick Gragg, who also lived in Alma. His mother, Rhea, was my mother's sister. His father, Pete, owned a farm implement business, where we would spend a lot of time playing on the old farm machinery. I can remember small tent shows setting up on an empty lot in town, where vaudeville type shows were performed. Out school had one of those sliding, tube type fire escapes, and I can remember climbing up to the top and sliding back down. During this time my father worked as manager of the Salem ice plant, where blocks of ice were produced and delivered to homes for use in ice boxes. I can remember the floor of the plant, with wooded doors that opened up so blocks of ice could be removed, and huge ice tongs were used to carry the blocks. When I was seven, my brother William Dwight (Bill) was born, at the Salem hospital, on 14 June 1952. I don't really remember the event of his birth, but I can remember him as a pretty small child.

In the middle of second grade we moved to Carmi, Illinois, where my dad startce agent. I don't remember much about Carmi except my mother worked and I had to walk to school. I was always afraid I was going to get lost, or get hijacked by some bigger kids. After a couple years in Carmi, we moved to Mt. Carmel, where I went to fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. I remember more about this time. I believe it was my first year that sometimes the taxi was supposed to pick my up at school. I was always afraid they wouldn't come, and often they didn't. My best friend was Donald Hornback, and it was with him that I first got interested in astronomy and philosophy. We used to sit around and discuss what was at the end of the universe, whether UFOs were real, and so on. It was also here that I started playing athletics. I played shortstop on the Little League baseball team, and made the All-Star team my last year. I can also remember going through a real pole vaulting phase. We kids in the neighborhood would use a bamboo pole to vault with, and put two sticks in the ground, with nails to hold the cross bar, another, thinner, bamboo pole. My dad worked for Haliburton Oil Company while we lived in Mt. Carmel.

When I started seventh grade we moved Bridgeport, Illinois, when my dad took a job with Metropolitan Insurance Company. I attended three years of school in Bridgeport, and this was probably one of the happiest periods of my life. I became best friends with Leonard Bathe, who has remained a life long friend. We lived about two blocks from the city park, and I played baseball nearly all day long on most summer days. I remember feeling I was fairly popular, although never one of the social elite. I continued my interest in astronomy, and several of us interested in science, Leonard, Larry Boyce, and started a science club. Leonard and I both bought telescopes, and memories of being outside in the dark, looking at the moon or the planets through our telescopes are still special to me. I believe it was our first year in Bridgeport that Grandma and Grandad Doolen brought us a puppy, that Bill named Tubby. She was half rat terrier half ?, and remained with us until after I was in the Air Force. Leonard and I both played on the Freshman basketball team for a while, but we both quit before the season ended, which I regret. That year our varsity basketball team had an incredible year, finishing second in the state, and I went to lots of games, riding a school bus to many away games. I had a paper route, delivering the Chicago Daily News every morning about six. Some of the winter mornings were quite rough, due to cold or snow. I thought the six dollars a week I made was all anybody could want. In the middle of my Freshman year my family moved to Vincennes, Indiana, about 15 miles from Bridgeport, when my dad was promoted. This was the worst news I had ever heard, and I was quite up. My family agreed to let me finish the year in Bridgeport, where I lived with the Bathe family for about six weeks.

For some reason I was convinced Vincennes was a terrible place and I would not fit in like I had in Bridgeport. Therefore, I don't remember my three years at Lincoln High School with the fondness I hold for Bridgeport. I didn't get very involved in school activities. I did make several good friends, but my grades were not as good as they had been. I recall this as sort of a dead period in my life. The first year in Vincennes we lived in an old brick house on Wabash Ave., next to Riley School. Where it stood is now the playground. I remember listening to WLS, a Chicago radio station, and Dick Biondi, a crazy DJ, and absorbing all of the early rock and roll that I still love. I didn't start buying records for several years, but it was sinking in. I believe about my Junior year we moved to a split level house we had built at 314 Plumtree Drive, just off Old Wheatland Road. This was a big event in our lives, as we had never owned our own home before. During my Junior and Senior years I was basically a lazy slob who was afraid to get involved in anything including work, girls, clubs, school events, sports, etc. Finally my dad took things into his own hands, and found me a job working in the orchards, picking peaches and apples for $.75 per hour. I hated this job, but it gave me the incentive to look for a better one. However, I did meet some real interesting people in the orchard, Work started early, about six, and during the early hours the wet leaves were irritating on bare skin. When I got hired at Harold's Supermarket, at $1.25 per hour, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I really enjoyed the "rush" of working when it was real busy, and we were all darting around filling grocery sacks and helping people to their cars. One night a week we worked late stocking shelves, and after finishing up we would go down the street to Charley's Cafe, to eat French toast, eggs, and listen to music. After high school I attended Vincennes University for two years.`I had dated only a few girls previous to this, and nothing had come of it. While working at Harolds I met Carla Meier, daughter of one of the check out people, Vicky Meier. I believe that Carla worked at the dime store next to Harolds. At any rate, we started dating and this became the first serious relationship of my life. After finishing my second year at VU, I had intended to enter the Air Force, due to lack of any better plans and the fact that I would probably have to enter some branch of the military, due to the Viet Nam war. However, due to my involvement with Carla, I found I didn't want to go into the service. I managed to enroll at Oakland City College, which I thought would keep me out of the military. However, I hated Oakland City College, it was a church school, and very strict, and boring. I think I went there only about two months, and the whole period still seems like a dream to me. As it turned out, since I had entered late, my draft deferment was no longer valid anyway, and I was about to be drafted. I finally decided to enter the Air Force rather than wait and be drafted into the Army.

