My name is Donald Ray Willingham.

The following words may let my family know a little about this person I have become, with all the twists and turns I made, or the things I was forced to do,

the travels of my life and the ones I have taken along with me.

I will let you see in on some of my thoughts, the unusual things that come to mind. Maybe some of the things you think and you thought of from time to time are strange. You might call them something else, like evil thinking. Something inside of you that you don’t want anyone to know. But everyone has these times, so you are not strange. I found that blood and guts being on me or seeing it. I can handle carrying the dead and death all around me. I am just one of them that’s put here on this earth for this reason. So don’t be so hard on yourself. Maybe you are the person to make the difference in the outcome of someone’s life or maybe your own life. So here’s my story!

I was born to YC and Selma (Guy) Willingham on April 7, 1950, in Amarillo, Texas. I was the last of eight children. You might say I was my mom’s birthday present. Her birthday was April 14th1914 the year she turned 37. My dad was 41 years old when I was born.

I had three brothers and three sisters. My brothers’ names were Tommy, Richard, and Harold. My oldest sister died when she was two years old. No one remembers the cause of her death. Her name was Dorothy. My other sisters were Edna, Wanda, and Barbara.

You might call me the square and everyone else was a round

Because I did not fit in with them . Everyone saw it in my younger life.

My dad was born on October 4, 1911 in Winnsboro, Texas, a small town just north of Tyler. He and his family later moved to Sulphur Springs.

My dad was a common worker and worked hard to provide for his wife and family. He had worked as a house builder, he had delivered ice, he had delivered to the fair each year, and he had worked for lumber companies. There were good times and hard times along the way, just like all families.

My mother was the youngest of five children. She had three brothers and one sister. Her sister was named May only and her brothers were named Clement, Edgar and Boyd one name only . I don’t remember her really telling me anything about her childhood. I don’t think she had a happy childhood, because she would have told us kids about it .

She met my father at an ice cream social in Pickton, Texas, about 114 miles east of Dallas. They followed the custom of their days in dating. You would go to the parents’ home and introduce yourself, tell them who your parents were and where they lived, etc.

They married on December 12, 1933, after dating a few months. They started having kids right off the bat. My oldest brother, Tommy, was born January 20, 1936

My dad was a person chasing the money rainbow and the opportunity came to move to Amarillo seven years later, but I don't know what job it was . They were having a child every 2.25 years, on average. And so my dad worked constantly, from sunup to sundown. They wanted things in life, but things just got out of reach with the cost of having too many kids at once. The cost of food and rent alone was overbearing. Nice things for Mom were in her dreams. I remember she always wanted white furniture. That was her biggest dream. She never got it. It was something so small, but she never achieved it in her lifetime. Even other small things were hard to reach. By the time they finally got to the point where they could afford it, it wasn’t important to her. I remember when I was a little kid, when daylight happened, we went outside. The kids stayed outside until it was time to eat, whatever the meal was. We didn’t go to the bedrooms and play unless it was bad weather outside. But you didn’t get on the beds until it was bedtime. That was a golden rule, and if it was broken there was hell on the one who did. Outside was our world, growing up.

As my memory comes to me, I was about six years old when we moved to the upper west side of town. At that time it was becoming an old part of town, but it was still nice. By that time, my oldest brother, Tommy, and my sisters, Edna, and Wanda were married and out on their own. The year was 1956. We had a three bedroom house. My sister, Barbara, had a bedroom to herself and I shared a bedroom with my brothers, Richard and Harold. I thought it was great! We lived there for four years.

During that time I met my first girlfriend. She was my age. Her name was Kathy, and she was gorgeous. She thought I was handsome. We were together all the time.

Her house was on the right side of ours. I remember playing with dolls with her sometimes. We were a team, her and I. Then she moved away and I got sad for a while, but moved on.

The house that was just behind us on the same property caught fire and burned three rooms. They never fixed it again to rent, so that was our playhouse. If you looked at the front of our house, that house was on the left. There was one on the right that was rented most of the time. I remember in our house moving days ,I was nine or ten years old . I told my Mom and Dad I was running away ! They were pretty smart in how to handle this situation. They went and packed me some clothes in a grocery bag. Then gave me fifty cents ,and got some pinto beans in a jar and gave it to me for my trip . Then told me to write them when I got to the place I was going . I went outside and sat on the porch for about

one hour. Then I changed my mind and I got up and knocked on the front door . My Dad opened the door and said Hello son, how are you doing? You came for a visit , and then I asked him if I could live with them again ? He said yes and told me to put my clothes up and put the beans back in the pot and give him his fifty cents back .

There were times when people would come to the door and ask for food or money. My Dad would invite them in and he would ask my Mom to give or fix him something to eat . It didn’t make any difference to him what color or what he looked like the person got something . He told us that everyone hits on hard times and if we do . He hopes someone would do the same for us .

My brother Harold had a friend who's brother's name was James. He was the same age as I was, and he and I hit it off from the start. He became an alcoholic and changed considerably in later years, so we parted and ended our friendship. We were friends for over forty years.

