Life at 25
I spent my 25th birthday at a pool party in Ruston, Louisiana, at the home of people who I didn't know, tagging along as a friend of a friend to fill an otherwise empty day. Dave was out of town, Toni and Jeff were now married and at grad school in Texas, and other friends were scattered. This was the nadir of my time there. But the loneliness post break-up with Terry was acute, and the few random and brief hookups I had were frustrating because I wanted more that just one night, and the girls I shared those rare moments with apparently felt otherwise. I decided that day in the pool that I needed to establish a direction for myself independent of anyone else, and so I decided to change my major to pre-law.
As the semester began, I acquired another work assignment in addition to my mail clerk gig. This may have been the most fun job I have ever had; certainly, it was the most outlaw one. Jim was a forty-something guy who ostensibly ran a merchandising company, but this was just a front for his actual operation: the biggest sports bookie in Ouachita Parish. He offered $8 an hour, which was a king's ransom for unskilled jobs in 1983. He allayed my concerns by telling me that the police chief and judge bet with him, so he was protected. My responsibilities consisted solely of watching various sporting events on six monitors set up in a small office, plus a teletype ticker that spat out continuous game scores, then transcribing live scoring updates to a 90 second tape which I updated three times an hour. I would transport the tape to another room that had a futuristic-looking array of tape duplication machines, and these would clone my recording to 20 different phone lines that clients could call into for the latest score as they bit their nails over their bets. In a sense, this was similar to the ESPN ticker crawl that runs continually at the bottom of the screen, but in 1983 that was yet to be devised, the network itself still being new.
So for 20 hours a week, I got paid to essentially watch sports, drink beer, and later along with friends who were intrigued about my quasi-underworld activities, smoke pot as they perused the mammoth porn collection the boss kept in the back room. Jim never came in during these debaucheries as my shifts were at night or on the weekends, and this was good because I could have been fired and probably arrested. After a particularly intense party one previous night, I barely made it into work, and I collapsed on the floor, only forcing myself up every 15 minutes to do my minimum duties then returning to the floor, until the worst of the alcohol poisoning had passed. As a postscript, a few years later my dad let me know that Jim had been busted in a sting. I guess they elected new officials who weren't gambling addicts nor were corruptible.
I next made the mistake of seeking advice from a professor. The mistake was mine, not hers, because though I had settled on a major I wasn't feeling the path ahead of me. Dr. McGee was a sociology prof I had taken a class from the previous semester and I respected her very much. In response to my agitation, she recommended I read a small volume about the life of an amazing woman named Peace Pilgrim. I could write a great deal about her and the influence the book had on me then and still to an extent does, mostly in making me feel very small of a person in comparison. But to educate the reader thoroughly, I suggest taking some time if interested by visiting the link below.
Peace Pilgrim
After reading this work in one night, I decided my life was completely selfish and that I needed to do something similar to what she had. I went as far as shopping for a few essential items to carry with me on a bicycle as I planned to emulate Peace Pilgrim by going on a similar cross-country odyssey. But the next morning when I awakened I knew it wasn't in me either in terms of motivation or courage. I resumed my normal "what am I doing with my life?"quandary for a few days, and then in stepped Dave to fill this void. He convinced me to take a week-long camping trip with him and Elmar, a younger guy he had met at work. This was during the week of last regular tests prior to finals two weeks later; translated, I could not afford to miss them. But I opted for the hedonistic opportunity and away we went.
Our first stop was a primitive camp spot Dave and I had visited several months earlier in the Ouachita Mountains near Mount Ida, Arkansas. Then we headed north to the spot I had visited in April 1977 with Dad and the fam, and this was equally enjoyable. We started out with 2 gallons of wine, 2 loaves of french bread and 2 pounds of slab bologna which we supplemented with rare meals at diners since we were all short on funds. We stayed buzzed on the wine, high on Mary Jane, and in general had what I consider to be the boys trip of my life. Male friends have been hard to come by since those days, so though I created much chaos for myself in the aftermath of my absence from school, I'm still glad I did it, and what happened in the resultant fallout arguably allowed for the rest of my life to unfold as it has.
