Chapter 25

The days leading up my tryout at the Feed & Seed went fairly smoothly.

I had decided I needed to take an afternoon from spending time at Ellie’s house, as a reevaluation of my plan was needed and there were some potential changes that needed to be looked at. There was some additional information that I needed on a couple of ideas. They might not even be feasible, but if they were it would push my timetable up a bit.

When we went to judo on Wednesday, I told Ellie that I needed to take care of some stuff on Friday before my new job and wouldn’t be able to drop her off at her house. She didn’t really like that but didn’t put up much of a fight about it.

Thursday during JROTC, I talked to 1stSgt Gibbs to see if I could set up a time to have conversation with him after school. He agreed to meet with me the following day after school.

Friday morning, and during lunch, Ellie kept pushing to get more information out of me. I don’t think she completely bought my explanation, but there wasn’t anything she could push me on either. As much as I’d have liked to share with someone besides Bob, I got the feeling she’d spill the beans to mom. It was just a gut feeling, and I tried to heed those warnings as much as possible.

I met with Ellie before she headed home. Again, I got the questions, though I stuck to my story.

Heading to the lower NJROTC room where 1stSgt Gibbs’ office was, how to approach him was going through my mind. Parts of my plan would have to be laid out, and I’d just have to hope that he didn’t decide to relay those to mom. I was knocking on the door before I realized it.

“Come in.”

Walking in, he motioned me to a chair and I got the “hold a minute” hand gesture. Taking a seat, it was a few minutes before the typing on the keyboard stopped.

“So, what’s up Badzinski? When you asked for this meeting, I got the feeling that it was urgent.”

“Not necessarily urgent at this point, though what I find out will help me move forward with the next year or so.”

“Well, I guess we better get down to brass tacks then.”

“Yes sir. I’m putting together a plan so that I can enlist in the Marines next year.”

“If that’s it, not really a lot to talk about. I’ll get with a recruiter to contact you and they’ll arrange to get you sworn into the Delayed Entry Program (DEP).”

“That’s actually not going to work for me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I’m working on graduating early, so I need to find out if that would affect the two years of JROTC that are needed for the promotion out of boot camp. Secondly, for the DEP I’d have to have my mom sign for me, and this needs to be kept from her, hopefully till the last minute.”

He leaned back in his chair. I could only guess what was going through his head at that moment. A couple of times he rubbed his chin, then there were a couple of “hmms and hmphs”. Leaning forward, he looked directly at me.

“So how early in the year are you talking about graduating? And then explain to me why you need to keep your mother out of the loop.”

“As far as graduation, it would be around two months early, right after my 18th birthday. That way I could legally sign all of the paperwork necessary. As to why I need to keep my mom in the dark, she would make all the plans I have in the works go down the drain. She believes that I should go to college. That’s not really what I see myself doing. And before you say I shouldn’t jump into anything too quick; I’ve thought this through and already sought the advice of my grandfather who’s a retired Navy captain.”

“Well, seems I’m seriously outranked at this point. What are his thoughts on this?”

“He’s backing me up on this. He doesn’t really agree with my methods, particularly my keeping my mom in the dark. Though he was understanding about my reasoning as to why.”

“Alright, I’ll help as much as I can. There will be conditions. The first one is that you need to have your grandfather call me. I’m going to give you my home number. And if I get crank calls in the middle of the night, you’ll be in traction the next day. There will be more but you’ll get those after I talk to your grandfather. Be early to class on Monday. That’s all I have, now go home.”

“Yes sir.”

The ball was moving forward, though driving home there were some other things that I needed to figure out. I needed an expert on the ins and outs of recruiting to help me get what I wanted. Hell, I needed to find out if it was even possible. At some point I needed to find someone in mom’s office that could help me out.

Walking in the kitchen, mom had gotten home early. I was prepared for the interrogation this time, and she didn’t disappoint me.

“I figured you’d be out with Ellie tonight.”

“Nope. I’ve got some work to do and I can’t be distracted. Plus, I’ve got to be at the Feed & Seed early in the morning.”

“Well, good to see you being responsible. Just remember, be early and don’t screw up my discount.”

Going upstairs I made a call to grandfather to give him 1stSgt Gibbs’ number and explain what was going on.

There wasn’t much homework to get done, and when I finished, I unlocked the desk drawer that had all the stuff with the plan details on it. I made some slight alterations, adding the stuff from today and some other things I needed to discuss with the counselor at school. There were some ideas I’d had about making money that I contemplated. There was knowledge of how things would go that I could use to make money.