After the oldest three kids were grown and out of the house, my oldest sister, Edna, left her husband, Raymond . She had five kids and had brought them with her to Mom and Dad's to live. When she came back home for five years, that added 6 more mouths to try to feed. There were a total of 12 people in the house to take care of, so that put more stress and strain on my parents. Edna had a small job from time to time, making an hourly wage. Her husband, Raymond, did not help with money to raise his children. To him, he was free and clear. But Raymond came and took them away a few years later .What made him have a change of heart no one knew and raised them to adults. They lived somewhere in Florida. The kids came back when they were teenagers and tried to make a go with their Mom. The relationship failed, and they went back to their Dad’s in Florida. Edna never had motherly genes in her. It's not her fault. That was something she didn’t get passed on to her.

W

When I think about it now, it broke my Mom mentally because of all the worries that added to her. I think she just became a robot in many ways, and so did my Dad. Like I said, both worked hard before the sun came up and long after it went down. None of us kids really helped my mom in cleaning up. We boys kept our room up and took out the trash. We could have done more, much more, but we were kids. I am very sorry I didn’t do more.

But my Mom thought that the house was her responsibility only . One of her mistakes in life I believe. We all fit in that category in one way or the other .

As I was becoming a teenager , I tested the waters with my parents kinda going against the rules . I would leave the house in the mornings and stay gone all day . I had to be back home by 5pm . Most always I would be back , but they were the times I would like to test the waters of authority .

I remember when I was maybe fourteen and cocky I did something bad and I was going to get the belt used on me. My Dad was behind me and I looked back as he swung the belt to me. I stuck my hand back and caught the belt. I looked at Dad and he said,” Damn, boy, you’re fast! I bet you can’t do that again!” I said, “I bet I can!”, with a smile on my face. I was looking at the belt, but I didn’t notice his hand coming to my face and he slapped me! Well needless to say, I didn’t catch the belt! Along with that, I thought my brain was on the floor! I can’t believe some of the silliest things I've done growing up to adulthood .

Because of my Dad’s jobs, we moved around a lot and it made it hard for us to keep up in school. We would be in three different schools in one year, and it put us behind in classes. The one we were at would just be starting in an area in English, and the one we would be enrolling in would have already finished the course. You do that three times, and you're way behind in school! We did that until I quit school. Education was not a strong point in my family, growing up. Both my parents finished school, Ninth grade was graduation from high school . But when you get a job, you'd better be doing all you could to be a good employee,or you would answer to Mom and Dad! Dad told all of us that we represented the family, and we’d better not be bad employees at work! They taught us that from day one on the jobs we had.

When I got to the seventh grade, we lived on the north east side of town. I was going to Travis Junior High. I started getting close friends. You could say I never had many friends at any time until I started running in a crowd of three to four people. Looked like we were going to stay at this place for more than six months . We lived there for about seven years. They lived close to my friends and we were always together. Then in the ninth grade we were always fighting someone at school. It became a way of life, maybe. I was never one to turn and run. I was always ready, even in my younger years. One day these two girls were fighting each other and the one who won the fight was kicking the girl on the ground and I made a comment about her doing that. She looked at me and said, “I won, didn’t I? That's what it's about. To win!” I said, “Yes.” Funny thing, that this girl would be my friend and sister-in-law for over fifty years. We’ve been friends for fifty six years now! Her name is Celeste.

I became friends with a boy named Robert Kennedy and he married her a few years later. But that will be later in this story .

As I said, we became friends. We were in the same crowd that was running together during those years. At 15, we got someone to buy us some beer. Butch, one of the guys with us, got drunk and sick. Robert’s house was the closest we could get to and his parents were out of town, so we went to his house. We came in the door and his sister made a pallet on the floor in front of the TV . She moved out of the way so her brother could get Butch to the bathroom. I let Robert and Bo take care of him. I sat on the couch and saw the MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL I EVER LAID EYES ON!!! With a smile that put the sun to shame, she sure made me smile the biggest smile I ever had. Her eyes melted my heart right then and there. I asked her what her name was and she told me Helen. It was the most beautiful name I ever heard! I did tell her she was gorgeous and she smiled bigger and turned around and started watching the TV. I couldn’t think of another thing to say. Then the guys came into the room and we left. I don’t think I said anything the rest of the night. I was just thinking about this girl I met.

At that time I was chasing hussies, not decent ones like this one that beautiful night.

During this time or shortly after Myself, Herby Dale and David were coming from Lake Buffalo, it was a bust nothing but a mud hole anymore. On the way home three smart asses came up alongside us and were acting like tough guys . So we told them to pull over and we would beat their ass . They got out and we got out and one of them told us he was Terry Funk whip pee tie.His Daddy was a big time wrestler, so we were supposed to be impressed We said No ! So we tied into one another , I was fighting Terry and he chose me to fight . After a while we called it a tie , all of us found out later he was six years older than me. But it didn’t matter to me,Terry later became a small time movie star , played in Roadhouse he was a tough guy . Am I impressed now? No!!