Ah yes, the aftermath. Prior to leaving, Dave had recruited Richard, a brusque ex-Army guy who was a pure wild man both in appearance and behavior, to feed his fish. What wasn't requested was that Richard bring his cat along on the visits. Now this cat was Richard's experiment in Nature vs. Nurture. He was attempting to turn it into a dog-sized beast by feeding it raw steak, and it had worked as the cat literally was ripped and rather scary looking. Dave's waterbed was apparently too inviting of a target because when we came back his room and the hallway were flooded, this due to the mattress being clawed by Steroid Kitty.
Dave's response was typically Dave. "Let's move" he said, not "let's get a shop vac and try to clean the mess up" and though I put up a protest he was hardened on abandoning ship. I couldn't afford nor did I want to live on my own, so I was attached at the hip to Dave and his quirky turns. Within 2 days we had found an older house near downtown and we moved. In the midst of this, I had missed several more days of class and facing complete collapse I begged for mercy from my professors and was given incomplete grades with the caveat that I had to resolve these before the next semester began.
With my ass temporarily saved, I went to Baton Rouge to see Dad and Joan for Christmas holidays.
Per usual this turned out to be a wrong move, as Toby and I went to war over something irrelevant to life, and I once again had to abandon ship, walking to the bus station to ride back to Monroe. When I returned, the city was in a deep freeze. The Christmas - early January winter storm of 1983 is still spoken of by old-timers to this day. Temps hovered around zero degrees for days, and the sheets of ice deposited by it stayed for a long while. When I came back to the house (Dave having gone home to Biloxi) the gas heat had failed and the inside temp was in the 20's. A casualty of this was Dave's aquarium, where the fish were frozen in a solid block of ice. It would take days for gas service to be restored, and I shivered through the days and nights under layers of clothing and blankets until the heat finally came back.
Making up the incomplete grades wasn't as easy as I had thought, since the profs made the makeup exams harder and were more critical of my essay responses. I scraped by with 1 "C" and 3 "D" grades and was placed on academic probation, which still allowed me to begin the spring semester. My veteran's benefits were suspended for one semester though, and even working the two jobs I barely could feed myself after paying living costs. Dave meanwhile was treading water, having completely dropped out of school and was selling cable TV door-to-door. Jeff and Toni paid a visit to us in late February and assessed the sad situation I was in. Being the kind people they were, they asked if I wanted to come with them to College Station to get a fresh start. That was a rare act of friendship that made a difference in my overall life, and I will always be grateful for this.
I resigned from school and my jobs, and though David was understandably upset about me leaving, he understood that Monroe was no longer viable for me and any new situation would be better. This turned out to be true. Though I only spent three months there, my time at the home of Texas A&M University provided a reset for my future. I obtained a job in quick time, working for a researcher named Dr. Wu at the veterinary school who needed someone with a laboratory background to do testing for him. It was a cruise ship of a job; my presence in Jeff and Toni's spare bedroom didn't impose a load on them; and, we enjoyed one another's company as we often played a trio of guitars and composed songs until late hours. I was r planning to transfer to the school for the fall semester and save enough to get my own apartment, when the latest episode of kismet arose in my life.
Out of the blue, Liz somehow found my new address and wrote me a long catch-up letter. She had moved to Lakeland, Florida the year before, at first with Steve and then after a bad breakup with him she had become live-ins with an older guy named Lem, of whom an entire separate biography could be written of, highlights of which I will cover in the next installation. Lem was kinda, sorta (ok, totally) on the run from the law, and they had moved north to Panama City to avoid the local heat. Apparently, it was a major non-stop party scene there and she invited me to visit, at least for the summer. I was torn because I was truly happy in College Station, but the lure of a reunion with Liz was too much to turn down. I reluctantly said my goodbyes to them at the end of May, and bought a bus ticket to the coast. Before I left, Toni did me the solid of trading a guitar she had for my tennis racquet. That Alvarez six-string is still in my possession, rarely played in my later years but I find it hard to let go because of this nostalgic value.
Before getting to Florida, I had a side excursion. I had made a call to Mobile and found Jackie at home and happy to pick me up at the bus station. I spent several days with my old friends and one of the days saw us travelling back to the Biloxi area to see old friends, one of whom was a startling surprise - Vicky. She was separated from David and was getting a divorce and was working at a lab about an hour west of Panama City. The setup was palpable and her eagerness to reconnect with me was obvious. Just a few years before I would have thought this was an answer to my prayers, but that day nothing about it felt right, and though we corresponded by mail a few times after that this would be the last time I saw her and she eventually faded permanently from my life.
