220105 Sentinel, Why?

Maybe you ask yourself why do I remember the bad things more than the good things?

Maybe you don’t but I do.

Coronado beach in winter of 1974.

I have done a lot of good things during my lifetime, but it’s the mistakes that haunt me. I always have trouble with this one; I could have bought a 2 bedroom bungalow on Coronado near the beach in 1974 for $35,000 and stayed there, but I wanted to be in Missouri close to family. A few years later people there were selling garages converted into homes for $350,000 on Coronado. Joyce and I would have been a lot better off financially.

Lake of the Ozarks.

This happened in 1975; I was working in my TV shop when I had a call from a woman who had a husband and they were living by the Lake of the Ozarks, not far from where Joyce and I were living. While I was working on their TV set the woman turned my head and kissed me. She was extremely attractive. I knew her husband because he owned a Ben Franklin store in town and he was a good man. He was by then in a wheelchair with an affliction and could do nothing. She was needing someone who could have sex with her. She offered me weekly sex every Wednesday at their other home in town. It was a tempting thought and I certainly had the energy for it, but I couldn't do that to Joyce or her husband. She stopped at the shop a few days later to remind me the offer was still open, but I had to decline a second time. That didn't happen to me but once in my lifetime. It would have been a nice arrangement for a while.

USS Enterprise center in this picture 1973 Tonkin gulf off Vietnam, I was aboard.

Once in 1973 onboard the USS Enterprise, I put two guys in my shop on report for sleeping on duty. They were warned 3 times before. That turned out to be a real shit storm. Both of their different squadron division officers harassed me to no end. Even my shop chief, who had instructed me not to allow sleeping in the shop, was calling me out about doing that. I still think about that from time to time. I believe I did the right thing, but it ended up badly for me and they likely got a slap on the wrist and went on. By that time I was on emergency leave home for the first time my father had a heart stroke and was dying. He later made it through and lasted until 1993, after he survived many other strokes.

In 1976, I facilitated mom and dad in moving to California, which is what they wanted to do. I thought it was a good thing to do for them. Some of my siblings, however, blamed me for coercing mom and dad into moving. I didn’t but they thought I did. Joyce and I also aided my mom and dad in moving back to Missouri in 1987 after they retired, but no one said, gee, that was nice.

Maybe I overthink things too much.