Growing Up After Fifty

Growing Up After Fifty

FROM EXXON EXECUTIVE TO SPIRITUAL SEEKER

Bob Epperly

Smashwords Edition

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous.

—Fr. Thomas Merton

Human Sun Media

Sonoma, California

Optimal Total Wellness™ Series

Growing Up After Fifty: From Exxon Executive to Spiritual Seeker

Copyright © W. Robert Epperly 2013 All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the author’s explicit permission in material, written form.

June 2013

Published by Human Sun Media

Cover design by Gaelyn Larrick, www.artservingspirit.com

Interior design by Meg Epperly, www.brightlywoven.com

Orders and information: info@humansunmedia.com | toll-free U.S. 1.877.783.3873

ISBN: 978-0-9894879-1-7

Human Sun Media, 19201 Sonoma Hwy. #228, Sonoma, CA 95476

About Human Sun Media and its Optimal Total Wellness™ Series:

Human Sun Media is the outreach and publishing division of Human Sun Institute, whose mission is to help you ease your stress, increase your joy, and brighten your life today; and to awaken, educate and empower leaders for tomorrow. We are proud and pleased to bring out Bob Epperly’s Growing Up After Fifty as one of the inaugural books in our series on Optimal Total Wellness™. This collection includes only works of both high quality and high integrity. Each book or media program in the series in its own ways helps people recognize and release unnecessary and reactive stress, enhance their bodily, emotional, mental, spiritual, and relational harmony and delight, and so brighten and enrich their everyday lives. Those who thus benefit naturally become more conscious, realistic, integrated, whole, fulfilled, and giving human beings. More and more, they skillfully cultivate the qualities of wellness on all levels that are optimal for them at any given stage of their lives.

–Saniel Bonder & Linda Groves-Bonder, Publishers

To Sarah, my beloved wife of over fifty-six years, who led the way

CONTENTS

1. Cutting the Cord

2. Confusion, Possibility, and Roses

3. New Beginnings and the Shadow of Death

4. Rediscovering My Creative Edge

5. North to Alaska

6. Therapy with Sarah and Beyond

7. Trips with the Children

8. Meditation at Ghost Ranch

9. Chief Executive Officer, Surprise, and Goodbye

10. The Forum

11. Jennifer’s Marriage and Digging Deeper Within

12. California Calls

13. Life and Work in California

14. The Shadow of Death Revisited

15. Crisis of Authority

16. Waking Down in Mutuality

Afterword

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Five-Minute Spiritual Self-Assessment You Can Do at Your Desk

1

CUTTING THE CORD

It started when my employer of over twenty-nine years took a step that shattered my dreams and broke my heart, but I would not allow myself to fully acknowledge that emotional impact for another twenty-five years. It was April 1, 1986, and this was no April Fools’ joke. I had driven to work that morning from our home in Summit, New Jersey, a bedroom community outside of New York City. The hour drive to Annandale was a pleasant one through the rolling hills of western New Jersey. The executive offices of Exxon Research and Engineering Company, my employer, and corporate research were in a modern, state-of-the-art facility built especially for research on over eight hundred acres of land. Corporate research employed more than five hundred people, including more than two hundred world-class scientists, and had a budget of over one hundred million dollars. Nearby were the Round Valley and Spruce Run reservoirs where I had fished with my children. It was a beautiful, spring day, and the azaleas and forsythia were in full bloom.

Shortly after I arrived, Dave Clair, the company president, called me into his office. This was not unusual. I was the general manager of corporate research and, at the moment, reporting directly to the president, the office of vice president being temporarily unfilled. We had been engaged in intense discussion regarding the future size of corporate research for more than four months. Another downsizing program was anticipated (there had already been two) and cuts of up to 50 percent had been proposed. I was working closely on this with Dave Clair and Myles Connor, the executive vice president. I was under intense pressure, never before having faced such an uncertain future.