Two days later, I made it to Panama City. Liz with a friend in tow greeted me at the Greyhound station. Against my will because she was A) married, and B) quite pregnant, I found myself attracted to her friend Karen. She had a light aura about her that was refreshing after the heaviness of women from my past, and I envied her husband Jeff, whom I would actually grow to become somewhat of a friend with. I went back to the single-wide trailer sis lived in and met Lem, who came off as a biker meets Navy Seal bad ass which was more than a bit intimidating at first, but over the years with rare exception he and I had nothing but good vibes and times together. And that's where the party began.
All the tastes and delights of the world were low-hanging fruit for me that summer in the Florida panhandle. From that first night, when a beautiful waitress Liz worked with slid onto the couch and snuggled next to me prior to formal introduction, I knew I had come to a slice of paradise. Every day I woke up, wondering what new variable would be introduced into the equation. It was the pantheon of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll that I had always dreamed of, but that quest for stability never left me and I still sought something less transient.
I scoped out available jobs at local hospitals but found that this state had its own licensing system which required me to first pass exams in each lab section before I was qualified to work there. Applying for this tied up much of my available money, so Lem mentioned me to his boss, the head of a construction company that was building townhouses on the beaches, and I got employed as a helper, which equated to carrying endless pairs of 40 pound blocks, one in each arm, over a football field's length of sand to the waiting stonemasons. It was an amazing process: destroy your body for three hours, pile into a pickup and race to a nearby convenience store for cases of beer while firing up joints, guzzling several cans on the return trip, and then repeat the process twice more before the day was done. My body, which I only THOUGHT was in shape, was destroyed by this type of work and on the fourth day, when I could barely crawl out of bed, I waved the white flag. The rednecks had won - I was best suited for air-conditioned workplaces where the heaviest thing I would lift would be a pen.
I used the money earned to pay for the tests which were luckily scheduled soon. I passed them without a problem and several days later I had my Florida MT registration card. The hospital lab which was in walking distance called the next week and I was told there was a part-time night shift opening on the weekends, which I of course jumped at. I quickly trained through the sections and met several fun new people. Most of the people were 35 and under, many of them single and they liked to party. After just a few days on the job I was invited for an evening at a local club, and I had a blast dancing with several of the young women. Once, Linda, was my sweet spot - short, blond, trim and she had doe-like eyes that made me melt when I looked into them. Plus, she was an outrageous flirt, and this would have added up to quite a package if not for one inconvenient detail - she was married. So I turned my attention to the available candidates, and that field was narrowed to three: a Shelia and two Denise's. Shelia played hard-to-get, so I looked to the other two for a possible fling. One Denise was the friendlier of the two, and I was more drawn to her physically, but she had stalker boyfriend issues that scared me off. That left Denise "B," a taller brunette with short hair and an intense demeanor.
This Denise worked in the microbiology area, so I had little to no interaction with her at work, and our dance club hours were spent boogieing or trying to yell over the loud music. One day fate intervened though - someone called in sick on day shift and they asked me to cover. I took my lunch with Denise that day and was shocked to see her carrying a philosophical book with her. This opened up a rich conversation wherein I could see that she was incredibly intelligent and aware to match her fierce personality. She told me she was dating a guy who ran a surf shop on the beach so I didn't even think to make any romantic overtures. A few weeks later on a Friday night on which I had to work the midnight shift, I rode my bike to the club. Denise was there and we danced and drank some. When it was near my shift, I said my goodbyes to all, including her. She offered to drop me off, putting my bike in the trunk of her car. I tried to turn her down, but the notion of avoiding five miles of night riding was too tempting, so I accepted.
In the hospital parking lot, I turned to say goodbye and give her a hug. I saw the gleam in her eye and before I knew it we were frenziedly kissing. After 10 minutes of making out, I disengaged, now being a little late for work. She told me to come to her apartment in the morning after work was done, and I obeyed this request. We then spent all of the weekend together, doing what one would suppose fairly young sexually healthy people would do in that situation. I didn't bring up the boyfriend as I assumed they had broken up. Imagine my surprise then when I saw her with him three days later at the downtown July 4th celebration, holding hands. I took it in stride: I had enjoyed it for what it was and didn't have any expectations of further involvement. When she saw me she froze a bit then acted normal, and I had a good laugh about it on my way home.
