Chapter 4

It was two weeks later that John Wilkinsing came to the clinic to have the crown put on. This time before that was done Brad gave John a little tour and showed him all around the clinic. The staff Brad could see was excited when John was introduced to them.

As he was doing this showing and introducing John, Brad mentioned that a credit for what they had previously charged him would be applied to his credit card.

John said, “Please don’t bother to do that. I think I can afford to pay for your service” and he laughed after saying that. Brad joined him in his laughter.

Applying the crown was done in a short time. John as he was leaving shook hands with Brad and said he wanted Brad to be his dentist and would make an appointment for a teeth cleaning. In doing that he said it would give him a reason to come here to visit his mother not that he ever needed an excuse to do that.

One of the patients Brad examined after getting his teeth cleaned was Doctor Steven Brandle. It was Steve’s idea that set the program in motion of having either doctors or physician assistants available in all medically underserved areas of the State.

In doing the exam Brad noticed a cavity and said if Steve had time he could take care of it now. Steve gave him the go ahead. While they waited for the Novocain to take affect they had a conversation. Steve asked Brad how he liked the small town living and how was Brad’s social life.

“My vote is still out on the small town living but so far I don’t have any major complaints. Living next to the lake is what I would say is a big plus and something I enjoy about living here. The negative maybe is my social life in regard to finding some female companionship but other than that I can’t complain.”

“That was pretty much my concern when I first came here. I was able to meet some women at the hospital and at the country club I joined. If you golf or have an interest in doing it the country club close to the hospital has an excellent golf course which is rated pretty high by Golf Digest. Cost of membership is a lot less than what I was paying in LA.”

“One thing I did and am not embarrassed to say was to asked the golf pro when we had mixed tournaments if he would assign single woman around my age to be my partner. He did do that and while we didn’t win any tournaments I did meet some nice looking women and things progressed from there if you know what I mean. Once I met Valerie the pairing for those mixed double tournaments changed as Valerie became my partner. I will say that during the summer months there are some good looking college age women that I see at the club.”

Brad thanked him for the advice and said he would keep it mind. Right now he was interested in fishing and wasn’t sure if he would have the time to fish as well as golf.

Brad’s efforts in regard to fishing resulted in him improving his success. Using two fishing rods and the cheese bait he was able most of the times to catch his five trout limit before he was chased off by the water skiers.

While oven baked trout was good Brad decided to expand how he prepared the trout and purchased a smoker. Videos on the web showed him what he needed to do to smoke the trout. He thought trout was quite tasty when it was smoked and so did the staff at the clinic when he brought some there for them to taste.

The only problem and telling like it is was that Brad’s social life in finding female companionship was still in the dumper. The visits that he made to both Ken’s locations were not fruitful. Brad could see that there were some good looking ladies at these places but he was not successful in connecting with any of them.

With the weather turning colder Brad’s efforts to improving and modernizing his home turned toward fixing up the inside. He painted all of the walls and ceilings. This really didn’t take that much time to do as he initially thought it would. The preparation necessary before he painted was to cover the furniture with plastic drop cloths. The only masking that was necessary was around the door frames because he planned on replacing the wall to wall carpeting that was there which had seen better days with wood flooring. He thought the main problem in doing the flooring would be in moving the furniture and it turned out he was right in thinking that.

He was looking forward to spending time with Nancy this Thanksgiving but it turned out that did not happen. He had phoned her and heard her tell him she was not coming back for the holiday. She said she had things to do at school.

Her not coming back was a disappointment but the more he thought about it the more of him developing a relationship with Nancy was probably not in the cards. He thought that because in his conversations with her she expressed that her goal was to become the managing attorney for a large corporation. Since there were no large corporations in Lake Lancer and he was committed to be here for at least six more years, those were the reasons why he had that thought.

Before he finished the inside painting and putting in the wood floor he led the TV’s and the electrical wiring up and behind the wall to the top of his fireplace. He wanted to mount a large flat screen TV over the fireplace. While Brad thought he was fairly handy he knew it was the videos he found on the web that showed him what he needed to do for his various projects.

With Christmas right around the corner he told Bernice that they should close the office for seven days. He wrote Christmas bonus checks for all of the staff as they had all contributed the clinic’s success. From the financial reports he saw they indicated the clinic had a good positive cash flow. Brad’s plans were to spend the Christmas holiday with his parents.

Brad arrived at his parents’ home in Claremont, California in the late afternoon of Christmas Eve. They warmly greeted him and peppered him with questions on how he was doing. He did his best to answer their questions. They told him his oldest sister and the grandkids would be here Christmas Day.

On Christmas Day it was like déjà vu all over again. Mother as usual had prepared more than enough food to feed twice as many people. Gifts were exchanged and the same stories Brad had heard a few times before were again repeated. The only thing that changed was that the grandkids were getting older and he had to admit that so was everyone there. Some of the time was spent watching the NBA game on the TV. Brad was sorry to see the day come to an end. He did extend an invitation to all of them to come up to Lake Lancer and visit with him and maybe do a little fishing. He wondered if his sister and her family would come but there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that his parents would accept the invitation.