It wasn’t long after that night that I got my first car from my brother Harold. He and I were close in those days, but we would fight a lot. One of those fights we had he came up to me, punched me in my chest and shoved me. Well I got up and then I jumped up and kicked him in his chest. He was by the front door. He hit that storm door that wasn’t closed well. He knocked the door open and went out on the porch and fell three feet to the ground. I came out on the porch and said, “ How’d you like that, Tuff Guy ! ” He rolled over and said, out of breath,and said “ I’m gonna kill you!!” I said, "When you catch your breath “ Bring it, tough guy!” So he brought it. We were hitting it fast and hard. I was mad. Then he grabbed me around my throat and lifted me up and set me in the wall over the floor furnace. Well he backed up, and my other brother Richard said, “ Stop now!” We did it because we knew Harold messed up Richard said, “ Now you’re going to tell Mom and Dad!” Harold said, “ Well he can! It was his fault!"My brother was like that .He would get mad at something and come to me and we would fight , so I told them when they came home. My mom walked right by it without noticing it ,but Dad saw everything. He stopped and looked at me and said, “ You and your brother been fighting again?” I said, “ Yes sir.” Then he said, “ He put you in the wall ” “ Yes sir.”Then he said, “ Go get in bed, it’s late.” He was off the next day and fixed it with our help. I was always truthful to my parents. I never lied to them , no matter what it cost us ! They put this belief into all of us. I don’t know how they did it but it was there in all of us .

So going into the tenth grade at Palo Duro High School, I thought I was big stuff because I had a car. The guys wanted me to take them everywhere on my gas money. That ended shortly after I laid the rules down; you ride, you help with the gasoline. It was 17 to 21 cents a gallon, which was still high for the time. You could fill up your car, then take your girl to the drive-in movie with five dollars. It was one dollar a car load.and we got our dollar worth we would put five to six people in the back seat four in front three in the trunk . When we parked it looked like an explosion happened !

Back then, the thing to do was dragging down Polk Street on the weekend. It was in the middle of the business district, the main part of the town. That’s where the theaters were located. At the start of dragging, there was a freight dock. It took 15 minutes to drag Polk and we would meet there and tie into one another. Amarillo had an air force base there at that time and four of us would go start a fight with the airmen. It was a thing to do for the whole weekend.

We had some great fights there through the years. Yes, some kids were arrested, but my friend Herbie Dale and I were lucky we never were. We were outnumbered a few times and sometimes the police saved us. WOW!! We would have been dog meat 😂

Then the 11th grade came on, and I was working at Cook Book Bakery with my oldest brother, Tommy, and youngest brother, Harold. A few years later there were five family members working there. My three brothers and my oldest sister, Edna, along with my nephew, Michael.It was a good paying job. I quit school half way through the 11th grade.

I had this job and was renting this house . My parents were proud of me , I was doing well and I was going with this girl I was smitten with, named Delores Parnell. We were both 17 years old. I moved out and got a house to rent. I married her and I thought I was all of that and a bag of chips. There were things I should have seen in her, but I was smitten with her.We got married on July 7th, 1967.

In August of 1967, we moved to Arkansas for three months, then on to Valdosta, Georgia where her dad lived. I got a job working in Metal Products. I was in charge of a punch press line making car grills and chrome strips.I was in charge of nine ladies. It was a good job and I liked it.

This was going to be a way of life for me until I retired from the workforce . Being put in charge of getting things done by the people who were head of the Departments. A few months after we got there, Delores’ mother came from Texas to move in with us. I didn’t like her. She was trouble from the moment she arrived, things just started going badly with us. To top things off, our son, Brian, was born December 2, 1968 but she was running around on me then . By July, I was out of the house. Delores and her mother said they wanted me out of the house and I wasn’t a good husband to her. They forgot to say they both had boyfriends they liked better. I was trying to get everything ready to leave. So after a week I flew home to Mom’s house in Amarillo Texas. They knew I was embarrassed to talk about it, and in time things got better. I was never able to maintain a relationship with my son. Fighting both of them and Delores’Mom,her dad was no help, either. Brian never tried to contact me, even out of curiosity. I really don’t think he was my son, because she was probably running around on me before we ever left Amarillo. She told him I wasn’t when he got older, She told him later in life that she didn’t know who his dad was .

I went to the fall back job at Cookbook Bakery.

They were glad I came back because I was a good worker. I was up and running again. I had to get myself a car, so I was looking for a car. I always had a ride to work because my two brothers worked there and it was no problem getting to and from there. Richard was eight years older than me.Harold was six years older than me .Both brothers were still living at home when we were working at the bakery.Richard was a great brother in all ways. He never had a girlfriend. He was very shy and didn’t know what to say to girls. He was a very kind brother and he never caused any trouble . He helped our Dad many times and never complained about why he had to do whatever they needed to get done . He also took my Mom to the store when Dad was at work. Mom never learned to drive a car so one of the kids would drive her to where she needed to go .

My brother never married , he made his life going to work coming home and watching TV. How he did his life is still a mystery to me . After a few weeks there, he asked me if I would go in halves on a ‘69 GTO. I said I definitely would. One night, Richard and I were out running around together and I thought maybe we could each find a girl. He asked if I would show him how to do it. We came to a stop light on Northeast Eighth. A girl pulled up next to us and I said,” Watch what I do and say.” This was my chance to help my brother and I was going to do my best to show him how easy it was. I was praying hard, but he didn’t know it. So I loudly said, “ Hello, gorgeous! What are you doing tonight?” And she responded, “Nothing, Donnie! What are you doing?” Well, I was surprised that she knew my name. It was about 8 pm and dark, but the street light gave enough light that she recognized me. When she turned the right way, I recognized her. It was Celeste Kennedy. She and Robert had gotten married shortly after Delores and I had.

