Lee (Leon) S. Miller

I had planned to attend the University of Utah until August 1957 when my father, reading their catalog, decided that school was not so much a campus as merely a big bunch of buildings in metropolitan Salt Lake City "like NYU" and pressed me to enroll instead at the University of Idaho, his and my mother’s alma mater.  Dreams of designing automobiles faded when my aptitudes proved more linguistic than artistic, and I graduated from the U. of I. in 1964 with a B.A. in English.  Upon graduation, with the draft board breathing heavily down my neck, I joined the USAF and was commissioned a 2^nd Lieutenant.

My previous negative impressions of the military, formed mainly from W.W. II movies, proved highly inaccurate, and two years later I volunteered for flight school.  After serving a year in Viet Nam as a sensor operator aboard AC-119K aircraft, I returned stateside to be a navigator on the C-130 Hercules transport.  “Herky” was the passport to Dtravel far exceeding anything I’d have enjoyed otherwise; destinations included London, Taipei, Frankfurt, Athens, Madrid, Cairo, Warsaw, Amsterdam, the Panama Canal Zone, Bangkok, Phnom Penh, Istanbul, Sydney, Manila, Pisa, Tokyo, Tunisia, Norway, and Abilene, Texas.  While in England I lived a childhood dream, buying a (23-year old) 1952 Bentley car, touring parts of England in it, and bringing it home with me.

Caught up in the post-Viet Nam wind-down of flight crew personnel, in 1976 I separated from the Air Force and immediately rejoined as a non-commissioned officer.  Completing my 20 years’ service in 1984 as a Master Sergeant, NCO-In-Charge of the Tyndall AFB, Fla. Command Post, I retired in grade of Captain.

Upon retirement from the USAF I moved to St. Petersburg, Florida (I understood that’s what you’re supposed to do when you retire) and took a job with Proper Motor Cars, Inc., a firm doing restoration and maintenance on high-end foreign and antique cars.  For seven years during this period I was Editor of and major contributor to the bi-monthly magazine of the Rolls-Royce Owners’ Club’s Florida Region.  That was among my most gratifying and enjoyable projects ever, until earning a living had to take precedence.  A member of the Society of Automotive Historians and a number of antique and one-make car clubs, I’ve also written several articles for other publications on cars old and new.  The 41-year old Cadillac convertible in my garage awaits the time (and money) for its restoration, to repay the many miles it’s carried me during the 39 years I’ve owned it.

I’ve been employed since 1994 by Cox Target Media, Inc. whose signature product is the blue Valpak^® envelope, as Proofreader/Editor of the Creative Services Department.  An interesting job, which includes a variety of other tasks, mainly occasional copywriting and assistance to the Photographer/Videographer (think Road Trips).  My image has also appeared in a few Valpak^®  ads, as I’m conveniently available when they need a generic senior citizen.

I’ve never married; it’s hard to attract a spouse to share a house filled with more than 400 (mostly very dusty) model cars, about 500 books on automotive history, and a collection of original car sales literature ranging back 101 years and currently filling 19 large filing cabinets.  I hope, though, that my counsel and support have been beneficial to my adoptive son Danny, whose accomplishments are a source of pride; he and daughter-in-law Alice now live in North Georgia. My 13-year old dog Dalton, whose lineage is Staffordshire Bull Terrier and Chow, is my treasured and beloved companion; we grew to be old men together.

I’ve been blessed with excellent health, and life is good.  I enjoy my job, but there are still many things on my "deferred" list, so I look forward to real retirement, currently projected for December, 2011.