On January 19, 1966, I left Vincennes. I don't remember what airport we left from, or how we got there, but I took the first plane ride of my life, I believe in a DC-9. The weather was very stormy, and I was terrified during the turbulent trip. We finally landed at Lackland AFB, near San Antonio, in the middle of the night. We were first taken to a mess hall to eat, where we were served biscuits and sausage gravy. It looked awful, and I didn't really want to eat it, but I did, as I figured I might be shot if I didn't. Basic training seemed rough at the time, but looking back, was a great time of close friendships. I had entered on the "buddy system" with Tom Wallem, a friend from Harolds. This meant we got to be in the same flight all the way through basic. Within a week or so it didn't really matter though, as we had both made a lot of new friends. During basic I started taking a lot of physical and mental tests for possible acceptance into the Airman's Education & Commissioning Program (AECP). If accepted, the Air Force would send me to a civilian college to finish my education, and I would owe them four years service afterwards. While waiting to see if I would be accepted, I was put in "casual status", which simply meant I was on hold until something definite happened. Most Airmen on this status were gone within a week or two, but I was there eleven months. During this time I did a variety of odd jobs such as working in the mail room and helping guys process out who were being discharged for mental reasons. Finally I was accepted into the program, and told I would be going to Oklahoma University, at Norman ,Oklahoma, majoring in Aerospace Engineering. I then came home to Vincennes for almost a month leave, the first time I'd been home in almost a year. I remember my dad through his arms around me when I got home, which both surprised and touched me, as we had never been a demonstrative family. While home Carla and I got together, and before long had renewed our romantic relationship. She was now a student at Indiana State University at Terre Haute, majoring in elementary education.

In January, 1967, I began my studies at Oklahoma University. This was a strange time for me, as for some reason, I never felt confident that I was going to do well in school. My first semester I lived in a house made into apartments, and never really made any good friends. For a while I wrote to Carla, thinking we had some kind of serious relationship, but she didn't look at it that way, and before long we were out of contact. After the apartment I moved into an adult dorm (old army barracks), and made some really good friends, most of them graduate students in anthropology. My grades went from average to below average until finally I just gave up and flunked everything my last semester. I was at OU about a year and a half I think. This was 1967 and 1968, the time of flower children and hippies, and there was a lot of that at OU. I related to it a lot, but never tried drugs, or of course, allowed to grow my hair long.

Next the Air Force sent me to Reese AFB near Lubbock, Texas. Here I worked in Supply, and made some really good friends, including Adam J. Riley II, a tall, black guy who preceded me to my next assignment at Bien Hoa, Viet Nam about a year later. Through several friends on base I met several girls that were good friends, but had no close romantic relationships. Soon after getting to Reese I met Steve Thompson, who had raced motorcycles in California. He got me interested in cycles, and before long I was the proud owner of a Yamaha 180, two-cycle road bike. I enjoyed riding it a lot, but before the year was up I had sold it and bought new 1968 MGB convertible, a car I loved like no other. I hadn't had it too long when I got orders for Viet Nam. This came as quite a shock to me for some reason, though it shouldn't have, as just about everyone was being sent there. I intellectually considered not going (Canada?), but emotionally I was not the type to do anything so radical. So again, I was home on leave for several weeks. I don't remember much about this time at home. In fact, I think I may have spent this leave helping the family move from Vincennes to Bloomington.

