Author’s Note: This story is a complete work of fiction from the get go and is intended solely for the readers to enjoy. My thanks to EasySpeak for the work of editing this story so that it makes sense and makes it easier to read and understand.

Author’s Note: This story is completely fictitious and is all a figment of the author’s imagination. However, Mac Davis’ song “Happiness is Lubbock, Texas in my rear view mirror” was referenced in the story. It can be found on the internet for those who are interested in hearing it. The lyrics to his song are there also.

I had dated during my junior and senior years in high school and I went out with some really pretty girls. But, I never got too serious about any of them. Although, I think there was one who I could have gotten very serious about.

As I recall her name was Colleen Jennings. I really didn’t have the money or the wheels to take her out much less take her out very often like most high school girls would really like their boyfriends to do for them.

I tried very hard to keep my grades up as high as possible since I had wanted to go to college after high school. But, my parents didn’t have the money to help me go to the college I wanted to attend and I didn’t have the money to put myself through college either. I really didn’t have the money to put myself through any college let alone the college I really wanted to go to for the academic program they had to offer.

It was a guess on her part that Colleen figured I wasn’t really interested in her or I just didn’t have the coins to spend on her or a combination of both. I know she went out with other guys because she was very pretty and she had a great shape which drew the boys who wanted to date her.

I saw her around the school campus from time to time and she was with a boy holding hands and they were making goo goo eyes at each other. I suppose they went out with each other quite often during the school year.

Just wishing I’d had the time, the money and the wheels to take her out and be her boyfriend but, I knew that was the breaks of the game. I figured she’d go on with the guy she was dating and probably end up getting married to him or maybe even someone else.

Very likely she would end up having two or three kids, too. I thought it was a hell of a note that a guy’s love for a girl could be denied simply because of his lack of money and wheels to take her out and have a good time with her. I figured that most girls were looking for a guy to take them out to have a good time with them and love could develop from there later in their relationship.

On graduating from high school I realized that my continued prospects for making a living in my hometown were pretty bleak. That little town was mostly a farming community and the rest of the people of the town were small businesses supporting the local surrounding farming community.

There wasn’t really any industry in that little town to keep the young people there. Most young kids coming out of high school left to go to college, go to work in the city or go into the military.

My Dad and Mom operated a little corner grocery store and I knew that their little store would only be lucky to survive until Dad and Mom’s retirement if it lasted that long. It was rumored that a big grocery chain like Safeway or Kroger, was going to move in and build a big supermarket out on the edge of town.

And if Safeway or Kroger moved in, that would likely put Dad and Mom’s little store out of business. I didn’t need to be there making their plight get worse with them having to feed me as well as themselves.

My only real opportunity was the U.S. Military. So, I went down to the Post Office and saw the U.S. Navy recruiter. He really looked spiffy in his neatly tailored, pressed and creased uniform with all of his medals, fruit salad on his shirt and his spit shined shoes.

I told him I wanted to talk to him about joining the Navy. When I saw the big smile break out on his face I kind of felt like the bird with a broken wing looking into the jaws of the fox.

Man, was he really happy to talk to me and tell me just how good it was to be in the Navy. He was doing one hell of a sales job on me. He indicated to me that if I scored well on the tests, how the Navy would train me for something really useful for the Navy.

That would likely be a skill I could use after I got out of the Navy when I retired in 20 years. At that time, to me, 20 years sounded like an eternity and I didn’t figure on being in the Navy for the 20 years he had talked about.

After I told him I was just finishing classes and was about to graduate from high school, he asked me how my grades were. I told him, “I wasn’t straight “A” but, they were pretty high though.”

Then he asked me if I had taken math, physics and chemistry and I told him “Yeah”. He raised his eyebrows; his eyes got big and asked me how my grades in those classes were.

I told him, “I had made a lot of “A’s” and there were some “B’s” in there. He raised his eyebrows again and told me, If that’s the case you can probably test high enough to be trained for an electronics job or some other related technical job.”

And then he told me where that job could be deployed on board ship. He said that working aboard ship as a radio man or a radar operator or a sonar operator was considered to be a plum job in the Navy for any enlisted man. It sure beat the hell out of pealing potatoes or swabbing the decks.

Later I thought he felt like he had found a gold nugget in the bottom of his pan among the river gravel. He told me about some of the things he did in the Navy and that he had been all over the world and he really enjoyed being in the Navy.

Then he told me, “Son, if you join the Navy you are likely to get liberty in many of the same ports I have and you are very likely to see a lot of the same things I have seen. What you’ll see, will be worth a bucket of gold and it’ll stay with you all the rest of your life.”

