My Life

Executive Summary

2-2023
Dominic Vautier

In just a few paragraphs I will try to summarize my life.  Good luck there.  I don’t know why it is such a difficult thing to do. I certainly don't feel very objective talking about myself, but then who does or who can be?  But given my present trajectory, I’m not sure I will have enough time left do any earth shattering things so it’s a good time to begin summarizing all the earth-shattering things I have done (if there are any).  But maybe there still are a few things left to do.

I started out living and breathing in the fall of 1941, born the fourth boy in a family of five plus two other boys, one being a first cousin (my oldest brother died), but that's way off this subject.  I was a pretty healthy kid, kind of scrawny but always scrappy and very tree climby and raising chickens and doing what other kids did, and equipped with an insatiable curiosity.  In my first picture I was chewing on something, probably a shitty shoe.  Mom couldn’t keep me from climbing up on anything of any size whatever that was climbable.

Our family moved from the sleepy, laid back one-horse pee-waddle town of Bellingham around 1946 to the vibrant hustling bustling city of Everett which had all of two Catholic grade schools and so mom bought this wonderful big old drafty house on Grand street and I somehow got to the 6th grade.  I now live in the vibrant hustling bustling town of Bellevue since Everett is now just a sleepy, laid back pee-waddle one-horse town.

Around 1954 I suddenly wanted to become a Catholic priest because I greatly admired our assistant pastor Fr. Joseph Buck, young, handsome, smart, and athletic: all the qualities that my poky old pop never had, whenever he was around home that is.  He was a gauge watcher and I didn't want to become a gauge watcher.  I wanted an exciting life!

In September, 1956 I was off to see the world, that is to St. Edwards Seminary which is not much of the world but pretty much brought my home life to a sudden and catastrophic end under the gregarious, controlling, strong-arm influence of my dear sweet over-possessive hyper-motivated mother Allegra.  “You can't never go home again” was so so true.  I wept tears of sorrow and homesickness which lasted about two days.  Then I was over the curse of homesickness forever. Truly I could never go home again because there was no home anymore.

My stay at St. Eds was short lived however because they kicked me out and up in the world (or down in the world) to the Salesian Seminary in Richmond California beginning in 1957 and graduating from high school there in 1960.  It was in any case a vibrant time to be alive even though I was still a virgin.

After graduation I spent a year (Aug-60 to Aug-61) as a novice at the Novitiate at Don Bosco College in Newton, New Jersey.  After professing vows I attended the College for three years but left the Salesians in August 1964 because I couldn't live without girls.  I left behind some of my closest friends.

From there it was off to the army for three years (Sept-64 to Aug-67) and after service I moved to Portland where my folks were then living.  I tried to go back to college but wound up drinking lots of beer, chasing anything that wore a skirt and spending money like mad.  By 1968 I was forced to do a number of very serious things: stop smoking, get a career, fall in love and have some babies.  It was really easy to fall in love and have babies. I always wore my heart on my sleeve anyway.  Giving up smoking was hard.

I got married in June 1969.  She was such a very beautiful woman, and certainly my downfall.  The Vautiers always had a natural weakness for falling in love with beautiful women who did not make good wives.  It was only too late I realized that marrying somebody of exceptional beauty exponentially increases the odds of utter and total relationship breakdown.  I did have two fine, healthy, smart kids from that marriage which didn't work out and I even tried to raise the kids as good Catholics, which didn’t work out either.

I think everybody should fall really seriously shit-face in love at least twice in a life time, preferably to different individuals.  This just makes a lot of sense to me.  So with my first disastrous marriage and after several basic garden-variety nervous breakdowns and 20 years of misery I finally got enough nerve to get divorced.  I immediately remarried in 1989 and this one was smart and kind (and even beautiful too).  I had another baby boy in 1991.  1989 was important for me in other ways because I moved to Bellevue and here I will probably stay, too stubborn to move anywhere else unless taxes and death drive me out, which one or the other will eventually do.

I am happy to announce that I am well and all my joints work, I have no mechanical parts and still have all 32 teeth and I can still do 20 sit-ups and weight in at a bruising 135 lb. The only pills I take are for sleep which has been a lifelong annoyance.  Life is truly wonderful. 

More of my Life in much more Detail