Sometime the next week, I got ridiculously drunk one night and decided to get a tattoo. This required me to ride my bike sixteen round-trip miles seeing double, which I somehow did, and find a shape/size that was in my paltry budget of $40. I settled upon a butterfly inking which I had placed on my left pectoral. The next day I was laying out in the sun still recovering from my hangover when Denise pulled up. She took in my new body art, then woke me and asked "Why did you do that?"
"Because butterflies are free and so am I" I replied, still half in dreamland. After sobering up some more, she told me that she had come there to make a choice between her two lovers since her other paramour had asked her to go with him to South Africa for surfing season, and that what I had said crystallized her decision - she chose me. I didn't know what to say so I just smiled. I wasn't completely sold on her as a committed partner, but I had nothing else going for me at that moment so I kinda, sorta went along with it. And so as this trip around the Sun was completed, the rest of my life turned down another path.
As the semester began, I acquired another work assignment in addition to my mail clerk gig. This may have been the most fun job I have ever had; certainly, it was the most outlaw one. Jim was a forty-something guy who ostensibly ran a merchandising company, but this was just a front for his actual operation: the biggest sports bookie in Ouachita Parish. He offered $8 an hour, which was a king's ransom for unskilled jobs in 1983. He allayed my concerns by telling me that the police chief and judge bet with him, so he was protected. My responsibilities consisted solely of watching various sporting events on six monitors set up in a small office, plus a teletype ticker that spat out continuous game scores, then transcribing live scoring updates to a 90 second tape which I updated three times an hour. I would transport the tape to another room that had a futuristic-looking array of tape duplication machines, and these would clone my recording to 20 different phone lines that clients could call into for the latest score as they bit their nails over their bets. In a sense, this was similar to the ESPN ticker crawl that runs continually at the bottom of the screen, but in 1983 that was yet to be devised, the network itself still being new.
So for 20 hours a week, I got paid to essentially watch sports, drink beer, and later along with friends who were intrigued about my quasi-underworld activities, smoke pot as they perused the mammoth porn collection the boss kept in the back room. Jim never came in during these debaucheries as my shifts were at night or on the weekends, and this was good because I could have been fired and probably arrested. After a particularly intense party one previous night, I barely made it into work, and I collapsed on the floor, only forcing myself up every 15 minutes to do my minimum duties then returning to the floor, until the worst of the alcohol poisoning had passed. As a postscript, a few years later my dad let me know that Jim had been busted in a sting. I guess they elected new officials who weren't gambling addicts nor were corruptible.
I next made the mistake of seeking advice from a professor. The mistake was mine, not hers, because though I had settled on a major I wasn't feeling the path ahead of me. Dr. McGee was a sociology prof I had taken a class from the previous semester and I respected her very much. In response to my agitation, she recommended I read a small volume about the life of an amazing woman named Peace Pilgrim. I could write a great deal about her and the influence the book had on me then and still to an extent does, mostly in making me feel very small of a person in comparison. But to educate the reader thoroughly, I suggest taking some time if interested by visiting the link below.
Peace Pilgrim
After reading this work in one night, I decided my life was completely selfish and that I needed to do something similar to what she had. I went as far as shopping for a few essential items to carry with me on a bicycle as I planned to emulate Peace Pilgrim by going on a similar cross-country odyssey. But the next morning when I awakened I knew it wasn't in me either in terms of motivation or courage. I resumed my normal "what am I doing with my life?"quandary for a few days, and then in stepped Dave to fill this void. He convinced me to take a week-long camping trip with him and Elmar, a younger guy he had met at work. This was during the week of last regular tests prior to finals two weeks later; translated, I could not afford to miss them. But I opted for the hedonistic opportunity and away we went.
Our first stop was a primitive camp spot Dave and I had visited several months earlier in the Ouachita Mountains near Mount Ida, Arkansas. Then we headed north to the spot I had visited in April 1977 with Dad and the fam, and this was equally enjoyable. We started out with 2 gallons of wine, 2 loaves of french bread and 2 pounds of slab bologna which we supplemented with rare meals at diners since we were all short on funds. We stayed buzzed on the wine, high on Mary Jane, and in general had what I consider to be the boys trip of my life. Male friends have been hard to come by since those days, so though I created much chaos for myself in the aftermath of my absence from school, I'm still glad I did it, and what happened in the resultant fallout arguably allowed for the rest of my life to unfold as it has.
 |
| Two of my all-time favorite pics from the trip of November 1983 |
Dave's response was typically Dave. "Let's move" he said, not "let's get a shop vac and try to clean the mess up" and though I put up a protest he was hardened on abandoning ship. I couldn't afford nor did I want to live on my own, so I was attached at the hip to Dave and his quirky turns. Within 2 days we had found an older house near downtown and we moved. In the midst of this, I had missed several more days of class and facing complete collapse I begged for mercy from my professors and was given incomplete grades with the caveat that I had to resolve these before the next semester began.
