Now what? For some of us, the decision of what to do with the rest of our lives once high school is out of the way doesn't come easy. Should I just try to find a job or would college be best? Would it be better to just attend a technical school and learn a trade skill? Military? Now that's a frightening proposition! How can an eighteen year old possibly know what he or she wants to do for the next 30 to 40 years? There are so many choices that high school graduates are faced with and often not nearly enough guidance to help with those choices. Better insights and ideas to what possibilities lie ahead in life would have been something greatly welcomed when I was trying to decide on a path to travel in life. Often I've told young folks who are in the process of making decisions as to what course to pursue in their career that I'm still trying to decide what I want to be. That statement is made only about half jokingly, because the truth is sometimes this is one man who would really like to go back in time and start down a different career path.
The understanding of the value of a college education came much too late in life, so shortly after graduation my brief stint in a technical school at the local community college was underway. An interest in repairing broken things lead to auto mechanics school to which was added enough academic courses to earn an Associate in Applied Science degree. However, after about two and one half years of working in that field, I went to work in a factory and though that lasted for 31 years I never liked working inside. That's just not the place a hunter and fisherman can really enjoy! But it helped pay the bills.
During the two years of my community college education, there were some significant events in my history that bear mentioning as these things influenced the path my life has taken. After four months at the local community college, I left home and transferred to another community college in Gainesville, Florida. During my nearly eight months stay in Gainesville, I met several people who hold a permanent place in my memory 35 years after the fact. Among those people were four young ladies who caught my attention; two of which I dated and two of which I didn't, the latter of which is among my list of regrets in life. Mostly my time in Florida was rich with treasured memories but sadly during that time a good friend back home was severely injured during spring football practice and was left a quadriplegic.
As the old saying goes, "There's no place like home", so I moved back home in late summer and again enrolled in the local community college. Along with that last year of college education came some experiences that left lasting impressions – and scars. One such experience was dating a young woman who coincidentally happened to be the daughter of one of my professors. She educated me as to the new age, aggressive female type – something this little "country boy" was not accustom to at all! This dating experience was followed by a couple more young women, both of whom I was engaged to briefly but as it turned out they each had "issues" beyond my level of tolerance. Before these episodes had completely played out, my education had concluded and real world, fulltime work was underway.
Thinking back now it seems that life just kind of simmered for the next couple of years without any really major events in my life. Of course, there were girls to date and friends to spend time with but nothing significant. Well, there was this one girl that I dated very briefly that bears mentioning. I'd been somewhere with a friend and we stopped in at a Wendy's to get something to eat and she was working behind the counter. We started talking and she ended up inviting me to go horseback riding with her the next day and I did. Actually, we rode her horse with me on the back and from there we ended up going out a few times. She was a very intriguing young woman and things heated up pretty fast, but didn't last very long and we soon went our separate ways. After a little more than two years of basically "riding the waves" things were about to change dramatically in my life.
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