We started talking and I asked her to follow me home as the light changed to green, so she did. I went to her car parked at the street curb, and we talked for about two hours about old times and people we knew. She asked if I had a girlfriend and I said no, so she asked if I remembered Helen, Robert’s sister,and I said I did. Then she told me that Helen wasn’t dating anyone, and asked me if I would like to take her out. If so Celeste ,Robert, and the two of us could be on a double date. I told her yes, so it was set. I had a date with a gorgeous girl on Friday night. As I walked in the house, Richard asked, "Well, how did it go?” I politely told him that I had a date for Friday night with Celeste’s sister-in-law Helen. After that night I forgot I told Richard I would help him . And years later I realized I didn’t hold on to my promise. And I wished I had held to that promise. Maybe he would have found happiness with someone.But I think my Mom needed Richard more than anyone and had her apron strings tied around him very tight . When Friday came around, I was as nervous as anyone could be. I just couldn’t think of anything else at work. It was one of the longest days of my life at that time. I was off at 3pm. I flew home, took a shower and got ready to meet a gorgeous girl. I remembered her sitting on the palette on the floor, that face, with her eyes shining, and that million dollar smile. Well, I was supposed to show up at 6, but I was there at 5:30. That was the longest time I could wait. She wasn’t ready yet, but that was okay. She had gotten prettier in the years since I last saw her. As I waited, I talked to her mom. Her name was Mary Helen. She was very pretty. I could see where Helen got her beauty from. I could tell she was pleased with me by the way she smiled at me and laughed at the things I said. I was talking away, and I knew I had the beautiful lady sold. I had her in my pocket. She liked me. 😉 Robert came in from work and got ready to go. When Helen was ready, we left to go to dinner at the Hidey Ho drive-in.

Helen was so nervous that she wasn’t able to eat anything. After dinner we went to the show at a movie drive in. There was a speaker hanging on the driver’s side window.

At first, Helen and I were in the front seats, but we switched with Robert and Celeste a few minutes after we got there so they wouldn’t see us kissing. I couldn't wait to kiss this beautiful girl more in the back seat .

She liked me, I was sure, and I was crazy about her, but I had to play it cool.

Helen was still going to school, but she would skip school to come over to see me. I was working nights then. She would come over and watch me sleep. One time my mom came into my room to get twenty dollars out of my pocket and didn’t say a word to anyone. When I woke up, Helen told me what my mom did, and I told her Mom would tell me before we left. Well, Mom did. She told me it was $20.00 dollars to get something to go with dinner that night. When I got home to get ready for work, Mom said, “ If you don’t want to marry that girl, you better tell her to buzz off , because she loves you already. I can see it in the way she looks at you.” I told Mom our first date was just that 6th of September and it had only been two weeks.

So as September, then October passed, I started having very strong feelings for Helen. When November was closing, I was in love with this angel-faced lady. She showed so much maturity in everything she did and how she spoke. I was a goner for sure, so we started making plans to marry. For her mom, all we had to say was that we wanted to get married. Her dad was a different story. He was watching football that night, something he enjoyed a lot. It was only him and myself in the room, and I sat on the couch looking at him. I was nervous. If he told me to go outside so he could beat my tail, I would have gone outside; whatever it would take for his approval of this marriage. I was ready. He told me no. He wanted her to finish school before we got married. He said he knew that he didn’t have a say in it. He was her stepdad.

We got married on January 2, 1970 because it was on a Friday, which was payday. After paying for a lot of things for the wedding, I had five dollars left, but that was alright.

This perfect woman was mine and we were going home! And so the marriage story of fifty one years, eight months, and two days started.

This lady was everything I could imagine. She kept the house spotless and could cook everything she tried. It was good. I was her partner, and if I said, “Let’s go wrestle an alligator”, she was in the car waiting. I was the same. It’s funny, she or I would get an idea, think on it for a while, then present it to the other, and before we knew it, we were doing it.

After about the end of October, 1970, I got itchy feet and moved to Dallas. We were only there for two or three months when I got a call from my mom saying I was drafted into the army. I told her the government was only drafting from the lottery up to the number 100; my number was 147. She said she didn’t know about that, but I was drafted! She read the notice to me. She said “Come back to Amarillo and get ready. You have to be at the sign- up in downtown on July 7th. So I asked how she knows all about this ? She said she opened up the letter , it came to her address and I am her son so Mister I read it !! At the end of June we moved back to Amarillo.

I reported to the board and went through the examination. The next thing I knew, I was packed and heading to Fort Ord, California for basic training. Fort Ord is on the peninsula of California.

After a few days of things , getting assigned to our barracks. And meeting the guys that we were going to be with , we were issued a field jacket and army clothes to wear. We were in old army barracks from WWII, but they were nice. There were thirteen of us from Texas and 42 guys from California and Washington. One of them from Texas , was this short and stupid loud mouth that started talking a lot of trash before long that afternoon. The Texas boys were lined up to fight. The other guys had their leaders in front ready to try and take us out with everyone to back them. I told the short loud mouth to shut up, or he would be the first to go out. Then all of a sudden the barracks sergeant came in and stood on our side of the line and said, “Now boys, I don’t care if you fight or not, but if I went home and told my wife about this and didn’t help these outnumbered guys, I would be sleeping here tonight. My wife is Texan. So here’s how it’s going to go, I will take out the first four of you guys. In the meantime, this guy here pointing to me will get the next two and so on down the line. Is it really worth the ass beating that most of you will get? This'll make it harder on you guys. Think about it. If you’re the one I get, it’s not going to be good.” So the others broke up the line and started getting their stuff ready to go.Then the barracks sergeant turned to me and said, “ You’re the leader of your bunch. I was listening outside to what was going on, so it’s on you now, GI. So again I was put in charge of people ” Then the next day we all got haircuts. Some of the guys were hippies with long hair. After that we all became friends in the barracks. Everyone was equal.

