Retrospect at 95

About the Book

Ben Muzzey chronicles and celebrates a long life filled with surprising and exciting lessons learned in this debut publication offering a “Retrospect at 95.” As an engineer, skier, mountaineer, boater and bicyclist, Muzzey has tales to tell. Misunderstood and considered retarded in his early years due to severe undiagnosed dyslexia and myopia, he overcame these obstacles to graduate from MIT in 3.5 years and become a respected engineering manager at Boeing. He details these things and more in this narrative filled with poignant human-interest stories and observations about life. Muzzey looks back at the events that shaped his character and at the people who believed in him and those who didn’t. He recalls being nearly penniless and living in the hay in his bosses’ barn. He describes driving across the country with his second wife Nancy, in a small, unreliable car and surviving for weeks on blackberries and tea; finally camping under a bridge in Seattle rain. There are stories about their colorful neighbors in the tenement that was their first home. There are many surprising episodes, including moving part of his originally decrepit farmhouse to their beautiful Mercer Island waterfront property by tugboat and his employee at Boeing whom he mentored until he was discovered by Upper Management. They announced that they’d “found a diamond in a turd” and later made him a vice president. The book is lively, inspiring and sometimes outrageous. His wife Ann, states that “There are no books like it - Ben’s adventures and philosophy are uniquely his own.” He encourages readers to be themselves and to consider the amount of risk appropriate for their adventures. His story clarifies this. “This romp through one man’s fascinating life produces some enriching and widely applicable lessons.” - Clarion Book Review

About the Author

Ben Muzzey was born in Lexington, Massachusetts in 1920. He graduated from MIT in 1942 with a Bachelor of Science in aeronautical engineering. He had started on an advanced degree, but the pressures of WWII forced him into work developing airplane propellers for General Motors. After WWII he moved to New Hampshire to hike and ski where he met Nancy Drew, a Smith College graduate and WWII veteran. They married, and ventured west to Seattle in search of larger mountains and a career at Boeing where he worked for 40 years until retirement. Throughout his life he has been an enthusiastic skier, mountaineer, kayaker and bicyclist, until a road-bike accident ended his active lifestyle at 92. He lives near Seattle with his wife, Ann, and their dog, Laika.