PHILLIP BULLARD

Having done the Grady tour with the '60 class but exited late due to culmination of personal and family losses, I have a foot in both '60 and '61 camps, as some already know. It may be unusual, but it's fun. I worked a while before starting college and was in graduate school and married by the time I could no longer hold off military service. After the Army stint I returned to grad school, but life began to get in the way, as it has a habit of doing.

The playing off of necessity vs. interests has left me with two career path and resumes. My biggest regret is that I never could get the two things together on a permanent basis. With the former prevailing, I retired from 30 yrs. service with the Ga. Dept. of Human Resources in 2000 and have worked since then with IRS and private concerns but am now definitely retired. Tied in with this are more efforts at completion of graduate studies which had a way of getting derailed by unforseen factors like a rapidly
changing job market and a temporary health crisis.

To preserve my sanity in all my years of government and military service, I have kept active in various capacities in music. Currently I am studying classical piano privately with a member of the Emory music faculty and have about ten years of serious study on that instrument. I've worked more than ten years as a percussionist and fourteen as a trumpeter with everything from bar bands to symphony orchestras. Hint: Don't quit your daytime job for this, but there's nothing like it.

In summary, I guess what took prededence with us was to try to provide stability for our children at the sacrifice of maybe more lucrative but risky opportunities for ourselves that might have existed elsewhere. I would have not forseen any of this in 1961.

Much of my earlier time at Grady was compromised by my not being able for various reasons to get involved with many of the great opportunities the school provided for extra-curricular activities. In the 1960-61 year however, this changed. Mr. Seitz early in our Senior year invited me to be in the band. I accepted, and it changed my life. I had tried back in the ninth grade with the '60 class but wasn't ready then. Now it was different. Of course being a little older and wiser and at last having a car (however absurd), didn't hurt either. The Music Appreciation and Art Appreciation courses I took in the Senior year have served me unfailingly well ever since. The former got me hooked on opera and guranteed the good grades I made in earning a minor in music. The latter has helped me to communicate with my youngest daughter who has an Art History degree and to appreciate and understand what I see in the many trips through the National Gallery and other places I've visited via my oldest daughter. The band experience allowed me to study Music at the Univ. of South Carolina as an after-hours pursuit while in the Army. That opened the doors to experiences too numerous to recount here.

As I grow older and more decrepit, the more I see what a gold mine of opportunity there was at Grady. So much of whatever that has remained dear to me all these years can be traced back to there. I just wish I'd known this at the time.