Helen went to stay with my sister Wanda, who lived in California at the air force base. My brother- in-law, James, was stationed there, so Helen came to visit me on a family day . My sister Wanda had five kids , they were young and the three boys were boys that loved to play in the rain and get muddy then thought they could run in the house . But ran into stiff resistance from Helen they couldn’t come in until they were washed with the water hose outside . The two girls were different and she got along with them well .

I made it through basic training very easily with no problems. People saw the way I was shooting and throwing grenades through window frames and they told me I was a natural for Vietnam. I told them it wasn’t going to happen. Boy was I wrong!! Anyway, after basic we went to Ft. Hood, Texas for AIT training on artillery units. Well, I was there for just under 90 big days . It was hard living there. We had an apartment where we were paying $25 a month and a dollar for our water uses. We got a week's leave after AIT training. My rank was a PFC E3. I was making $127 a month. When I got home, I got Helen to stay with her family while I went to Vietnam for a year. I didn’t know what I was getting into over there, I just knew I had to go.

I was standing in line at the Air Force base in Seattle, Washington to board the plane when this tall, six foot wide sergeant walked up, stuck his arm between myself and two guys to my left, and said, “Everybody from here,up, will be going to Vietnam. Everybody from here, back, is going to Germany.” Those guys started complaining, so I said I would trade with them. The master drill sergeant looked at me and said, “What line are you in, soldier?” Well, I was just going to show him! I stuck out my chest and said, “ Vietnam, Sergeant!” He said, “Good man! Go!” So I loaded up with the rest of them. I will never forget that day. It was my 21st birthday. Some of the guys started singing happy birthday to me, then the whole plane joined in. The plane ride was long. I don't remember how long it took. I ran on to one of the guys that was on that plane 20 years later. He remembered that day.

We left Washington that morning and came to Anchorage, Alaska first, then to Yokota, Japan, then to Hong Kong. We had a little lay over there for about four or six hours, so four of us slipped out and took a taxi to the old part of Hong Kong. It wasn't long until we told the taxi driver to take us back to the airport. We had no business down there. We were able to slip back to the airport, unnoticed. After the layover, we stopped in Guam for about 30 minutes to fuel up, and then we went into Saigon. When we were getting off the plane, it smelled like a trash dump on a hot day with dirty clothes. They took us to a place and dumped us for the night. The next day they had us in formation. They were telling us about the country. There were a few John Wayne wanna-bes in the front line who were only there to kill. The sergeant there had them turn a complete circle and said, “Welcome to the front lines!!” Those guys only lasted two or three weeks.

My job that day was to burn barrels from the outhouse. I poured diesel in them to burn shit and paper until it was all gone. That was my first and last time for that. That night I noticed the night sky. Wow! It had millions of bright stars in it. I was just amazed by the beauty that was staring back at me. I must have sat and looked for two hours up in the sky.

The next day we were loaded up on trucks going to Hue(pronounced “way" ),which is off the DMZ, the Demilitarized Zone.That was the line that separated north Vietnam from south Vietnam or the Border . I was told that we would go straight along the DMZ to Laos, just inside the border, because that was the new unit that we were assigned to. We would go three more times to Laos , but better results .Well lucky us!

We got there late in the afternoon. The Howitzers 175 inch guns were silent because they had just gotten there and set up. They dumped us off like trash and left in a hurry. We found out later that we weren't supposed to be there. It was a secret. We were waiting for some North Vietnamese to come to us But we got a surprise! But it turned around on us, because the South Vietnamese were supposed to help stop them. They turned and ran shooting, so we had to leave because we had no support on the east side of us! We had to make some kind of defense line within the section that had no one there. They turned two howitzers and fired direct fire on that side at close range. The destruction the two howitzers caused was unbelievable, with dust and dirt everywhere! Then it was get out of Dodge time, getting guns ready to move out QUICKLY! It gotta be fast moving, but they were already on us. My brand new weapon was singing music to my ears as we rolled out the road we came in on. I knew without a doubt I shot two of the North Vietnamese. I killed them, but I didn’t have time to think about it. We were moving out. There was a Mexican on the gun rolling out with us who had a 50 cal machine on the front of the 175 inch howitzer. He shot one round at a soldier and hit him in the shoulder, separating it from his body. You will hear more about him later. It was the start of many strange and fascinating things I saw there.

Now onto the boy who became a man. I would never be the same person I was just a few hours ago. I know now that I had to become a person that had to put away all the things that were of the peace time ways and learn the ways of war. Survival . Could I learn everything in time? Was this my calling? Where do you start? I just took two lives back there! How do I feel? Maybe in a few minutes I will come apart. I had to give it a little time for it to sink in and process it. I just had to wait and see. After six weeks there the Sargent that was in charge of the Gun Section was going home,so I was put in charge.

Most of the battle plans were a lot like Napoleon's plan, to show up and see what happens. We had howitzers humming out of that country. The South Vietnamese that ran were taken care of by their commanders later. Some were shot and replaced. It was an embarrassment to the country. It got my heart pumping strong, just in the three days I was there. Yes, excitement to the tens! 😳

It was said that the unit was going to be busy going to places that they should not be, so I did not write home and tell them anything about where we were or had been. Only on the DMZ. I went to do my duty for my country. My uncles had gone in WWII. And killed men how did they do it, I wished I would have asked.I don't think they would have told me .I believe it’s something you figure out yourself .

