Chapter 1

In leaving work Mark Andrews was careful to watch where he walked. While living in the beautiful city of San Francisco was enjoyable, some of that enjoyment was lost because of the homeless and the current social problems. It went without saying that living in this city was also rather expensive. Mark was a certified physical therapist and had been working here for close to three years ever since receiving that designation. He was starting to question himself if he wanted to continue living and working here.

Back home in his furnished apartment, Mark received a phone call from Marty Sievers a longtime friend of his from high school. They had stayed in contact and remained friends after school. Marty asked Mark if he had any plans for this upcoming long holiday weekend. Mark replied saying that he didn’t and he asked Marty if he had anything in mind for them to do.

“My uncle Jim Sievers who lives in Lake Lancer up in Northern California has extended an invitation for me to come and visit this weekend and to bring a friend. His two daughters have left for college and his wife is visiting her parents in Phoenix. He says we can do some fishing on the lake and we can use his boat. He will supply all of the fishing equipment we need. It’s about a three-hour drive and because of traffic instead of going Friday night, I think we should leave early Saturday morning. What do you say?”

With nothing on his schedule, Mark agreed to go with Marty. It had been a long time since he did some fishing and this would be something different for him to do.

The drive to Lake Lancer Saturday morning was uneventful. It looked like most of the people had left Friday since the traffic was what was considered normal for a Saturday.

Turning off the interstate Marty phoned his uncle and told him where they were. His uncle was at work and said he would meet them at his home.

In entering the town of Lake Lancer Mark noticed the building with the sign in front of it that said “Wilkinsing Foundation.” He also noticed farther down a large new two-story building that on one side said “Animal Hospital “and on the other side said “Fitness Center.” He thought this was a curious combination of businesses. Overall Mark had a favorable initial impression of the town since it appeared to be clean and prosperous and that he didn’t notice any closed storefronts.

There was no problem in finding Jim Sievers’s home that was located next to the lake. The lake itself seemed to be of good size and Mark noticed that there were houses all along the shore.

They were warmly greeted by Jim who thanked them for coming. Jim showed them to their rooms and offered them some coffee. They sat at the kitchen table and engaged in a little small talk that mainly consisted of Marty bringing Jim up to date on how Marty’s parents were doing.

With Jim saying he needed to be going back to his work the subject changed to fishing. Jim said the water skiers were now out on the lake and will be there going up and down till five. With them being on the lake anchoring in a specific spot for fishing was going to be uncomfortable because of the wakes the boats will create. He suggested instead of anchoring they just drift fish using the cheese bait he gave them.

Marty and Mark fished as Jim suggested and did manage to catch two trout which they released. The boat rocking because of the waves did take a little away from the enjoyment of fishing. That was offset somewhat by their watching the females they saw skiing wearing some rather small two-piece swimming suits. The skiers also seemed friendly in that they gave waves of their arms to Marty and Mark as they went by. At three they decided to call it a day as to fishing and headed in.

About four Jim was back at his home carrying an extra-large pizza. He invited the boys to join him in eating what he called a Chicago style pizza. He said it was called that because it was made with Italian sausage rather than pepperoni and was thin crust. The pizza was delicious and hit the spot.

While they were eating Mark said, “I understand from Marty that you relocated here from San Francisco. What caused you to do that?”

“The wife and I didn’t like what we were seeing that was happening there. We were familiar with this area because we had taken some family vacations here. There was a tire service center that was up for sale and after talking it over we decided to purchase the business and make the move here. We initially did have two major concerns in deciding to do that. One was how profitable the business would be and the second concern was the lack of medical services that were available here since there weren’t any, The university hospital and the doctors located there would provide more than adequate medical service but that was a good forty five minute drive away.”

“As it turned out our concerns became unfounded. The business turned out to be profitable and that was because we supplemented the tire and oil change services with shocks and brake services. The medical concerns were resolved because of John Wilkinsing.”

“I know Wilkinsing is an internet media billionaire but what did he do to solve the medical problem?” asked Mark.

“John’s mother had moved here to live with her sister. They both are widows. The mother complained to John that there weren’t adequate health services here. Because of that, John had a medical clinic built here and later had it expanded. Right now there are two internists, a dermatologist and a cardiologist who have their practices here. This town is growing and we now also have a dentist and an optometrist who have recently set up shop here.”