I was a fan of Chicago ball sports (football, basketball and baseball) and there were a couple of high-profile games and a couple of other sports events I could bet on. I knew events could change and anything could happen, so I wouldn’t gamble huge amounts of money.

I did have the knowledge that some companies would be worth buying stock in and concluded to stick with Apple and Amazon.

Back in my former life, I had looked into investing in them but never having large savings, it hadn’t been possible. That wouldn’t be an issue after the settlement money was in my control. The good piece of info I could remember was both stocks had split at least one time. I figured other things would pop into my head at some point that would help out.

Dinner was good although the conversation was annoying. Mom kept up on her campaign to make sure I didn’t mess up her discount. I almost wanted to fail at the tryout just to see her reaction to not getting the discount. The job was important to the plan though, so it wasn’t a real option.

I got to bed early as I had a feeling it was going to be an exhausting day coming up.

There wasn’t even a hint of the sun as I headed over to the Feed & Seed. Marty’s truck wasn’t in the lot when I pulled in, though I didn’t have to wait long. There was a look of surprise on his face when he got out of his truck.

“Good to see someone who shows up early. Let’s go.”

Following him, in I was shown the process of opening up the store.

“You probably won’t ever need to do it. I want you to know how just in case.”

I followed along through the whole process; it was fairly short and I vacated the office when Marty went to the safe to get out the cash drawer. There was then a short primer on using the register.

“You won’t be using it during the tryout, and very rarely if you get the job. You’re basically going to be a pack mule, moving things, unloading trucks and helping people to their cars. There’s going to be two trucks coming in today. The inventory needs to be unloaded, placed into the warehouse and then you’ll restock what’s needed into the store. Planting season is coming up and we need to be ready.”

We walked through the small warehouse area to a set of double doors I hadn’t seen before. There was a ramp and sort of loading dock, though it was only the height needed to make loading pickup trucks easier.

There was a small forklift off in a corner. I got caught staring at it. “You won’t be using that.”

Well that was a bummer. I mean who doesn’t like messing around on a forklift. Being shown around had me thinking that a whole bunch of stuff was to be unloaded. That thought was verified when we finished the tour.

“As I told you earlier, there’s two trucks coming in today. One has brand name fertilizer while the other has different types of fencing. Your job is to pull the stuff off the trucks, separate the types and repalletize it on the loading dock. Then I’ll put it away with the forklift. Then if there’s time left; you can stock the store.”

The first truck with the fertilizer showed up at about 8. I was still working on the first truck when the second showed up. It took a lot longer than I thought it would. We finished up on the first truck about midway through what was supposed to be lunch time. Once we finished, we ate quickly. Mom had made some sandwiches for me.

Getting started on the second truck, it took about the same time, but was more difficult as the rolls of fencing were kind of awkward. The workday ended up being just over 8 hrs by the time both were unloaded.

It wasn’t until I got home that the soreness had set in. The work was hard on me as it was using muscles that I didn’t really work out. I was glad to see mom had bought more Epsom salt.

The rest of the weekend was recovery. Getting the job would be good in more ways than one as it would give me another work out that would round everything out.

I was still a little sore on Monday as I stretched out for my run before picking up Ellie. While we were conversing about my weekend on the way to school. I needed to get things sorted out for Valentine’s day.

I was able to get out of anatomy a couple minutes early to go have my conversation with 1stSgt Gibbs. Walking to the lower classroom, I looked in and found it was empty. I’d forgotten that the class before mine was held in the upper classroom. I knocked on the door.

“Come in Badzinski.”

As I walked in, he motioned me to the chair. There was a legal pad on the desk.

“So, I had a nice long conversation with your grandfather last night. He convinced me that you’re committed to this path. From what I’ve seen of you in class, I think you’ll do well in the Marine Corps. So, here’s how this will play out. Since you have a plan to graduate early, we’ll talk about the 2 months of JROTC you’ll be missing out on. Starting next weekend, you and I will meet once a month. You will be instructed on things that I think will benefit you in your enlistment. You can thank your grandfather for that. So, go get ready for class.”

“Yes sir.”

Class went by, and as I was heading out 1stSgt Gibbs handed me a piece of paper. It said I was to meet him outside of the lower classroom double doors Saturday at 1pm. I’d have to talk to Marty to see if I could make that, or other arrangements would have to be made.