I knew two guys that when we were under attack , they went out in the perimeter and got past the intruders . The two guys took out ten to twelve of the enemy by themselves . I think their names were Victor and Roger , but they didn’t get any recognition? As I said, there were some amazing people there with me .

But later, it wasn’t for my country; I was fighting for it was for the guy next to me, and he for me, to make it back home. The next eleven and one half months was a wild horse ride. I was in the unit or Artillery battalion that was going back to the states . It has spent its time in war. Going back to FORT Hood , they would piece together another Battalion of guns and service units .

We were at a fire base called Rockason. It was six miles away from the DMZ line, so we were close. The Fire Base was built in 1965 , if and when they wanted to send rockets our way, and they did on several occasions.

The Mexican that shot the soldier with the fifty cal machine would act crazy sometimes, and if he saw something, he would just take it from the guys. They were scared of him. Well, one day he came into our bunker and thought he would take some of my stuff. I had just gotten this new bush hat and he thought he would just take it. He started acting like he was crazy. He looked at me and I told him I would light his ass up if he didn’t put my hat down. He could act like he was crazy to others, but I knew it was just an act. He had his M16 rifle with him, but I think he knew that I knew his game and I’d shoot him, so he got up and left. I think I ended his little scam he had going on , so sad .

We were 4 miles away from a mountain top where there was a fire base. It was called Firebase Fuller. The South Vietnamese held it, so I thought it was a safe place to write to Helen Ann, my beautiful wife at home, and also my Mom, telling them that I was at a safe place and not to worry. We moved to a Firebase Charlie 2 . There was a valley between us that was two miles wide and the other southwest side was JJ Carol, another fire base that could give support if needed. We were on her east side support. Alpha #4 was north of her. Our guns could provide protection all around the sides, so it was covered and we were as well.

A Day that nobody thought would happen!

I was thinking of this episode of adventures that came to the SOLDIERS OF A BATTERY 2nd and 94 th field artillery. It was along the DMZ border of NORTH VIETNAM ! Northeast corner too Laos, The place where they dropped me and the four others that were with me on the five of us being assigned to the unit . Then just a few hours later on being dropped off and being in a loosening Fire Fight !! I killed my first enemy soldier at this place or close to it ! It’s July 1971 I have taken over the first gun section, I became the Gunner , so I was in charge .The Sargent had two weeks left in the country . We are 9 guys strong , but will be down to six or seven guys normally . The North are bringing more supplies down Ho Chi HIGHWAY. And we are going to try and do what they were supposed to do in April . Got my quad 50s leading the front then in the back of the column are the 20mm cannons on tank tracks, they call them Dusters so we’re in good shape. It’s been a very lively spot the last few weeks .

We have a company of Grunts from the 1st and 74 battalion pulling our Perimeter .Know as the burning Worms from the patch, it looks like a worm on fire at both ends . My guys got all the supplies they need: beer, weed , any other things they can eat and cigarettes for a month. There are going to be a lot of sleepless nights ahead of us .In the next few days. The weather has been good to us so far . Well we are hear , the best I can tell is the place .We are laying the guns on where they need to point . My team and I are not playing around, we are getting lined out . Standing shells up in the ditch . Putting fuses on the shells . We will start out with thirty rounds. Pulling the M548 cargo transport in the right places . The other trucks up to the fighting spots our sleeping bed rolls and personal stuff . Where we pulled up there is wild Marijuana growing everywhere . I told the guys now is not the time to be trying out the plants around us . Everyone gear up and be ready for anything .

The First Sergeant came around to check us out to see if we got everything ready . He mentioned the pause we set coming here , was exactly what was called for . As he was leaving he told the guys they looked like true fighting unit , be ready! We got here around 11am this morning , the emery was headed straight for us. Should be about 4 pm today , we are or will find out how they fight . We better eat while we can , break out the cans of food we put on the transmission of the gun and the M548 ‘s motors and transmission. Ham and beans , spaghetti, and meatballs ! And others things we pick up along the way I am getting close to three guys in the section : one guy named Frenchie, then Thomas and the last guy named James . Theirs three on the top of the gun most of the time IN SHOOTING THE ONE . I take and lay the direction and the elevation of the gun . Frenchie job to load up the right shell and ram the projector in the barrel with the right powder charge .

Then Tomas closes the breach puts the bullet in the hole and when the time comes pulls the trigger . We could put one in the air every minute, nothing for us to shoot , sixty to eighty rounds at a time .

I have been struggling with this episode for 54 years. I still don’t know if I can write this down . So many were hurt and killed in this mad story. Of what man can put another man through and say well it’s got to be done . That’s why we are here, so let’s make this count Gentlemen . I would like to see you all tomorrow. Willingham leads your men looking forward to talking to you on how well you and your crew did tonight.

