RED DIAPER BABY MID-LIFE TRANSITIONS

About the Book

Following up on his experiences in World War II in Red Diaper Baby Volume 1, Marx Ayres has concluded his biography by telling the story of his life post-war, from 1946 through 2011. See the about page at the end of the book for more information

About the Author

This book describes the personal, professional, and political changes in my post-WWII life. After attending Purdue University to obtain a master’s degree in mechanical engineering plus course work on a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, I gave up an academic career to pursue other interests in singing and Third Party progressive politicians (like Henry Wallace). I took a job with a large consulting engineer in Los Angeles as a heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) design engineer. I did all the things expected of a single man: (1) get married, (2) have three children, (3) buy a house and remodel it to accommodate a growing family, (4) encourage the children with their schoolwork and music lessons, and (5) send the kids off to college. At the same time, I was building my professional reputation in the building construction industry. I was employed by a large architect-engineer firm, became their chief mechanical engineer, and later resigned because they wanted me to work on a new US airbase in Spain. As a result, I started my own consulting mechanical engineering business. It grew rapidly, and I brought in George Hayakawa to form Ayres & Hayakawa. During this period, I vigorously opposed the House of Representatives Un-American Activities Committee, the anticommunist legislators, and Senator Joseph McCarthy. Many of our personal friends lost their jobs during these thought-control smear campaigns. I divorced my wife, Anita, and George Hayakawa about the same time. Spending the rest of my life with Anita was not appealing to me, and I wanted to do more exciting engineering projects in energy conservation, solar design and off-peak cold storage, and computer designed HVAC systems. I moved Ayres Associates to the sixth floor, and Hayakawa Associates remained on the seventh floor of the same building. During this transition time, I regained my health and sexual vigor by taking five classes per week of intense yoga, jogging, taking tennis lessons, and participating in weekly matches. As I entered my new single life, I was surprised to learn that a healthy fifty-year-old man was attractive to forty-year-old women. This attraction led to many interesting and exciting sexual encounters. I bought a unit in the Sea Colony II condominium complex, which was part of the City of Santa Monica urban renewal program at the south border and Venice (Los Angeles County). The unit was my “bachelor’s pad” until I met Fran Rissmiller from my yoga class. She wanted to move in with me, and when I suggested rent, she bought 50 percent of the condo. We never bothered to get married, and after three remodeling projects, we have happily lived together for thirty years. I continued a variety of social activism including continued support of the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research and the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. I end the book with descriptions of memorials for the deaths of my two sons, Ron and Gary. Ayres is a retired consulting mechanical engineer with over fifty years of experience in the design, analysis, and construction of mechanical service systems for all types of buildings and industrial facilities.