Then he asked me, “Do you want to join the Navy? If so you need to sign up now.” He pushed the form across his desk to me with a bright shiny silver pen laying on top of the form for me to sign my name with.

He sold me and I looked at the form and signed my name on the form. He told me to report back there two days after graduation. I and a couple of other guys would be put on a military bus for travel to the camp for basic training.”

Two days after graduation I reported to his office with two other guys I recognized from high school and we boarded a bus for boot camp. After basic training I never saw the two guys I was inducted with again.

But, I was given an aptitude test and the recruiter was right I was sent to a school for electronics training. I was trained in the operation and repair of many types of electronic equipment and I did very well during that training.

After electronics school I was sent to the west coast and boarded a new Navy ship. I was assigned to work with another guy who had been in the service for several years and he taught me everything I needed to know about the actual operation of the equipment. The best thing was that my job was inside the ship and out of the weather regardless of whether it was raining or the sun was shining or it was the dark of night.

I had many different assignments after my initial assignment and I was aboard many different Navy vessels. Again as the recruiter had told me, I got liberty in more ports than I could remember.

During my first enlistment when I got liberty in a port I didn’t spend a lot of time and money in bars drinking and chasing women. I wanted to make the most of my travels with the Navy to all of those different countries and to see as much as I could see of them.

In Japan I bought a small digital camera and took as many pictures as I could to show to my Mom and Dad whenever I got home. The camera salesman convinced me that I needed to buy some extra memory cards to hold all of the pictures I was likely to take which I did in both cases.

They were expensive but, it turned out to be that they were well worth the investment I came to find out later. Of course, since I had taken so many pictures, I bought a lot more memory cards as time went on.

Since I didn’t spend a lot of money in bars and on women I saved as much of my pay as I could. I wanted to save as much money as I could to go to college after I left the Navy. At the end of my first enlistment I re-upped for another hitch because I had an easy job, I liked it and I was good at it. I wanted to continue to see as much of the world as I could and continue to save as much of my pay as I could to go to school when I left the Navy.

I realized that drinking in the bars and chasing the bar flies would cost me most of my pay and that was money I could have saved for my college education. Having my camera and seeing the sights kept me out of the bars and away from the bar flies.

I figured that the cost of my camera and the extra memory cards returned my money to me big time. The most important thing was it kept me away from the bar flies and I sure as hell didn’t come down with a case of the crabs or worse VD or even worse AIDS.

At the end of my second enlistment I figured that I’d had enough money to put myself through school with the help of Uncle Sam and a part time job. I was told that since I was really good at my job the Navy really wanted me to re-up for a third hitch.

And the Navy offered me a bonus to re-up for another, third hitch. I thought about it long and hard but I really wanted to go to college and I couldn’t do that if I re-upped for another hitch.

I turned down the bonus and left the Navy with some really fond memories of the places I had visited and the people I had seen and met overseas. I also left with a shoe box full of memory cards that contained all of the pictures I had taken while I was in the Navy.

The pictures were a record of my leave in the many ports we had visited during my two hitches. Some of my buddies had asked me what I did on my shore leave and when I told them they always scoffed at me and said I should come and have a good time with them in the bars.

With my college education in mind, I figured that if I had re-upped for a third hitch I would be too old to go to school when my third hitch was up. I walked away taking with me all of the money I had saved.

I went directly to the college I had contacted before I was discharged from the Navy. When I got there I enrolled in Electronic Engineering at that school. I was determined to make the best use of the electronics training the Navy had trained me for.

I hadn’t been home in a very long time despite the fact that my Mom had sent me lots of letters asking me when I was going to come home and visit with her and Dad. So I had a little over a week before classes began and I traveled home to visit with my folks.

Mom was really happy to see me come home and I really enjoyed visiting with her and Dad and the home cooked meals I got while I was there with them, too. I also realized that Mom and Dad were not getting any younger.

I stayed with my Mom and Dad for most of the week and I went back to school where I had already rented a room to stay in while i was at school. Then I went out to look for a part time job to help pay some of my expenses while I was in school. I found a job with a small electronics shop in my search. I figured that’s what I did in the Navy so I could apply a lot of my knowledge working for the electronics shop.

The guy who owned the shop was a Navy veteran, too. He said he was really happy to help another Navy vet because he knew that any work I’d do for him would be done well and done right.

I told him that I had just enrolled in school in Electronic Engineering and he was elated to hear that. He said that would dove tail with his business very well. He continued that he was looking forward to me working with him for the four years I was going to be there at school.