The plane ride to Viet Nam took almost 24 hours, and as often happens when I fly, my ears were completely plugged up and I could hardly hear when we got there. As promised, my friend Adam J. Riley had reserved a good room for me on the ground floor of the wooden barracks where we lived. The ground floor was better because in case of rocket attack, you could just get under your bed instead of running outside to the sandbags. I spent that year in a hot, humid climate, working in a large warehouse on the flightline, but not under the constant threat of attack or danger, that soldiers out in the field faced. I remember listening to a lot of music on the radio while there. I was a big Rolling Stones fan during this period. I also bought a lot of nice stereo equipment that I had shipped home, some of which I still have. After Xing the days off the calendar for 365 days I finally got to go home. I remember my mom, dad, and brother met me at the Indianapolis airport, and we walked right past each when we first met. My folks had moved again, and were now living in a trailer near Lake Monroe. I went to the lake a few times, and listened to a lot of Flying Burrito Brothers and Crosby, Stills, & Nash music while home.

After several weeks at home I reported to England AFB, near Alexandria, Louisiana. I spent the next 2 1/2 years there, the remainder of my Air Force career. I lived on base for awhile, but soon moved into town into a small apartment. Here I met Tom Crumplar, who lived next door and was also an Airman. Eventually we became roommates, moving into a nice two bedroom apartment over a garage, in Pineville, a small town nearby. I got a small, black Fox Terrier pup, and named him Henry. He was a great dog and friend for several years. I made a lot of good friends during this time, Joe and Beckie Wicks, and Bill and Bea Canneto, both of whom I'm still in touch with. I worked in a small shop near the flight line where repairable aircraft parts were turned in, or delivered to aircraft. Other than not having any romantic relationships, this was a great time. It was great to have my MGB back, and I got back into motorcycling by owning a couple of used bikes, a Honda 160, then a 350. Tom Crumplar got married after a year or so, and I got Jim LaFitte as a roommate. He was quite a bit younger than me, and quite a character. He was from New Orleans, and I went home with him one year during Mardi Gras. I listened to and bought a lot of music, including the Byrds, Dillards, Flying Burrito Brothers, Doors, and Beatles. On November 3, 1972, I was finally discharged from the Air Force, after almost seven years. I can still remember driving away and seeing England AFB in my rear view mirror. I was excited to be a civilian again, but also apprehensive, and I didn't have any clear ambitions, other than enrolling at Indiana University and using the GI Bill.

After arriving back in Bloomington, I lived at home with Mom & Dad for awhile. They were now living a few miles outside of Bloomington on Old Highway 37 South. Before long I found a duplex on Lakeside Drive, near Lake Lemon. Mom & Dad kept Henry for awhile, then with my permission, gave him to a farmer. After taking some general courses at IU the first semester, I got interested in Biology through my introductory course, and decided to major in it. I loved the philosophical questions of how life began and evolved, but as the courses continued the details overwhelmed these questions, and I began to lose interest. I finally did manage to graduate with an undergraduate degree in Biology in 1974. In the meantime, I had started working part time at the IU Audio Visual Center. I had a real good time working there, and had some great friends, as well as meeting my first wife, Jennifer, who also worked there.

Jennifer had a two year old daughter, Loretta, from her first marriage when we first met. We had a tumultuous relationship from the start, and never should have gotten married, but we did, about the time I graduated from IU. We went to Opreyland, at Nashville, Tennessee, during which time Jennifer became pregnant. She had been on the pill, and stopped because it was causing her some problems, which apparently messed up her cycle. I worked at the K-Mart gas station in Bloomington for a while, and started submitting work applications everywhere I could think of, including many for State jobs. On May 31, 1975, my daughter and only child Heather was born at the Bloomington Hospital. The name Heather was chosen by Jennifer, after a favorite TV character (Heath -a guy). Therefore, I got to pick the middle name, and I chose Ramona, after a Bob Dylan song, "To Ramona".

In August, 1975, I was hired as a Claims Deputy at the Indianapolis Eastside Unemployment office, at $8985 per year. This meant we had to move to Indianapolis, which (at first), Jennifer didn't mind. We lived first at an apartment complex on the far east side, on Post Road, I believe Pinehurst Village. We didn't like this, so we moved into town at 1131 Dearborn Street. This was a working class neighborhood, a little run down, with a XXX theater only two blocks away. These were pretty rough times of not enough money, lots of work involved in raising two small kids, and constant fighting with Jennifer, who was a very high strung, emotional person. Finally we moved back to Bloomington in hopes it would make us all happier, and I commuted every day to work. We traded in our old Plymouth for a new Fiat 128, and I had three riders to help cover car expenses. Finally around August 1976, an opening for a Claims Deputy occurred in Bloomington, and I was able to transfer there and stop commuting.

