Chapter 4

Wednesday was an overcast day, threatening rain but it never let loose. That was how school seemed, something might happen but it didn’t.

Lunch was more of the same old, the suck-ups sat at my table, Tom waved across the room and I could see his lips form.

“Live with it.”

I did, I was polite but made no commitments. Anne was the most insistent that I join her at Don’s on Saturday. I finally told her I had some people coming from Columbus on Saturday. Boy that opened up the questions! I just laughed them off and said it was a private family matter.

I left a frustrated looking Anne Howison at the table and headed back to my next classroom. It was study hall so I could do research on a paper I was working on. I found the opening up of California for American settlers by the Rowland-Workman party.

Those two guys seemed to go from one mess to the other. John Rowland’s family lived in Morgan County, Ohio, that is where my Dad’s family came from. I wondered if there was any connection.

I asked Dad about it at dinner that night. He had no idea, he really didn’t know a lot about his side of the family. His parents were divorced in the 1930s and he lived with his mother. He hardly knew his grandfather Earl; he did know that his grandparents didn’t get along and that Earl’s second wife wanted nothing to do with Dad and his brothers.

That ended that thought.

I messed around with my hairdryer but really couldn’t make any progress till professionals had looked at it.

To be different that night I read an Australian poem about people chasing a thoroughbred horse that had broken out of its paddock and ran off with wild horses. The hero risks life and limb to capture the horse, and in doing so restores his good name and wins the girl.

Thursday was clearer but still not the brightest of days. My morning run was past the airbase again. I liked that it was out in the country. One day I had even disturbed a couple of deer. They were still as scarce as they had been for the last twenty years.

Dad told me that during the great depression they were hunted almost to extinction in the Eastern and Midwestern states. So hunting had been severely limited by law. Deer had no natural enemies around, so I wondered if they would end up overpopulating the area.

School was pop quiz day, every class had one; I think it was because of the event tomorrow the teachers knew that no real work would be accomplished.

At lunch, Anne asked if it were true that I was going to be in another movie with John Wayne. I confirmed it, no sense in denying it now. She squealed and hugged me. I wondered if this was how a cow felt when it was branded. I returned the hug slightly. Funny I had daydreamed about her for years, now I could care less. Live with it.

Tom even brought that up as we met after lunch; “I see Anne has branded you as hers.”

Great minds or what?

“She tried, since there are no girls at this school that I’m interested in, it really doesn’t matter.”

Tom picked up on this school.

“So what school does the girl go to that you’re interested in?”

“Clintonville over by Columbus,” I replied.

“I know that school, its right across from the Park of Roses. I have an aunt that lives near there. Where did you meet her?”

“At the sectional golf tournament, her dad is one of the golf associate big wigs. I saw her again in Columbus, and we write to each other. I talked to her on the telephone last night.”

“That sounds serious.”

“As serious as fifty miles will let it be.”

“That is a bummer, well if she is still around next year you will have your driver’s license.”

“Time will tell,” as my Mum always said.

As long as my one friend, that was how I thought of Tom, understood the score with Anne, let the rest of the school think what they want. I even wrote that in my letter to Judy. That may have been a mistake.

I went down to Wolfeins after school and picked up my suit. The alterations Henry had made were exactly right.

That evening I had a brief call from Mr. King, he confirmed that Don Thompson an Electrical Engineer along with Paul Samson would show up at my house at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday. They were willing to sign the NDA and would like their pay in cash if possible.

I would pay in cash. There would be fifty dollars each and nine dollars for the person that drove. This was based on the 1958 mileage rate of nine cents per mile.

He also told me he had asked their patent attorney if he could recommend anyone. He came up with Marvin Christensen a recent graduate practicing in Columbus. Mr. King provided me a phone number for him. I inquired as to his wife and daughter’s health.