I currently live in Texas but have lived in Vermont and Arizona. I guess I like climate change. I'm retired but I like to work. I'm late to the writing scene but can't wait to get started.
I grew up in a little Texas town near the the outskirts of Dallas called Wylie. As a youngster I grew up loving summers in this sweltering part of North Central Texas playing sandlot baseball, drinking Coca Cola by the bottle with Planters Peanuts floating on top and riding my bicycle all over town with my closest friends. My dad was the mayor and chief of the volunteer fire department of a little community that was surrounded by cotton fields. We also owned a business on Main Street that shared space on a long city block with grocery stores, a pharmacy, a hardware store, a barber shop, and a funeral home.
My brother, my sister and I all started and ended our twelve years of 'lower' education in the local school system. We three played sports and were taught by some of the same teachers who taught or Sunday School classes. Living in a town of barely 1000 people and spending your entire childhood there (and being overseen by all of your neighbors) you can't 'get away' away with anything, and by the same token, you know everyone as well. I loved that about a small town.
I, like most of my friends, couldn't wait to get away. College came and went. Marriage came before I had time to mature then 'ready or not' two boys came along before I had time to make my fortune. As I think back on that blur it reminds me of the lyrics of a country song, "...next thing you know you're 25 and you're high school sweetheart becomes you're wife..don't blink".
My adorable, and adoring wife and I have had quite a journey together. We moved to Vermont in our mid-thirties as our boys were just entering the teen years. We were in the Dry Cleaning business in the town of Shelburne that gave us breath-taking views of Lake Champlain in front and the Green Mountains at our back. So georgeous! We later moved to San Antonio then to Arizona were I worked in sales for a brief time. Started and later sold a dental equipment repair business, worked as a contractor and insurance adjuster and today I do minor remodeling and handyman work. My wife still struggles to bring me along to maturity and while we never made the fourtune I was expecting, we did okay. we have moved for what I hope is the last time, back to where else, my hometown. Population 50,000!