When I told him I intended to go to summer school each year to get my degree as early as I could, he became even more excited. He said that he would be able to take a little more time off than he had in the past because he was pretty much a one man band.

He said that he and his wife also wanted to take some vacation, too. They had not had a vacation in several years since he didn’t have anyone to mind the shop while he was gone for whatever reason he was going to be gone.

I worked for him all the time I was in college and we both benefited from our association. When he began to see the quality of my work his trust in me grew to the point that he started to take an occasional day off and then an occasional weekend off, too.

I was the only person in charge of the shop during his days and weekends off. I really wanted him to feel that when he hired me to work for him he got a competent trustworthy guy who could run the shop for him while he was gone.

As he increased my responsibilities and my authority, he increased my rate of pay. I could then afford some of the things I hadn’t had the money to buy for myself before that time.

He told me that he had really increased his business because of the quality of our combined work and the relatively quick delivery of our work. He said since I had come to work for him his business had really grown and he could afford to pay me more for my work.

One year at the end of the spring semester I told him it had been a very long time since I had been home to visit with my parents and he let me take nearly a week off to go travel home to see my parents. Mom and Dad were both surprised and very happy to have me come home and visit with them for a few days.

I was very happy to visit with my Mom and Dad but, I could see that they had both aged quite a bit since I had seen them the last time I was home. A year and a half later I finished the requirements for my degree and I graduated with my BS Degree in Electronic Engineering.

That was probably the best thing I had done in my life, too. At that time while I was home I had made up my mind somehow I was going to get back home a little more often to visit with my Mom and Dad.

Before I graduated I interviewed an electronics manufacturing company as an Electronic Design Engineer. On graduation I traveled to their home offices in the medium size metropolitan city which was only about a hundred miles from my home town.

It was an easy drive on the interstate to make it to my hometown to visit my folks on a weekend. The company had a policy to hire veterans when they found qualified candidates. They chose to make me a really good offer on the spot which I accepted immediately.

I went back to the room I had when I was in school, moved all of my things out and turned in the key. Then I went to the electronics shop that I had worked at part time my four and a half years and told my boss that I had graduated and found a permanent job near my hometown. He said he sure wished I could stay on with him and he wished me good luck. He also told me he had provided a good reference for me to my new employer.

I thanked him for everything he had done for me and I told him if there was any help I could give him with respect to electronics all he had to do was call me. We shook hands and I left and headed for my hometown.

A couple of days later when I got home, Mom and Dad were very happy to see me come home again so soon. Mom asked me, “How long can you stay and visit with us this time, Ron?”

“Well, Mom, I graduated with my degree and I interviewed with a small electronics manufacturing company in the city after graduation. They made me a really good offer on the spot and I accepted because it was so close to home.

I knew that you would be happy that I was living and working much more closely to home than being half way around the world on board ship. I can stay and visit with you for a few days then I have to drive into the city to find a place to live and get situated to start work next Monday.”

“Since you are that close, does that mean you can visit with us much more often than you have in the past, Honey?”

“Yes, it does, Mom, and I plan to come see you a whole lot more often than I have in the past. It’s only about a two hour drive on the interstate and I can come home to see you on the weekends and holidays, too.” Both Mom and Dad were very happy to hear that I could come home and see them much more often than I have in the past.

Mom just threw her arms around me and said with tears of happiness in her eyes, “Oh, Honey, this is a dream come true. I have been praying that you would be able to come see us much more often ever since you graduated from high school and joined the Navy. We hardly ever saw you all the time you were in the Navy and while you were in college.”

Before the end of the week I went back to the city and found an apartment to rent. I rented a two bedroom apartment so that Mom and Dad would have a place to stay if they came to the city to visit with me.

It kind of stretched my budget but I figured with the raises I was likely to get, it would be less of a stretch then. They did come up and stay the weekend with me for a few days a couple of times.

Over the next three years as I worked for the company my design experience grew and my pay grew with it, too. I bought a new car and I was able to afford to buy new and better clothes.

I went home to visit Mom and Dad at least once a month and sometimes it was a couple of times a month. They were always happy to see me when I came home to visit with them. I also helped them buy groceries while I was there visiting with them. Many times I brought gifts for them, too, and Mom and Dad both loved that.

Then one weekend when I was home visiting with my parents Mom asked me to go to town about mid-afternoon to get her some things from the new hardware store for her. I went into the store she told me to get the things from.

I walked into the store and was browsing through the aisles looking for the things Mom had on her list. I had never been in that store before and I didn’t know where anything was located in the store or even on which aisles.

