Michael Polimer

Updated September 2015:

Since the last entry in 2000, I retired from Raytheon after nearly 43 years of service. I don’t miss it one second! While I was a highly successful Power Electronics Design Engineer, when I got to 62 I was ready and able to go and I never looked back! Jane has also retired from the Sharon Schools and works a couple of days a week selling fine jewelry in Norwood. Our son Ben is happily married and lives in Franklin with his wife Jen and their 6 month old son, Max. We take him two days a week and are thrilled that they live so close and have a part in bringing him up. Ben graduated from Sharon High in 2002 and Delaware Valley College in 2006 with a degree in Agronomy. He is a professional Sports Turf manager and currently manages all the athletic fields for Worcester Academy, a fancy private school in Worcester MA.

I am busier now than when I worked and am still involved in the Town of Sharon Civil Defense Department and still take care of the Town’s Little League Fields, as always, a volunteer. We find time to enjoy (?) Red Sox baseball, do a little vegetable gardening and I fix everything that breaks. Winters are a little slower but I am never bored.

Jane & I have done some traveling and enjoy winter Caribbean cruises. I was always interested in World War II history and now that we have the time, we traveled to Europe and toured several battlefields there two years ago. Before we went I read a couple of books on the subject but since the trip have read dozens of them! Whoever was our history teacher when we covered that material would be proud and amazed! I would like to go back some day, knowing what I know now and take another look. What our “fathers” did overseas during “the war” is amazing to see and in some cases difficult to believe actually happened! But we know it did!

Luckily our health is good and/but we work on it every day. I walk roughly 5 miles daily year round and try to eat all the right things. I have too much to do to check out early!

So all in all, things have worked out pretty well, but it wasn’t by luck alone! I had a long and successful professional career, brought up and educated our son who has turned out every bit as good as I had hoped back in 2000. I was able to retire early, we live comfortably and pretty much (within reason) can do what we want. Most importantly I have the world’s best wife which certainly was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Submitted in 2000:

Briefly?, I live in Sharon with my first, only and ever, wife Jane and our 17 year old son Ben. He is a Junior at good old SHS. Jane and I bought my parent's home in 1981 after living in Norwood for a time. My father passed away in 1977. I'm older now than he was when he died and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't ponder that fact. My mother passed away last January. That still hasn't sunk in completely yet.

After SHS, I briefly went to Lowell Tech then went two years to Wentworth (with Karlsie, David McNally and Norm Lipsitz) then to Northeastern. I got my BS the hard way, working at Raytheon days and going to school at night. While I did have apartments (and shack-ups) over the years, I never really left Sharon.

I have worked for Raytheon since 1967. I am now a Senior Design Engineer and have been designing RADAR transmitters used on everything from commercial airliners and military aircraft, to super tankers, to cooking bacon for Burger King, to the Patriot missile system, for all those years. Right now I work in the Sudbury Engineering facility and am working on solving some mysteries in the Patriot high power transmitter. (yes it IS rocket science!) Don't ask me if Patriot worked during the Gulf War. What I do know is that it has paid a lot of mortgage and car payments over the years!

Jane is a teacher in the Sharon schools working with special needs three and four year olds. She is also active in our Temple. While she grew up in Newton, her family summered in Sharon in the 1930's and '40s and latter moved in full time. Jane is an ideal mate in all respects and has even learned to like the Red Sox! I can't imagine life without her.

Ben plays soccer and baseball at SHS. He is a sweeper on the soccer team and will be playing somewhere on the infield for Joel Peckham's Varsity this spring. (yes Peckham is still around and he still looks like Tony Perkins) Ben is a middle infielder (2'nd base & short stop) by trade and is an excellent hitter. He played on the Canton American Legion team last summer which is made up of the 18 best players from Sharon, Canton and Stoughton. He is characterized as a polite, sensitive, clean cut, nice boy and an all around good kid by everyone he comes in contact with. If I did nothing else of value my whole life, seeing him grow up into a fine young man, that we couldn't be prouder of, is worth everything!

In Sharon I am very involved with the Town Civil Defense Dept and The Sharon Youth Baseball/Softball Association. I'm the volunteer head grounds keeper for all the Town baseball fields and probably spend way too much time manicuring the fields for the kids! It does give some instant feedback and satisfaction whereas my job might take years before we actually get anything designed, built and into the field. I love seeing the kids (of all age) playing on good fields and would do it for a living if I could. Unfortunately the Town can't pay me the kind of money Raytheon does after 33 years.

One black spot on my life has been the effects of the eye injury that some may remember that I suffered in the 8'th grade. Over the years I have had to undergo several operations and continue to take medications every day in order to keep the damaged eye viable. It hasn't been useable for many years but we keep it going as best we can just in case of some new medical breakthrough. Having one eye really hasn't been a handicap over the years, but I do worry about loosing my one good one for obvious reasons. Even so, I can still hit a 65 mph fastball! Curve balls are another problem!

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my life. My complaints are minor compared to "the big picture". If I had things to do over I wish I would have met my wife much earlier (we met in 1979) and might have done better in school. I try and impart that to my son, but, as we "old and wise" veterans of life now know, everyone has to make their own mistakes.