Got A Call From ANOTHER Old Friend

My health really hasn't been that great the past few years. And lately, although I don't think it's anything other than stress, I've noticed some weirdness in my heartbeat, especially at night when I lay down.

Because of my cruddy back, I cannot sleep either on my stomach or my back; I can only sleep on one side or the other. I mostly sleep on my right side, to try to lessen any pressure on my heart. If that even helps, I don't know.

So, two nights ago, I had gone to bed early, and was laying there listening to my heart skip every now and then, when the phone rang.

It was another old friend from my youth. (I had another one call me out of the blue a few weeks ago that I spoke of here.)

Anyway, Mike K. is another high school buddy that I have, most of my adult life, taken inspiration from.

Mike, and his wife Anita, were from Monroe, Louisiana too, and it being a small world sometimes, he ended up stationed with the U.S. Air Force at Eglin AFB near Fort Walton Beach, Florida. When Lovely Wife and I got married, I worked for Johnny's Pizza House, and at the time they had a unit open in Fort Walton Beach, but were having trouble getting people to move from Louisiana to manage this particular restaurant. I went through their management training, and after our honeymoon, Lovely Wife and I moved there for me to be an assistant manager.

During this time, Mike and Anita, and Lovely Wife and I would do some things together. Go to the beach, play miniature golf, you know, Florida stuff. We were all young newlyweds and it was cool to have an old friend nearby.

My time in Fort Walton Beach was short lived. The Johnny's unit did well until the winter months when many other businesses closed down, and it would lose lots of money. They closed it down, and that's when I moved to manage the Johnny's Pizza in Haughton, Louisiana I spoke of here. We eventually moved to Dallas when I quit the restaurant business and was rehired by Delta Airlines.

Our time in Fort Walton near my old friend Mike was short but nice. But then we moved away, and both couples started having kids, and well, you know, just didn't keep in touch as much as we would have liked.

(WARNING, self analysis ahead. But, I always screw that up anyway. My natural tendency is to, after a while, imagine that my life is so dull that nobody would want to hear from me anyway. I have to take the blame. I stink at keeping up with people. I think about them a lot, and I pray for them when they come to mind, but I'm always able to convince myself that nobody would want to hear from me anyway. It's a sad way to think of one's self like that, but there ya go, it's true in my case. Back to the story...)

In the late 1980's when my family and I were living in the Dallas, Texas area, and I was with Delta Airlines, I started having the desire to go back to college to learn something that would help me get a better job within Delta. I mean, this was a great company, but I couldn't see myself loading freight and baggage on planes for 30-40 years. I went around and got college catalogs from the various schools in the Dallas, Ft. Worth area, but I ended up not starting back to school.

Then a couple of years later, we moved to Atlanta. We could get to Panama City Beach, Florida in less than six hours driving. Wuh-hoo. So we would go down when we had the chance, and since Mike and Anita were still there in nearby Fort Walton, we saw them a few more times before he was moved. They really had a pretty long stay in Florida, as far as Air Force personnel are concerned.

But one of the times we were there, I saw Mike and he had started college while in the Air Force. He ended up earning a computer science degree. Just talking with him one day about his experiences and his ambitions to move his life forward, really made an impression on me.

I had pretty much given up the thought of getting back into college as a pipe dream, but after talking with Mike, I began to rethink my situation.

To get on with this, I looked at my school options in the Atlanta area, and did what I needed and started school at Southern College of Technology in Marietta, Georgia. My idea was to learn electronics so I could get a better job with Delta.

But as my school year progressed, I learned more about what job opportunities there were in the world beside my wanting to stay with Delta.

I ended up with a whole school year of credits from Southern Tech, and we moved back to Louisiana, where I eventually earned a degree in electrical engineering from Louisiana Tech.

But the catalyst was that afternoon spent talking with Mike while he was working on his first college degree. It lit a fire under me that got me back in school.

Flash forward. I've been wanting to get a Master's degree, to further my career here in Florida. But due to health concerns, I've put it off.

So last night, Mike calls me to see how I (and my family) am doing. What another massive blessing! Wow.

While we are catching each other up on our lives and those of our families, I find out Mike is now working to get a Phd, to help his career. See, the computer science degree was just the beginning. He applied to, and attended Officer Candidate School, and worked for years as an officer in the Air Force, AND also ended up earning an MBA to boot. How many folks do YOU know that took advantage of the military's offerings to such an extent? Mike's an old friend, but he's a big time inspiration, too.

And after talking and catching up, I lay there for several hours, thinking (and listening to my heartbeat).

Guess what I've been thinking about?

Getting off my lazy butt and DOING something about a Master's degree, instead of just thinking about it.

We shall see.

But the real blessing was to talk to another dear old friend, to share his joy in his successful career (he's out in the corporate world now) and beautiful family.

It was a much needed reminder of just how incredibly blessed I am as well.

Thanks Mike. Speaking with you truly blessed me. Your hard work, and determination to live the American dream, never fails to inspire me to do the same. God bless you and your family.

(Thank You too God.)

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Since this post just popped into my head, I had no pictures of Mike to show you. But then I remembered one from our high school days that I thought I had scanned the print. I found it.

That's Mike K. on the far left, just to his right is his identical twin, Jim K., to Jim's right is Tommy T., and finally me on the right. We were in Arkansas one winter to hunt in the woods around Tommy's parent's farm. I was glad no one shot my camera. (I luuuved my old Canon AE-1, and still have it.) The pic is full size and won't enlarge.