I am so happy to have already heard from several of Ken’s friends and family members after putting out the call yesterday for your memories. It feels fitting that Guest Memory One should come from Character Twenty-One himself, Al Domeshek. Al is also featured throughout Ken’s memories: Memory Twenty, Thirty-Six, Thirty-Seven, Thirty-Eight, Thirty-Nine, and Forty!

Take it away, Al!

Ken and I go back a long ways, and our paths have crossed several times. I met Ken circa 1958 or 9, when he was working for American Air Liquide in NYC living in CT, (his Mom was with him) where we had a beach outing with all the kids. I was working for Chemico in NYC and living in NJ. He called on me as a salesman at the time, and we grew to be friends. We each had 3 children of roughly the same ages. We socialized, and visited each other’s homes with families.  We saw Barbara Streisand with the wives, on the second night of Funny Girl on Broadway.

Later, we both moved to Atlanta (1964) and worked together at American Cryogenics, for several years. Lots of families moved there (a start up owned by Exxon), and there were many parties with company friends. Many great memories. Boomerangs, unicycles, paintings, lots of great food and drink. As I remember, he bought his home after I showed it to him, but I couldn’t afford it at the time. He had a fire in that house, some years later, and it took a while to get it back to normal.

Later yet, we both moved to Houston (1979-80), and I worked for him at POI for a number of years. I divorced my wife and subsequently married Ken’s secretary. He stayed there, and I moved to California when the energy market crashed.

In 1987, I moved back to Atlanta (Lawrenceville) and eventually bought a second home in Houston (Spring Branch) where we would visit for months at a time, till the summers were too much for me. We got together for dinner out numerous times and enjoyed visiting his home and pool. I remember attending his 80th birthday party, thinking we were getting old. We sold the Houston house several years ago, but tried to stay in touch and even dined out a couple of times when visiting our children.

I stopped visiting Houston a number of years ago, getting old, but my wife LaWanda has many family members there and flies down at least once a year.

Al reports that he has stayed in touch with Nigel (Ken’s son) and his wife Donna and visited them a while back in Atlanta. Al is also in touch with Kinman Chan in California and Kinman recently asked about “Dr. Glover.”

Thank you, Al, for sharing your memories. I am so pleased to feature you as our first guest blogger! Who will be next? …