Chapter 4

I slept until dinner time. At the dinner table, all of us were talking about our upcoming trip out to California. My father planned on driving out along the Southern route, stopping off in Texas and Las Vegas to see friends of his. My mother wanted to drive up North, through Minnesota, so that she could see her sister who lived on a farm near Marshall. I wasn't looking forward to being stuck in a car with my parents for a week, and I didn't have anyone that I wanted to visit. My father got his way, as usual. My mother didn't have that much fight in her. She'd argue and complain, but, when push came to shove, she'd always defer to my father's wishes.

"When we get to California, Martha, we need to look into buying ourselves a house with my G.I. Bill. There's no reason not to buy now, because this will be my final set of orders, and we always said we wanted to retire where it was warm in the winter. We can get a house where the payment is only about what my housing allowance is on the allotment check." My parents had been talking about buying a house ever since I could remember. In my first go around, they had bought in a development in Orange County, but had sold it a few years later and moved up to Central California. They had made a small profit on their investment when they sold, but they'd bought a house that hadn't appreciated as much as some of the older and better areas down by the ocean in Orange County. They had been more interested in getting a newly built home, figuring that fewer things could go wrong with it. They hadn't thought about the extra cost of putting in a lawn and a block wall fence. This time, I could use my knowledge and experience with real estate acquisition to help them when they went out looking to buy.

"Do you think it would be all right if I took a space available hop to California from Bolling instead of riding out with you, just so I could get a head start with looking for a job? I also want to check on some college courses and trade schools It would give me a chance to check out ROTC scholarships too. I've heard that they are easier to get in California because so many people go to the two year colleges rather than the four year ones. They give them out according to a state's population."

Military personnel and their dependents could fly for free on military flights if there was available room on the flight for them. There were different priority levels, but you could usually get a ride pretty close to where you wanted to go if you had the time to wait and be patient. I had never flown before, at this point in my first life.

"If you get a ROTC scholarship, you'd have to commit to at least four years in the service Jimmy." My mother and I had discussed the program before, while I was still in high school and looking into going to college.

"That's right Ma, but I'd be an officer for those four years, and the pay would be a lot better." My father took the bait that I was dangling, hook, line and sinker.

"I could give you a couple of hundred dollars for expenses, Jimmy. That ought to hold you until your mother and I could get out there and find us a place. How would you get around out there? They don't have the same kind of bus system that we have here. You almost have to have your own car out there."

"I can hitch rides pop. I do it here lots of times. I'm just going out to look into schools and stuff, and it probably would only be for a week or two. I'm sure that I'd get by okay." We talked about it some more, firming up the figure of the money that my father would give me to cover my expenses. I had saved up around four hundred dollars myself, from part time jobs and birthday and Christmas presents. My parents had never asked me about how much I'd saved up. It was decided that I'd get on the list for a ride to California from the twenty fifth of August. If you left a phone number with the flight operations officer, he'd call you if it looked like a flight that was heading in your direction would have room for you on it. Otherwise, you had to wait over at the flight line waiting area.

I walked over to Carolyn's house at around eight o'clock to see if she wanted to go for a walk, but she said that she didn't. We talked on her porch for a couple of minutes, but she didn't seem like she was very comfortable talking with me then. I went over again the next day at nine o'clock in the morning, and she told me that she didn't want to see me any more. She said that I didn't listen to her when she told me not to do things to her. I walked over to Margaret Ebue's house, but Jimmy Herndon and Kenny Kitchens were already sitting on her porch railing when I got there. I spent a couple minutes talking with them, but it was mostly about how glad we all were that school was out. Jimmy and Kenny were both going to be seniors in September.

It wasn't even the middle of June yet, and my summer wasn't even shaping up to be as good as it had been the first time around. I had thought that with all of the knowledge and experience that I now had, there would be a big improvement over the last trip through. So far it really wasn't working out that way. I went over to Mr. Stopak's Market to see who was hanging around there. In my previous life, I had worked for Mr. Stopak for a month during this summer, helping out at the counter when he had to take his eye drops and rest in the back room. I had sold a lot of beer to my under age friends during the time that he was resting in the back. He had finally found out what I was up to and fired me for it. The guy who took my place did the same thing, but wasn't caught at it. I had just gotten to the Market when I saw Sheila Barrows coming out the door of the Market.

Sheila was a girl that I had spent a lot of time with the summer before. We hadn't exactly dated, but we'd fooled around some after it got dark. She was the first girl who let me play with her pussy, although it was from outside her jeans only.

"Hey Sheila, looking good." In truth, Sheila really wasn't looking all that good. She was tall and skinny, and her tits were small. Sometimes, she would wear falsies in her bra, and sometimes she wouldn't. She got kidded a lot by people because of the falsies.

"Jimmy. How was graduation? Did you go to any of the parties?" There were a few big graduation parties that had been put on by various elements and cliques in our school. I hadn't gone to the two that I'd been invited to.

"I didn't feel like going to any of them. No car and no date, and I didn't want to just stand around all night watching the other guys having fun. How about you, Sheila, did you go to any?"

"Walter said he was going to take me, but he weaseled out of it at the last moment. He said his car was acting up, and he didn't have the money to get it fixed. I told him we were finished if he didn't borrow his dad's car and take me. So, now we're finished. He's going away to Michigan for college in September, so we weren't going to be going together for much longer anyway." Walter, her boyfriend was a football player, a lineman that had won some awards, and gotten himself a lot of scholarship offers because of it. He must have weighed about two hundred and seventy pounds, but none of it was fat. He and I had been in a lot of classes together through high school, and I never heard him participate in any class room discussion. I had talked to him a few times, and he seemed slow to me, not very bright. I wondered how he'd make out at a big university. I then remembered how the big football programs had always managed to keep their star players eligible. I was sure that Walter would do okay as long as he didn't get hurt and could help the team.

"Well, that's too bad. You two made a cute couple. Like King Kong and Faye Wray."

"That's not nice Jimmy. Walter is very sweet. He's really very nice. I just wish that he had talked more."

"I didn't mean anything bad by it Sheila. So, what are you planning to do for the summer? Have you got a college all picked out?"

"Nope, I'm done with school. I'm going to work at Woolworth's as soon as they have another opening. My mom says that she can get me working as a counter girl after I'm there for ninety days, and off probationary status. Until they have an opening, I'm just hanging out, trying to stay out of trouble. Are you set for college?"

"My dad has orders for California in September. I'm flying out sometime in August to look around for a school or some kind of training."