The force should be a few hundred, we catch them at the right time it can and should be over in minutes to our favor . People were saying there 20 miles close to 30 minutes until the firing range would be 14 to 16 miles away. Five minutes later we was loaded on standby . Guns ready first gum fire and there it went heading to the supplies of V/C. The other three guns followed after . And so we met the convoy head on for another 30 minutes . It was all one sided at first , the trucks and supplies were blown everywhere along the route. But they just put it in high gear and kept coming our way ! They arrived shortly after the first rounds . We were hearing the first gun shots of the In coming V/C and regular soldiers. Half was engaged with the 74th rangers and half was trying to pass us by ! And make it to their destination and resupply the troops in the field. So the back guard swung out to our western front to block their advance. So that put my gun and number three in the direct line of their path ! The lead vehicle was gone and a very large hole was there. That stopped them in their tracks for about 5 minutes. Remember these are season troops . They can recover very quickly and strike back with very hard actions. And they were getting ready to do just that ! Lots of rapids and an armsfire was heading our way . Bullets was humming around us, the gun ground vehicles everywhere . I had my M16 at my feet ready to engage when the time comes . And it looked like it was here ! I eased out of my chair and laid on the deck of the gun . At the same time . Frenchie and Thomas were doing the same; the others were taking up the 50 caliber machine mounted on top of the m548 supply carrier . We were fighting with our back up plans . After about two hours they started leaving the way they came . My legs were cramped up in that small space but I had good protection around me . It was dark and we didn’t give the very much trouble stopping them from leaving us . As they got some miles down the road they came in on we dropped a few more shells on them . The enemy lost a little over 50 men and twenty vehicles, our count was under twenty. I lost two men who were both in their teens . The other dead was the 74th boys. It was close to a village named MUANG XEON . So we come out of Laos again but this time Heroes! We carried our dead to the medics and regrouped heading to Firebase Charlie Two, our home base for now . Quad 50’s we’re in great shape we heard was operational. So we were rolling out a mission accomplished! And a note to remember why I couldn’t write Helen and tell her !! Where I was and what I was doing . Laos was a secret we weren't allowed in the country and other things that weren't happening over there. Sorry Baby that’s the orders we were given at that time !

At the battle times were very loud ,but afterwards it was very quiet ! Funny from one end to the other it goes . At times there are hundreds of things going on at once . People screaming, cursing ,and crying. My guys in the section at times appeared to get twice their strength they normally have .

The body is a mysterious Wonder is it not . Times when you can pick up your Buddy and carry him to a safer place . Put him down with ease , so the medical team can take care of him . But on normal occasions he would be too much to carry or pull to safety . Guys would be screaming some cussing ,running then you got the 8”howlizers going off 50 caliber machine working small arms as well . Guys shooting their M 79 grenade, launchers. Then at last the 20mm gun on the tank booming away ! So if your ears are ringing you got a lot of things to look at for this ringing problem. In the excitement your body goes into its Super Power Mode ! After it’s over your body is draining scythe trying to build back its level of operation . Then it’s clean up time , trash vehicles damage report on machine and personal injury. The four gun sections can roll out with the unit back to Vietnam territory.

We are sad that two new guys were killed . The two from my section have been in the country for only four months. Two others had some scratches and scrapes Again I am not shaken over the fight (AWARE YES VERY MUCH SO ) but being scared no I am not !! I am starting to notice Frenchie is acting like myself on these adventures we go on . So I went up to him and said , I noticed that this frightening act is not like the others. You are calm and self centered on what you do .Like keeping you cool in action ,we can use more of that to help keep our guys alive .This round we didn’t do so well , Help me out My Hero !! And the mighty 2/94 field artillery ABattery can roll back home to Fire Base Charlie #2 .

If you were there you would see the real frame of a Hero . He’s that real skinny guy seating over on the ground .Now you see the average person here , that’s your Heroes. No muscle man, no lights, no one saying I'm your Hero . Just everyday men . So it’s hard to say that’s one right there .

There’s many stories that I could tell you about but the ones I write in this story will give you enough information about how it was there for me and everyone .

One afternoon around noon we saw fighting in the valley. We sat on top of our bunkers watching it like a movie for about one hour. We saw a B52 strike. Man, that was something to see! Anyway, about 5pm we started getting pot shots coming our way from rifles in the valley below, so we started hiding and getting our weapons ready. We loaded up the tube of the barrel with the stuff we had for direct fire, but not the diesel wet powder we had. The wet powder would make a fireball go about 60 to 70 yards out and maybe 30 feet wide. If we did fire this mess it would ruin the barrel for firing regular shells. We would have to replace the barrel. We had rocks, metal pieces and nails .Just a variety of things to put in the barrel. But a little while later, we were told to do it, so we did. At dark thirty, we were told a group was at the wire. The guys were scared to pull the rope to fire the gun so I said I would do it. I wasn’t scared to do it.Plus I was in charge of this gun section, the leader . I knew it would have a back blast force and would blow me off the gun, so I told the guys to stay at their fighting spots. We usually had a ten foot rope to do this but we lost it somewhere. I was giving word from the look out post that it was time because they were at the wire. A group of them were 25 yards in front of my barrel, so I jumped up and fired the gun and the backblast threw me ten or fifteen feet from the gun. I laid there a minute to get my breath back, then I got up and went back to my fighting place with Thomas. We put a lot of bullets out there and saw a few go down. They retreated back into the valley. We heard later that they took Firebase Fuller that night, raised their flag up, then left because the Cobra helicopters and A10’s airplanes were on their way to spread some bad news among them as in mini guns and rockets. They hit all four bases and took that one on the mountain for show, just to let us know they could afford to lose a lot of men. The word got out that they hit the mess hall up the hill in the middle of our base and asked for volunteers to help dig out the guys that were dead and hurt. It took a direct hit by a rocket that exploded and collapsed the top of them. About 25 guys were caught and I helped carry parts of the bodies to the ambulance and places where they were putting dead bodies as well. It did not make me sick or anything. It totally surprises me still to this day that I could do that.BUT what did get to me when they dug out this one guy that was not hurt at all and he was crying and saying Thank You to everyone , that pulled at my heartstrings . Funny what and how things affect each of us.

