Chapter 15

The next morning, I started my calls to movers, and to everyone else involved with the move. I also finally got a hold of Roger and Carolyn Spillane. I asked if they could be in Taylor the 23^rd of October. That was the date we had decided on for our ceremony, it was a Sunday and we felt right about that date. They said there was a very nice, quiet RV park there in Taylor, not far off SH-95 on CR-374. They had been there before and quite liked it. They did ask why, though.

"Well, it seems I have found some ladies that want to spend the rest of their lives with me, and I with them. We are going to have a sort of marriage ceremony, well more a bonding ceremony where we commit to each other. We can't be married, so this is what we came up with. I would be honored if you two could make it."

Carolyn said, "Bob, we wouldn't miss it for the world, to think our adopted son is settling down and making a home. Why in Taylor though?"

I explained about the land and the peacefulness and wanting a change. They understood completely.

Next on our agenda was our meeting with Sheldon and Shirley. We showed up at Sheldon's office bright and early, about 8:45, on Thursday morning. We were shown into the conference room and asked what refreshments we wanted, as the meeting would probably run until noon. I asked for cold water and a V-8 juice, the girls asked for the same. About five till nine, Sheldon and Shirley came in with a folder for each of us, and a large folder that each of them had, as well. After introductions were over, Shirley dimmed the lights and the slide show began. They started out with the inception of my business and went from there. The graph showing my monthly business profits rose steadily from about four months after initial startup, until almost eight months ago, when there was a big jump, then steadily rising again, showing last month's profit of almost forty-two thousand.

Next was a graph of my client base, which started with twelve clients. They then showed how many clients were still paying me monthly service fees for using my servers, and the number of different clients we had worked for over the almost three years. Sheldon then put up the graph showing my lottery winnings. That graph even floored me. Shel then put up the graph of my offshore accounts. They had risen to much more than I even thought. Then we went on to my charitable contributions over the years, and we finally moved on to Shirley who showed my investment accounts and my philanthropic endeavors with the scholarships I provide to under-privileged, but bright kids, mainly from farm communities and some inner-city schools. The final graph was then shown; the one where my assets are on one side and my debits are on the other. This was a very one-sided graph. It showed that at today's prices, the stocks I owned, all my accounts, everything I had was worth $846,591,694.67, or over three-quarters of a billion dollars. It floored me, and Tammy and Nicole both passed out. It took a while to bring them around, as they kept repeating the number and fainting again. Shel took that slide off, upped the lights again, and we put cold compresses on their foreheads.

We went to lunch and the girls got to know Sheldon and Shirley a lot better. We were cutting up and Nicole said, "Shhh, you'll get us thrown out of here."

Shirley said quite distinctly, "They better not, we own the place. All of us here are part owners in this, and twelve other restaurants and businesses in the area. We are making an offer on one of the larger older hotels in downtown Dallas, and unless they are stupid, we will own that too. I thought of asking Sam to come run it for a while, do you think she would come if you asked her, Bob?"

"Shirley, I suspect she would, but then what would Dale do for a manager out there?"

"Bob, is this the same Sam who was your waitress out at Oxnard?"

"Yes, Tammy, I believe that she did that service when I was there. Why, are you jealous?"

"Hardly! I have wanted to meet her since you told us of your adventures out there."

That got Shirley and the girls talking in whispered conversation, with giggles breaking out every so often. We finally broke up about two and all went back to our workplaces.

Things were kind of hectic for the next two weeks, gathering resumes, interviewing people, getting the movers lined up; you know everything needed for a move. I did take Don's advice and got new servers. The new ones were faster, had more memory and larger hard drives, so upgrading them was a good thing. I had an expert go down there and bring everything on line, and with him there and me here, we were able to copy everything to the new servers that was on the old ones and we still had twice as much space available as we had up here. The wonders of technology shall never cease to amaze me. We did all the switching and copying the day before we left. I wanted to be sure there were no glitches. I then tore down the system here in the house, packed it all up in boxes, and set them aside for transport to Taylor.

The house was done and beautiful, even better than I had expected. The hardwood floors in the great room were all weathered wood and then sanded smooth and then sealed and painted with seven coats of polyurethane. This allowed the character of the wood to come out, it looked great. The same thing was done to the outsides as well, so even though the wood looked old, it was sealed to last a long time. I had left the colors, carpets, and such to the girls and they worked with a decorator from Austin and it ended up beautifully. For the great room, I bought a large oversized recliner that was made for larger people, but I loved it as soon as I sat in it. It really was big enough that both Tammy and Nicky could sit in it together, or me and one or both of the girls really.

I had spoken over the phone several times with Sam Butternut, the Native American carpenter about our ceremony, I offered my two blessings, he added one of his own, and between those three and some others he came up with, we had a ceremony of commitment and bonding for the three of us. When we had finally worked it all out, there were some things that were repeated in different ways, but I think we had something so sweet and loving, that I even had tears in my eyes as he read it to me. I said it was perfect.

I called a company that hauled cars for Warren and asked if he could haul three cars down to Taylor for us from the Dallas Area. I mentioned that he had hauled some cars for Warren and he said sure. The movers were scheduled for Wednesday, so we moved to a motel down the street from us and we lived out of a suitcase for two days. It was nothing we hadn't done before, so it was no big deal. The movers came bright and early Wednesday morning and their packers were the first to arrive. They went right to work, and everything was packed by five that night. Thursday was cloudy with a threat of rain, but the moving van was there at 8 AM, right on time. Everything was loaded and they were gone by two.

The transport guy came shortly after that and loaded up our three cars. I gave him the address and he said he would drop them off out by the garage tomorrow. The movers said they would be ready to unload by noon tomorrow also, so we said our goodbyes to the house and called Mike to give him the keys we had. It was kind of a tearful goodbye with Mike, but he promised he would come down for the ceremony.

Now it was off to bed for us after a tiring two days. We would get a very early start in the morning and be at the house before noon. I left a wakeup call for 4 AM so we could get up and head to IHOP for breakfast before we left. That way, we could get there before the movers and the cars, maybe.

Thank goodness everything went smoothly on the trip to Taylor. We made excellent time since we left so early and we were at the house just before ten. This started another long day for us. However, with the three of us directing the movers, it wasn't that hard. The cars came in around 11:30 and were quickly offloaded and put in the garage. The moving van was there right at noon, and by six they were done with their part. Now came our work, unpacking.

For the next three days, we unpacked and got everything arranged the way we ... er, the girls, wanted them. The new employees would be showing up next Monday, and I had temporarily set them up with rooms at the motel we stayed at before. I was actively looking for apartments or houses they could rent. The new employees were two guys and two girls. Simon Schneider was a business major, with a minor in computer science. He was our new office manager and came by way of Baylor in Waco. Bryan Giddings was a computer science major with website design experience. He came out of SMU, but was an Austin boy, so this was home to him. Debbie Davenport was another computer science major, but her expertise was in server maintenance and development. She came from Texas State in San Marcos. She originally hailed from a little town in Wyoming, called Kirby, between Thermopolis and Worland, kind of northwest of Casper. Our last employee was Britney Sorenson, who came to us by way of Texas A&M. She was originally from Midland, Texas, close to where I came from. Those were our new employees. We would be teaching them our way of doing things, and we hopefully could really retire after a year.

I was able to find a house to rent for the guys and a two bedroom apartment for the girls. They were all ecstatic about the accommodations.