George Parris

Born in 1947 in Raleigh, NC, George E. Parris describes himself as "too old to run and too young to quit." Basically, he is not going anywhere soon. His interest have evolved, but his desire to be on the frontier has not changed. You just have to get use to it.

His life-long ambition has been to do academic research in chemistry, which includes molecular biology (i.e., "chemistry invented by biologists") and materials science (i.e., "chemistry you can hold in your hand").

He can trace his roots in North America back to at least 1775, but more likely 1735 and his genetics clearly mark him as northern European. But, like most people named "Parris" his genetics point to the British Isles probably via Barbados (1600s). Judging from the number of Y-DNA relatives in Atlantic ports (from Bergen, Norway to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and on Atlantic islands (including Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Azores, the Canaries, Nova Scotia, and the Faroes) he thinks there were a couple of generations of Parris seafarers in the 1600s. More certain is the fact that he has wounded Confederate veterans in both sides of his family tree (Malvern Hill and Core Creek).

George's father was a veteran of WWII (15th AF, 99th BG North Africa and Italy). But George pursued his passion for chemistry at NC State University (where he lettered in Cross Country) and then at Georgia Tech. Graduate school was interrupted by being drafted into the Army in 1970. If you must be in the Army, be the best...after training, he was assigned to Bravo Bty 1st/319th Field Artillery of the 82nd Airborne Div. Back in graduate school he finished his PhD in 1974. Along the way he had developed an interest in vertical caving and repelled into the deepest pits in Georgia (Ellison's), Tennessee (Mystery) and Alabama (Fern). This interest culminated in trips to Mexico in 1977 and 1978 to explore Sotano del Barro and Sotano de las Golindrinas. (Look them up, you will be impressed.)

Living in suburban Maryland and working for the USEPA and USFDA, with no significant geological challenges at hand, he turned to running. In 1980, he finished 312th overall with a time of 2:38:11 in the Boston Marathon (yes, that's a "2"). His hobby moved to a men's club called the Maryland Army National Guard 58th Brigade/29th Div., a.k.a., government sponsored camping, hiking, shooting, helicopter/jeep riding, blowing stuff up fun. This ended and a solo hike to Rincon de la Vieja (Costa Rica, 1986) and an excursion up river by outboard-powered canoe to Angel Falls (Venezuela, 1988) punctuated with bungee jumps and para-plane flights kept him out of trouble until he decided to marry again and settle down.

He married for the 2nd time in Moscow, Russia in 1994 and was hoping for a quite career in environmental consulting. The market collapsed and he assumed that being a lobbyist for a trade association would roll into a comfortable retirement. As usual, he was wrong. The trade association disbanded in 2003 leaving him with two pre-school children, a wife with a green card and a large mortgage.

It's hard to find a professional job when you are 55. But, auto sales was a new adventure in capitalism. You do not appreciate a job until you must sell a used Toyota truck to a group of Latin Americans on a Sunday afternoon/last day of the month to pay the mortgage. You are not a real car salesman until you have been fired at least twice and he accomplished that largely because his use of computers in two different dealerships was targeted at research on "pubmed.gov" more than digging up new sales leads. But, his life of selling cars and teaching chemistry as an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins, Trinity University and Montgomery College was punctuated by a 4-year stent as a "research professor of medicine" for Tufts University Medical Center (2009-12).

By 2013, he qualified for return of his social security deposits and returned to adjunct teaching and writing technical and fictional documents that no publishing house would ever consider. Having long since given up any semblance of convention, he began posting his efforts on Amazon Kindle. For his 70th birthday he submitted a broad "parent" patent and a narrower "daughter" patent. He has discovered a new challenge of dealing with USPTO bureaucracy and as of 2020 he is still negotiating with the Patent Office.