With my ass temporarily saved, I went to Baton Rouge to see Dad and Joan for Christmas holidays.
 |
| Me at Christmas 1983 |
Making up the incomplete grades wasn't as easy as I had thought, since the profs made the makeup exams harder and were more critical of my essay responses. I scraped by with 1 "C" and 3 "D" grades and was placed on academic probation, which still allowed me to begin the spring semester. My veteran's benefits were suspended for one semester though, and even working the two jobs I barely could feed myself after paying living costs. Dave meanwhile was treading water, having completely dropped out of school and was selling cable TV door-to-door. Jeff and Toni paid a visit to us in late February and assessed the sad situation I was in. Being the kind people they were, they asked if I wanted to come with them to College Station to get a fresh start. That was a rare act of friendship that made a difference in my overall life, and I will always be grateful for this.
I resigned from school and my jobs, and though David was understandably upset about me leaving, he understood that Monroe was no longer viable for me and any new situation would be better. This turned out to be true. Though I only spent three months there, my time at the home of Texas A&M University provided a reset for my future. I obtained a job in quick time, working for a researcher named Dr. Wu at the veterinary school who needed someone with a laboratory background to do testing for him. It was a cruise ship of a job; my presence in Jeff and Toni's spare bedroom didn't impose a load on them; and, we enjoyed one another's company as we often played a trio of guitars and composed songs until late hours. I was r planning to transfer to the school for the fall semester and save enough to get my own apartment, when the latest episode of kismet arose in my life.
Out of the blue, Liz somehow found my new address and wrote me a long catch-up letter. She had moved to Lakeland, Florida the year before, at first with Steve and then after a bad breakup with him she had become live-ins with an older guy named Lem, of whom an entire separate biography could be written of, highlights of which I will cover in the next installation. Lem was kinda, sorta (ok, totally) on the run from the law, and they had moved north to Panama City to avoid the local heat. Apparently, it was a major non-stop party scene there and she invited me to visit, at least for the summer. I was torn because I was truly happy in College Station, but the lure of a reunion with Liz was too much to turn down. I reluctantly said my goodbyes to them at the end of May, and bought a bus ticket to the coast. Before I left, Toni did me the solid of trading a guitar she had for my tennis racquet. That Alvarez six-string is still in my possession, rarely played in my later years but I find it hard to let go because of this nostalgic value.
Before getting to Florida, I had a side excursion. I had made a call to Mobile and found Jackie at home and happy to pick me up at the bus station. I spent several days with my old friends and one of the days saw us travelling back to the Biloxi area to see old friends, one of whom was a startling surprise - Vicky. She was separated from David and was getting a divorce and was working at a lab about an hour west of Panama City. The setup was palpable and her eagerness to reconnect with me was obvious. Just a few years before I would have thought this was an answer to my prayers, but that day nothing about it felt right, and though we corresponded by mail a few times after that this would be the last time I saw her and she eventually faded permanently from my life.
Two days later, I made it to Panama City. Liz with a friend in tow greeted me at the Greyhound station. Against my will because she was A) married, and B) quite pregnant, I found myself attracted to her friend Karen. She had a light aura about her that was refreshing after the heaviness of women from my past, and I envied her husband Jeff, whom I would actually grow to become somewhat of a friend with. I went back to the single-wide trailer sis lived in and met Lem, who came off as a biker meets Navy Seal bad ass which was more than a bit intimidating at first, but over the years with rare exception he and I had nothing but good vibes and times together. And that's where the party began.
All the tastes and delights of the world were low-hanging fruit for me that summer in the Florida panhandle. From that first night, when a beautiful waitress Liz worked with slid onto the couch and snuggled next to me prior to formal introduction, I knew I had come to a slice of paradise. Every day I woke up, wondering what new variable would be introduced into the equation. It was the pantheon of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll that I had always dreamed of, but that quest for stability never left me and I still sought something less transient.