We moved into Meadow Park Apartments, where Jennifer had lived when we met. This was probably as good a time as we ever had while married, although we still fought a lot. It was about this time that I started running. I had never exercised regularly in my life, and it took a while to get into shape. I have kept his up to this day, and usually run about 15 mile each week. Sometime in 1977 we purchased a small house at 416 Roosevelt St. This was a cute little house with parquet floors, near campus. Although Jennifer loved the house, before long our marriage became worse than ever. Jennifer was now working at Otis Elevator Co. We separated twice, me moving in with my brother Bill, before I finally moved out for good, in late 1978 or early 1979.

Soon after this I met Lynn (Allyn) Young, a divorced lady who sometimes ran at the same indoor track as I did. After dating a lot, we moved in together in an old farmhouse on Bottom Road, north of Bloomington. Lynn worked as a proofreader/editor, and was an unorthodox person with artistic interests such as flower arranging and music. She had 3 or 4 cats and a dog when we first met. Sometime in 1979,the State had a reduction in force, and I had to take a transfer to the Martinsville office. In Martinsville I worked with Peggy Gwinnup, and am still friends with her and her husband, Bob. Then in 1980, Lynn took a job in Indianapolis. We first moved into a renovated log house, located out in the country north of Paragon. This was really too long a drive, so when moved to another old farmhouse at 5610 Raceway Road, near Camby. The house had no furnace, as a fire had destroyed it, so we heated strictly with a wood stove, built by my new friend, Bill Hawkins. About this time I received a promotion and started working in Indianapolis at our central office. When the owner of the house let her brother have the house to fix up and live in, we moved again to another old farmhouse, at 3183 Huggin Hollow Road. This one not only had no furnace, it had no toilet or fuse box. However, the rent was only $90 per month, so we fixed up these and other things, and also painted the entire house. Lynn had always been the restless type who changed jobs often, and was always wanting to try something new. In the summer of 1984 she decided to move out, as she felt the routine of our lives was preventing both of us from trying new things.

I took Lynn's leaving pretty hard, but tried to immediately compensate by seeing someone else. For a while I dated a woman named Susie, who was a sister-in-law of one of my friends. I also got another promotion, and was now the supervisor of the UI Quality Control Unit, a brand new unit that had not existed before. I had 5 or 6 people working for me, and my own secretary, the first time I had supervised other people. About this time I also got back in touch with Carla, whose surname was now Lammers. It turned out her best friend, Loreatha Presley (now Rusk), worked for our Department, and through her I heard that Carla was back in Vincennes, and was now divorced, and also, was in the hospital with pneumonia. I sent her a get well card, and we started corresponding. We met each other one weekend to attend a craft fair somewhere, and started dating. Before long I was driving to Vincennes at all kinds of crazy times, and Carla was coming to see me some weekends, sometimes with her kids, Jennifer, who was about 5, and Josh, who was about 9. In the meantime, Carla had sold the house she and her husband Mike had lived in, and I had bought an old, renovated schoolhouse south of Greenwood. This was, (I thought), my dream house, but as Carla and I became more and more serious, we started trying to think of a way we could be together in the same town, and get married. I didn't see any likely circumstances for this happening, when an opening came up for a Fraud Investigator in Vincennes. I jumped at this, even though it meant a two step reduction in pay. On December 7, 1985, we were married, with all of our kids participating in the wedding. For a couple months we lived in the small house Carla had bought at 1516 Overlook Drive, but we were looking for a larger home. In March, 1986, we bought the house at 3316 Bruceville Road that we still live in. In 1987 I took a job as an Auditor in Vincennes, a job I had always wanted, as it seemed the Auditors had more freedom to come and go than anyone else. In 1988 I became a total vegetarian. I had been cutting back on red meat for quite a while, and one night while watching a nature show on TV, I decided not to eat animals anymore. In 1992 I was promoted to Area Supervisor, supervising eleven Auditors in the southern part of the state, the job I still have and enjoy. When Heather was in 7th grade she decided to come and live with us. She stayed about six weeks, but missed her friends in Bloomington, and moved back. In Vincennes I developed a serious interest in playing tennis, as well as continuing my bicycle and running interests, and became a fairly serious motorcyclist. I took several long motorcycle trips in 1993 and 1994 with Bill Hawkins. I have since then met several other bikers through a couple of clubs I am in, and have taken many enjoyable trips, mostly combined with camping. So far my time in Vincennes has been one of great satisfaction and contentment.

Since writing this, several significant events have occurred. Heather was married in December, 1993 to Tim Yeargin, who she met at IU. They both attended IU one year, but didn't really like college life, and both worked after that. On February 18, 1996 my first grandchild, Abigail Catherine, was born. On June 6, 1999, my second, Emily Grace was born. Both are beautiful, healthy kids that I enjoy seeing a lot. Josh is now 24, and lives in Kissimmee, Florida. Jenny is 20 and is attending Indiana State University.