Dave came to the point quickly. He said, Bob, the decision has been made to cut corporate research in half. Frank Sprow will become vice president and, unfortunately.... He hesitated before proceeding in measured tones, ...we will not need a general manager. The meaning was clear. I had no questions. While I had not been declared surplus, I was an employee without a job. Although another position might be found for me, there were no guarantees. This initial step could lead to retirement. I was stunned, having always assumed it couldn’t happen to me. I had assumed that Exxon would take care of me, if I were a good and faithful employee. At the time I would not have articulated my reaction in this way, but looking back I understand that I was being the good and faithful child, expecting that my father would take care of me.

Even though I tried hard not to, I cried while sitting there in Dave’ office. I had grown up believing that men don’t cry. Dave lowered his head and mumbled something about times being hard. I left quickly, embarrassed by my lack of control. As I hurried through the outer office, head down and handkerchief in hand, Dave’s secretary also saw that I was crying. Of course, it was the Exxon way to have important events such as this completely planned, so that everyone involved knew what was to happen and when. She obviously knew and gave me a sympathetic glance as I left.

On the way back to my office, I was aware of the busyness of people in the laboratory, some going to meetings and others proceeding to the library or seeking supplies for experiments. Although I was stunned and in disbelief, I suddenly had an impression of how unimportant all of this was, a feeling that I had had before after returning from long vacations. For some time I had had the nagging feeling that my work wasn’t as important as I had thought it was, and now I had validation of that truth. Many of the people I was observing would not have jobs when summer came. I also remembered that, six weeks earlier, I had debated whether to take time to have a hernia operation given the uncertainty at work and the need as I viewed it to diligently address the issues being raised about the future of corporate research. Encouraged by Myles Connor, I had taken the time but was only away from the office for four working days. When I returned and reported to medical, the nurse couldn’t believe that I was back so soon, and she insisted that the doctor see me before I was readmitted to work. That was how I had regarded the work that seemed so unimportant now, and I was acutely aware of the difference.

My associates, the people with whom I worked most closely, were waiting for me to return from Dave’s office. My meeting that morning had been no secret, and everyone was concerned. Dr. Roger Cohen, one of the managers of corporate research, came into my office and asked, What did Dave say?

The lab is being cut in half, I replied.

Immediately, he asked, And how about you?

I wasn’t able to answer verbally, only shaking my head despondently, with tears in my eyes. Apparently, Roger spread the word, for no one else came to ask me about the meeting. The news was a shock for all of us who had worked so hard to maintain the lab and improve our effectiveness in meeting Exxon’s needs, and it was going to be a major disruption for the individuals who would no longer have their jobs.

Suddenly, I had an urge to be outdoors. It was a sunny April Fools’ Day and our former farmland location was beautiful. I walked several times around the roadways of the site, breathing deeply and thinking about my career at Exxon and my life before that.

I had grown up in Pulaski, Virginia, a town of ten thousand, in the southwestern part of the state. Our town was the county seat in a largely rural area where farming and furniture manufacture were the main activities of commerce. My father had a seventh grade education and was proprietor of a grocery. My mother had graduated from high school and was a homemaker and part-time employee at the grocery. I was an only child. As I was growing up, it was apparent to me that nearly everyone spent most of their time working. Personal identification was linked to what one did to make a living, so work was very important. And there was a prevailing belief that hard work would be rewarded.

When I was in high school, I started to think about going to college. My father believed this was unnecessary and seemed to expect that I would someday take over the grocery. I had worked many hours in that store and was certain that I did not want nor could I tolerate such a career. This was just one of the ways in which my father and I perceived life differently. There was little mutual understanding between us. Meanwhile, my mother encouraged me to pursue my interests. Science and mathematics were easy for me, and I started to think about being an engineer and attending Virginia Tech, which was nearby in Blacksburg. On reflection, I see that I held being an engineer as a way to make a living and to achieve status in the world. Being a grocer may have been fine for my father, but not for me. I wanted to be more important than that, to be more significant!