As I was browsing through the store, a lady brushed against my arm in the aisle and as I looked up I saw a pretty face that looked vaguely familiar to me. I racked my brain trying to remember where I had seen her before.

I walked on down the aisle still trying to remember who she was. As I turned to walk down the adjacent aisle I saw the same lady coming back up the aisle toward me again. She was now even more familiar to me and she was really very pretty.

Now that I could see her face clearly full on, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I said to myself, ‘Ron that looks like Colleen Jennings. You went out with her in high school a few times and she really looks just as pretty and as shapely as she did all of those years ago in high school. Damn, did she really look good even being about fifteen years older than when we graduated from high school.’

When she was about to pass by me again she obviously had not recognized me but, I stopped her and said, “Pardon me, Ma’am but, I think we know each other. I think you are Colleen Jennings and we went to high school together.” as I mentioned the year we had graduated from high school to her.

She interrupted me before I could tell her my name and she said, “Oh, yes, I’m Colleen Jennings. I’m sorry but, I don’t recognize you. And what is your name?”

“I’m not surprised that you don’t recognize me because it’s been about fifteen years since we have seen each other. I’m Ron Flynn.” I said with a bright smile on my face and I began to tell her, “We dated a few times during our junior and senior year in high school.”

“Oh my goodness, no wonder I didn’t recognize you, Ron. You have filled out and you look very distinguished rather than the thin kid I knew in high school. How are you?” as she stepped over to me and hugged me.

Hugging her back I replied, “I’m fine, Colleen, and you look just as pretty and as shapely as you were when we were in high school. Are you still living here in town?”

“Oh, No, No, I’m not. I’m just here visiting with Sadie, my older Sister, and her family. I come down here and visit with them about once or twice a month. My parents have moved to a retirement village in Florida and Sadie is the only family I still have left in this area. She feels like we need to get together at least once a month and I enjoy visiting with her, her husband and her kids.”

“But, what about you, Ron? What are you doing and where are you living?”

“First, I’m here visiting with my parents for a few days and I’m working in the city for an electronics manufacturing company as an Electronic Design Engineer. I have been there for over three years now.

Colleen you and I need to get together to talk and catch up on what we’ve been doing since we left high school. Would you want to come out to my parents’ house and have supper with me and my parents this evening, Coleen?”

“Ron, I really don’t want to impose on you and your parents like that especially with such short notice to your parents.”

“Oh, Colleen, you are not going to be imposing on me or them either. Not if I give my Mom a call and let her know I’m going to bring you home with me this evening for supper.”

I called my Mom and she said, “Sure, Honey, bring her on home with you.” and she gave me a list of some more things she wanted me to pick up at the grocery store for her. While I was talking to Mom, Colleen called her Sister, Sadie, and told her that she would not be home for supper this evening.

She talked to Sadie and told her, “I have met a high school classmate of mine and he has asked me to come out to his parents’ house for supper tonight, Sadie.”

I finished getting the things Mom wanted from the hardware store and Colleen stopped at the grocery store with me. She helped me get the items that Mom asked me to get for her at the grocery store.

In addition, I bought a couple of bottles of wine that I knew my parents liked but, they generally didn’t buy or couldn’t afford to buy for themselves. I also bought a bouquet of flowers to give to Mom for making supper for us at the last moment.

Then Colleen followed me out to my parents’ house. When we arrived at my parents’ house, they greeted her very graciously. I told them, “Mom and Dad, Colleen and I had gone to high school together and had graduated at the same time.

Of course, we haven’t seen each other since we have graduated.” I also told them, “We had dated some during our junior and senior years before we graduated and that has been about fifteen years ago now.”

Colleen kind of blushed at my narrative to my parents but, she asked Mom, “Can I help you prepare supper for us, Mrs. Flynn?” Mom cheerfully and graciously accepted her offer and asked her to do some things for her in the kitchen.

Then Mom asked if I had gotten all of the items she had asked me to go to the store to get for her. I went back out to my car and brought all of the groceries that Mom had asked me to get for her along with the other items she had asked me to get for her from the hardware store, too.

As Mom was standing at the kitchen counter I put my arms around her and kissed her cheek. Mom said, “Ronnie, I love you and I love your kisses but, I’m trying to fix supper for us and you’re getting in my way.” as she turned and kissed me on the cheek with a cute loving smile on her face. I just had to kiss her cheek again and say, “I love you, too, Mom, and thank you for making supper for us at the last moments notice.”

