What Ifs 1706?

I am always thinking about what ifs and today is no exception. I started working when I was 15 in a tamale and chili manufacturing place. I always liked cars so when I was 16 I got a job at a gas station and brake shop. I thought I would be a mechanic. That led to getting my own car and a second car. The other car did not have a working radio and who could drive a car without a radio? I took the car to a local radio shop and when I walked in there and saw all the test equipment and parts that changed my life. I decided on the spot I wanted to work on radios. Had the radio in the car worked I might have become a mechanic instead of what I did. I made my living as an electronic tech the rest of my working days.

Working in the brake shop, fixing a tire one day, a navy chief walked in and asked me if I liked what I was doing. I said it was all right. He told me if I joined the navy he could get me into aviation electronics and I could have a job where my hands wouldn’t get so dirty. I asked about radios and he said oh yes. I was hooked! It turned out working on aircraft was a dirty business. If he had not walked in that day, who knows what my life may have been?

Joyce’s father’s ship was sunk in 1943 and there was ⅓ of the crew killed. What if he had been one of them? There would have been no Joyce, no Hailey, no Annie.

I met Joyce at a drive-in movie. There was only one space left for the movie and I parked next to her. What if I had not gone there that night?

When we were deciding to go back to Missouri after living in San Diego for years I looked on line for places to go. I wrote to a real-estate agent in Jefferson City to look at farms there. He never responded, so I ended up in the Springfield area. Had we moved to Jefferson City area there may not have been a Hailey or a Rhett and what would our lives been then?

The what ifs continue in all of our lives every day, week, year. I am sure if you think back, you have some too.