I also wanted to feel good about myself and assumed I could reach that point through external accomplishment. As a small child I was seldom able to gain the approval of my parents, particularly my mother. As a result, I felt inadequate, deficient, and unworthy. I knew I was a good student and set out to prove myself through conventional accomplishment. Although I didn’t see it at the time, this was the point in my life when I started to deviate from the family pattern and to move in a different direction into the world on my own.

I went to Virginia Tech and enrolled in chemical engineering, a curriculum that attracted me in part because it was considered by many to be the most difficult program on the campus. I was trying to overcome my feelings of inadequacy. I did very well academically, graduating second in the engineering class of over 350 students. Given my grades and the need for engineers, job offers were almost unlimited for me when I was a senior and later when I was a graduate student. I was attracted to Esso (which later became Exxon) because engineers had played such a critical role in the company and held many if not most key jobs. Again, I was expecting to be significant. Esso was interested in me and even provided a fellowship for me as a graduate student. Esso service stations were prevalent in our area and distributed petroleum products that were viewed by many as the best. Also, the Esso representatives who were recruiting for the company were professional and perhaps even elite. I liked that; it signified prestige to me. I decided to accept the Esso offer of employment in Linden, New Jersey, after completing my master’s degree. I had met Sarah Owen at Virginia Tech during my senior year. She had another boyfriend at the time, a tall, imposing paratrooper, and at first I was uncertain how she regarded me. At one point I was ready to give up on the relationship, but then she started to show more interest in me. After six months of uncertainty, we became engaged. Her father had been a chemist for Union Carbide before his untimely death from cancer, and I viewed her as having already had the type of life to which I aspired. I wanted to have a family and a successful career as an engineer. She too wanted to have a family and even jokingly talked of birthing an entire baseball team. After college she planned to work initially as a hospital dietitian and later as a homemaker. While we were definitely attracted to each other physically and emotionally, Sarah and I also shared a view of life built around hard work. Work was important to both of us. We were married in the Blacksburg Presbyterian church that she had attended while in college on a Sunday in June at 5 p.m., about three hours after Sarah graduated with a bachelor’s degree in human resources. We stayed in Blacksburg for two months while I finished the thesis required for my master’s degree. Then in July we moved to a one-bedroom apartment in Roselle, New Jersey, and I began work at Esso Research and Engineering Company. The year was 1957.

The geographic change brought a dramatic cultural change as well. Roselle is in the greater New York City area, and we were living in a city environment with a distinctive ethnic flavor. There were many residents of Italian, Polish, Irish, German, and Hispanic origin, and Protestants such as us were in the minority. The most prevalent religion was Catholicism, and there also was a sizeable Jewish population. We delighted in ethnic food, found the best breads that we had ever tasted, and loved to visit New York City. At this point, I was full of myself regarding the virtues of Protestant Christianity. Once, at lunch, after I had expressed my brash opinions, one of my colleagues observed that it was debatable whether Christianity had saved more lives than it had lost in various Christian wars. Wow! That was a viewpoint that I would never have heard back home, and yet I got his point. While I argued, I also listened and learned. My worldview started to expand. I began to temper my opinions, which was emotionally difficult but certainly necessary. I had an enormous ego that needed testing, and it was being tested.

In the years that followed, we bought a home and had three children while I worked and advanced at Esso, which along the way became Exxon. It seemed like a typical American story, small-town boy makes good. I advanced rapidly, at least for the first twenty years, and we were that nice family that people like to have next door. We were well dressed and well mannered. We maintained our home, and I mowed the lawn regularly. We went to church where Sarah and I both held various positions. In addition, she was active in local organizations and at one time was president of the local YWCA. Life was basically what I had hoped it would be, except better. While she preferred to spend and I preferred to save, an area of conflict that lasted for more than thirty years, we had more than I had ever dreamed of, and we seemed to have no serious problems.

Yet, as the years went