I continued to tell her, “Look what I brought you, Mom, for making supper for us at the last minute.” and I held up one of the bottles of the wine in front of her to see.

Mom turned around to me, hugged me and kissed my cheek again then she said, “Thank you, Honey. That’s really very nice and now you can open it and pour us all a glass of that wine to have with our supper. I’ll bet that Colleen is looking forward to having a glass of that wine with our supper, too.”

After we had put the groceries up, Mom tossed a wet dish rag over to me to wipe the kitchen table down with. Then she told me to get her good table cloth out of the drawer and spread it on the table and set the table for her.

I wiped the table down and Colleen helped me spread the table cloth on the table. Then Mom told me to get the napkins and the place mats out of the drawer and set four place settings and then get her good dishes out of the china cabinet. Colleen helped me do that for Mom, too.

When we finished setting the table I got out a vase and filled it half way with water and started putting the flowers in it. Colleen took the flowers out of my hand and said, “Here, give me that, Ron.

We want to have a pretty looking arrangement of the flowers in this vase and not a man’s bedraggled looking arrangement.” She made a very pretty arrangement with the flowers and set the vase on the table for all of us to see and enjoy.

Colleen did a much better job than I could have done with the arrangement and it was very pretty when she was finished. I hadn’t really thought of it before but, making flower arrangements takes a woman’s touch to really look pretty.

Or at least compared to what I could do that was true. I was glad that Colleen was here to make that arrangement for us because I know that Mom wouldn’t have been able to do it and fix supper for us at the same time.

Within half an hour Mom had finished making supper for us and called us to come sit down to eat. During our meal Mom and Dad asked Colleen about her family and where she was living.

Colleen told them, “I’m living and working in the city and Ron has told me that he was living and working there, also. I come home about once a month to visit with my sister, Sadie, and her family. She says she really feels separated from her family unless I come down to see her at least once a month. I always enjoy seeing her and her kids, too.”

When we had finished eating supper I helped Mom and Colleen clear up the kitchen and we went into the living room to sit, relax and visit. Mom and Dad asked Colleen about her job and how she liked living in the city.

We continued to visit with Colleen and with one another until about nine o’clock when she said she thought it was time she got back to Sadie’s house. She thanked Mom for the supper, she really enjoyed meeting with Mom and Dad and I walked her out to her car.

When we got out to her car I said, “Colleen, I really enjoyed visiting with you tonight and I’d like to get together with you and visit some more about us. We didn’t get a chance to talk about what we have done since we last saw each other in high school.”

“I’d like to do that, too, Ron. When would you like for us to get together again?”

“If you’re free next Friday evening I’d like to take you out to eat and you can choose the restaurant where we go out to eat. Since it has been such a long time that I have been away from town, I don’t really know the good restaurants to eat at here in town anymore.”

“There’s a new place that has opened up in town. I have been there one time and the food is very good. It isn’t cheap though. If you’d like to go there we can have a really good meal to eat there, Ron.”

“That will be fine, Colleen. But, you need to tell me where Sadie lives so I can pick you up at six o’clock next Friday if that is Ok with you.”

“Six o’clock is fine, Ron, and I’ll be looking for you at that time. Good night, Ron.”

“Good night, Colleen. I’ll see you next Friday evening at six.”

Friday evening I picked Colleen up at Sadie’s house and we went into the restaurant that she had told me about and directed us to. As we walked into the restaurant I thought it was a nice restaurant but, I didn’t think it was exceptional. When we were seated I ordered us a bottle of chilled wine with chilled glasses as well.

We then ordered our meals and I said to her, “Colleen, you are the only person from our class that I have seen since I have come back to town. What has happened to you in all of those years since we have graduated?”

“Oh, Ron, I stayed here with my parents that summer and went to college that fall. I had enrolled in Accounting and Finance and was doing well. In my sophomore year I met a guy who was handsome and he was really good to me.

He took me out to eat a lot and to the movies, all the school football and basketball games and to concerts. I had a hard time keeping up with my classes and my school work. In my junior year he asked me to marry him at semester break and we got married.”

“I’m surprised that you don’t have a couple of kids, Colleen.”

“After we got married, I told him I didn’t want to have any kids until after I got out of school with my degree. I think that turned him off and he really didn’t want to have anything more to do with me.

We hardly even consummated our marriage. Then later in that semester he disappeared and I haven’t seen him since. I don’t know where he went or what really happened to him.

I don’t think he really wanted to have kids. I think he was being pressured by his family to have kids and give them Grandbabies. I had later learned he just wasn’t the type to want to have kids.