I scoped out available jobs at local hospitals but found that this state had its own licensing system which required me to first pass exams in each lab section before I was qualified to work there. Applying for this tied up much of my available money, so Lem mentioned me to his boss, the head of a construction company that was building townhouses on the beaches, and I got employed as a helper, which equated to carrying endless pairs of 40 pound blocks, one in each arm, over a football field's length of sand to the waiting stonemasons. It was an amazing process: destroy your body for three hours, pile into a pickup and race to a nearby convenience store for cases of beer while firing up joints, guzzling several cans on the return trip, and then repeat the process twice more before the day was done. My body, which I only THOUGHT was in shape, was destroyed by this type of work and on the fourth day, when I could barely crawl out of bed, I waved the white flag. The rednecks had won - I was best suited for air-conditioned workplaces where the heaviest thing I would lift would be a pen.
I used the money earned to pay for the tests which were luckily scheduled soon. I passed them without a problem and several days later I had my Florida MT registration card. The hospital lab which was in walking distance called the next week and I was told there was a part-time night shift opening on the weekends, which I of course jumped at. I quickly trained through the sections and met several fun new people. Most of the people were 35 and under, many of them single and they liked to party. After just a few days on the job I was invited for an evening at a local club, and I had a blast dancing with several of the young women. Once, Linda, was my sweet spot - short, blond, trim and she had doe-like eyes that made me melt when I looked into them. Plus, she was an outrageous flirt, and this would have added up to quite a package if not for one inconvenient detail - she was married. So I turned my attention to the available candidates, and that field was narrowed to three: a Shelia and two Denise's. Shelia played hard-to-get, so I looked to the other two for a possible fling. One Denise was the friendlier of the two, and I was more drawn to her physically, but she had stalker boyfriend issues that scared me off. That left Denise "B," a taller brunette with short hair and an intense demeanor.
This Denise worked in the microbiology area, so I had little to no interaction with her at work, and our dance club hours were spent boogieing or trying to yell over the loud music. One day fate intervened though - someone called in sick on day shift and they asked me to cover. I took my lunch with Denise that day and was shocked to see her carrying a philosophical book with her. This opened up a rich conversation wherein I could see that she was incredibly intelligent and aware to match her fierce personality. She told me she was dating a guy who ran a surf shop on the beach so I didn't even think to make any romantic overtures. A few weeks later on a Friday night on which I had to work the midnight shift, I rode my bike to the club. Denise was there and we danced and drank some. When it was near my shift, I said my goodbyes to all, including her. She offered to drop me off, putting my bike in the trunk of her car. I tried to turn her down, but the notion of avoiding five miles of night riding was too tempting, so I accepted.
In the hospital parking lot, I turned to say goodbye and give her a hug. I saw the gleam in her eye and before I knew it we were frenziedly kissing. After 10 minutes of making out, I disengaged, now being a little late for work. She told me to come to her apartment in the morning after work was done, and I obeyed this request. We then spent all of the weekend together, doing what one would suppose fairly young sexually healthy people would do in that situation. I didn't bring up the boyfriend as I assumed they had broken up. Imagine my surprise then when I saw her with him three days later at the downtown July 4th celebration, holding hands. I took it in stride: I had enjoyed it for what it was and didn't have any expectations of further involvement. When she saw me she froze a bit then acted normal, and I had a good laugh about it on my way home.
Sometime the next week, I got ridiculously drunk one night and decided to get a tattoo. This required me to ride my bike sixteen round-trip miles seeing double, which I somehow did, and find a shape/size that was in my paltry budget of $40. I settled upon a butterfly inking which I had placed on my left pectoral. The next day I was laying out in the sun still recovering from my hangover when Denise pulled up. She took in my new body art, then woke me and asked "Why did you do that?"
"Because butterflies are free and so am I" I replied, still half in dreamland. After sobering up some more, she told me that she had come there to make a choice between her two lovers since her other paramour had asked her to go with him to South Africa for surfing season, and that what I had said crystallized her decision - she chose me. I didn't know what to say so I just smiled. I wasn't completely sold on her as a committed partner, but I had nothing else going for me at that moment so I kinda, sorta went along with it. And so as this trip around the Sun was completed, the rest of my life turned down another path.
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