Journeys Only Look Coherent, When You Look in the Rearview Mirror of Your Life | Jack de Golia

Jack (real name John) is a fifth generation Californian. His great-great-grandfather arrived in San Francisco in June 1850 and headed for the gold fields. One hundred and one years later, Jack was born in San Francisco.
His mom, Eva, and father, John, were both 42 years old. His brother Ron was almost 14. And as Ron would say later, “Jack was the whoops.”
Mom was from Nicaragua, Dad was raised in California after his birth in Oregon. Jack grew up in Millbrae and Orinda, California, in the 50s and 60s, graduating from Campolindo High School in 1969, the same year as Woodstock, and a whole lot of social upheaval.
He went to college 60-some miles away at the University of California, Davis. Jack broke some a family tradition by doing that, as his great-grandfather, grandfather, father, and brother had all attended UC Berkeley. (This first two guys had no choice as there weren’t other campuses to go before 1919.)
At UC Davis, Jack realized midway through his freshman year, that while his goal had been to get into college—which represented The Future—he didn’t know what he wanted to beyond get there. But also freshman year, one of his dorm friends had a very cool water bag backpack that the friend had taken home with him from his job the previous summer as a fire fighter with the US Forest Service. That backpack was very impressive during dorm water fights!
The next year, Jack applied for summer firefighting jobs with both the US Forest Service and the National Park Service, and lo and behold, he was hired in 1971 at Lava Beds National Monument, just s… Read More