John A. Breckenridge

2017 Atlantic Avenue

Kingman, Arizona 86401

e-mail: caroljohnb@citlink.net

Biography

“Ones life seems to divide into chapters of varying length.

In the beginning we need a new one for each school

We attend, each vacation, certainly each love affair.

But there come periods when years, even decades, can be

Lumped into a single division, when our existence resembles nothing

So much as a long train trip over prairies that stretch to a

Constantly receding horizon.  Such periods need not be

Unhappy, or even boring.  Indeed they can be the best of one’s

Lifetime”.

------Louis Auchincloss

My High School years were the “Dreamtime” for me; far pavilions over vast oceans, and I can say, that I accomplished my dreams.  My travels took me to Asia, Australia, Europe, Russia, China, North Africa, and East Africa, through the Panama Canal to the beautiful open Pacific Ocean.  I have seen whales and exotic reptiles, sailed the southern coast of Turkey, visited countless Roman Ruins.  Mountains like Fujiyama, Mount Blanc, and Kilimanjaro showed me how small I was by comparison  I walked part of the Great Wall of China and sailed the River Li , thus marveling at those limestone mountains I called “Dragon’s teeth. The death camps in Germany and Poland made me sad; yet sailing the Nile filled me with wonder and joy beyond parallel.  I walked the Valley of Kings in Egypt, and marveled at the engineering feat of moving the monuments at Abu Simbel, and saw “Swan Lake” performed in the Bolshoi  Theatre in Moscow.  I have seen the Dalai Lama  and visited the beaches at Normandy.

My accomplishments?  Assisting the children of Chernobyl, Ukraine, with truckloads of clothing, consisting of sweaters, slacks, pocket books, belts, toys, Starter Jackets  from various Army Thrift Shops.  We  would drive vans full of these items to Dachau, Germany to be re-loaded and driven to Ukraine.

My second accomplishment was being the chief cadastral  Land Surveyor at the U. S. Navy’s Top Gun Range, Fallon, Nevada, in the days before GPS.  Our surveys led to the re-alignment of the Weapons Impact Scoring System, thus improving the bomb hit or miss scoring for pilots.

Education?  What I took with me walking off  that stage in June of 1961.  I remain to this very day largely self-educated .

“Try not to be a man of success, but a man of value” ------Albert Einstein