Friends and Stuff

Marian and Dallas, our friends from Pennsylvania from the mid 1950's, had planned to come up to see us, but they were waiting for someone to come fix the TV in the rental.  So after Sherry's Dr. appt, we drove down to Orlando.

It is always such a joy to see them.  Dallas has had more jobs than I, methinks. His last business was raising Turkeys. A job he loved, but  for 20 years kept them tied down.  Dallas also collects tractors. He has five or six antique tractors, they all are in running condition.  

WE have a lot in common.
1.  WE are HS dropouts.

2.  We both dreamed of being Marines.

3.  We fell in love with sweet girls. 
4.  We married these girls within a month of each other. WE all were in our teens.
5.  We moved these girls into small trailers in the same trailer park about the same time and they became close friends.
6.  Eventually we both had our own successful businesses (after a couple failures).
7.  We have been married to those same girls for over 59 years, we were lucky dogs, they are still  beautiful ladies.

We have many of the same traits and we both 'got old'.  That is where we separated, I am about 20 pounds heavier than in 1956. He is probably 5 lbs less.

That upsets me some, but the rascal still has hair, 'at ain't right!

But to be honest, he did get old.  Dallas still smokes, I quit a few years back.

So I got to thinking, I used to say my dad was born when cars were just beginning and He lived to see a man on the moon. Pointing out technological advances.

Then I thought, it is funny the youngsters I see today have no idea what life is like without a remote control.  What life is like to keep a phone call on a pay phone below 3 minutes or you will pay dearly.  They do not understand automatic transmissions have not always existed. They have no idea what it is like to see a horse and buggy on the road except for tourists in tourist towns.

The youth today have no concept of solid citizens hitch hiking, as we did, from our Military base, to home and back.  Dallas hitch-hiked to Pennsylvania most weekends from Camp Lejeune, NC. 

(I wasn't fair to Dallas, he had a terrible cramp in his hand when I took the picture and Marian forced him to smile!)
WE haven't always stayed close, mostly cards at birthdays and Christmas. We have dropped by to see them and they us, over the years. They are pleasant friends, family folk the kind of people you  just 'LIKE', because of who they are. (besides they bought lunch!)

Nite Shipslog
PS: If you read my books you will find Dallas in the books as a friend, the corporation attorney and manager.

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 I got away from hitch hiking first, with a 1950 chevy coupe

Dallas was next with the 1950 Olds. He once rebuilt or changed the engine with an adjustable wrench, vice grips and a screw driver. (Marian said he had a bucket of parts left over, but it still ran!)

If we had airbags, they would have looked like this!