With the passage of time, I adjusted more and more to my new home, albeit slowly. After the initial excitement of getting there wore off, there were bouts of homesickness and sometimes loneliness. And if that wasn’t bad enough, if you don’t find a way to deal those two soon enough, you can add stupidity to the list. That’s the only reason I can give for the dumbass stunt I pulled on a couple of my pen pals back home. I’ve never really obsessed about it, but even today I wish I could have found a way to apologize. If either of you ever read this, you’ll know who I’m talking about, so I do apologize.
Eventually, I did work my way out of it, thanks in no small part to one of the guys I worked with. He had moved off base and started dating the oldest daughter of the family who rented him a room. I can’t remember all the wherefores and whys, but on a some of their outings the daughter was required to take along her little sister, and I got picked to go along to keep the little sister company. We weren’t dating, we were socializing; she knew that and I knew that, but it was terrific just to be able to get out. Besides, she was 14 and even I had a sense of right and wrong, so she was way too young for an “older man” of 19. I enjoyed her company though and she seemed to enjoy mine.
That lasted about 6 months or so, and was instrumental in getting me out of my shell. Over time, she has became a “Poster Child” of sorts for me, and represents a lot of people who touched my life over the years whose name I have long since forgotten. Her first name was Linda, I remember that much, but I draw a total blank when I try to remember her last name.
Next was Lois, who was in the Air Force too. We only went out 2 or 3 times. She had a car and I didn’t, so it was a touch awkward, with me driving her car when we went out. But what the hey, at least I wasn’t sitting around in my room. And besides, along about then another friend was looking for someone to go to a party with her “niece”, who was visiting at the time.
There’s a line in Forrest Gump that goes, “….I don't remember bein' born. I don't recall what I got for my first Christmas and I don't know when I went on my first outdoor picnic. But I do remember the first time I heard the sweetest voice in the whole wide world…” Our first meeting was something like that, only it wasn’t just her voice, it was everything about her. Okay, later on we would be married, and she would eventually become my ex, but I’m not going to sit here, 40 years later, and pretend she didn’t move me, because she did. Our divorce does not change that. I even found it incredible she would go out with me a second time. I borrowed a friend’s car and took her to the drive in. I was so nervous I knocked down the speaker stand of the first spot I tried to park in.
That was the start of a whirl wind relationship. We did everything together, went everywhere together, almost constantly on the go. She was helping this kid from the hills settle into a new world; a world I never knew existed.
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