There were other times I did this and no sickness was felt in me like other guys were feeling. I found out later that my direct fire killed 11 Cong fighters. Before I left Vietnam, the score was double for reasons I will not talk about because those are things you don’t speak about, you just put away. In no time it was in the news and papers. You have to realize that all these people, good ones and bad ones , were all someone's sons and were loved by many . Now , their lives have ended . Was it or they meant to have short lives? Life is full of mysteries that no one can explain why , but GOD I was just hoping that I would not be a part of the mystery that would be told to my loved ones at home . I was hoping Helen and family would not relate to the place I was at, that they wouldn’t see it and all will be right in the world. Now my unit was standing down to go back to the US because their time was done. We went to a coast line port called Tami Ramps. It was where Bob Hope did his shows. He was there already and they asked for anyone to go. I said I would like to go and I was picked. You rode in a Chinook, the big work helicopter that could hold a lot of equipment and troops, so I got to go,this was two weeks before the stand down . I was way in the back bleachers and they had a big bare spot in front of the stage. Then all of a sudden, the jungle company came and filled the spot up.It was a unit of the second Cav. There were a lot of them straight from the jungle. They were dirty and wild. Then Bob Hope came out and said, “ These guys need to clear this area.” They can put them in the back somewhere because they smelled. He was not going to let his girls come out with them sitting there. Wow! the troops were coming to get him. Their commander stopped them. He talked to Bob Hope for a while, then the show started. I never thought of Bob Hope as a star. I wouldn't watch anything he was in from that point on. And to this day, I will not.

That afternoon I went back to the fire base. A couple of weeks later we were back at the ramps, disbanding the unit.

One day we had a storm come up and the wind got up to hurricane strength. We were in our barracks that looked like chicken houses. They had tin tops and screen walls for the first foot, then four feet of plywood, then another foot of screw to the top. Frenchie

I was watching it blow while laying on the floor when a Lieutenant was running around outside and a piece of tin blew off with such force one edge hit him and sliced off half of his face and head. Frenchie got sick right after it happened, but it didn’t do a thing for me. I just said, “Wow! That was bad!”, then we cleaned up all the buildings that got damaged. After that, I was showing some guys in my unit where Bob Hope did his show . It was at dusk, and these three 2nd cav guys came up and asked what unit we were in. I turned and told them. One guy was drunk and he hit me right on the bridge of my nose and destroyed it. He had a D ring or a rappel ring in his hand and used them as brass knuckles. He was about 5ft 10 inches, and 190 lbs. He didn’t need any help! Well he knocked me in the ditch. It wouldn’t have made me mad if I were drinking or being loud, but I wasn’t doing any of those things.

Well, I got up out of that ditch and I said, “Tough guy, huh?”, and he was surprised when I popped him in the jaw and he went down. I looked around for the guys I was with, and they were gone! Then the others wanted to step up to the plate. I swung and I hit one of them upside the head. He went down drunk as well. Then the guys who were with me were back and got me out of that spot and back to the unit. Man, I was hurting! They took me to the unit hospital there and the doctors said, “Fella, you don’t have a nose anymore”, so they gave me a shot. The next morning, I found out that I broke the guy’s jaw and he was going home because jaws didn't heal properly there.

We moved about 20 miles to the south of the ramps I believe. We were at this place for a few days when we started to get some rockets coming in, and small arms fire from the perimeter. During that time, the company clerk was out on the perimeter, stoned almost out of his mind, and crying, “Help me someone! Help! I’m scared! Help!” So Frenchie and I crawled out there to pull him back. Another guy went out to take his place. Frenchie was my right hand man in the gun section. We dragged him back to the gun we were at. We asked if he knew what he did, that he endangered us and himself, telling them he wasn’t going to do anything but cry and get us killed. We popped him upside his head a few times and he was still crying. Then we put him in a safe place until it was over. After that, he got shipped out. We never saw him again. We didn’t care, as long as he was gone away from us.

One day the first sergeant came up to me and said, “ I would like you to take a GED test and see if you can pass it”. I said okay, and sat in my fighting position and was told that they had people from battalion headquarters passing tests out. Some time later I found out I passed,with ease! Two days later, I was in the hospital getting ready for my first nose operation to try to push the bones he separated from the punch. They did some work on my nose and I was told that I would have to come back for a second operation in two months. Anyway, I went back to the unit. We went on three day raids a lot. I killed six more of the enemy charging our emplacement . Frenchie got four more to his count . We came out on top that time easily enough.

Two months later when I was back in the hospital, the doctor in the operating room looked at me and asked, “Did the nurse give you a shot?”, and I said, “ Yes, about five or ten minutes ago. “ He said," Damn! That was strong enough to knock a man out in two minutes!” I said, “Well, here I am,” and he said, “ Okay”, put a towel over my eyes and went to work. I will never forget what happened. He had a mallet in one hand and a chisel in the other. He hit me 13 times on the left side and 12 on the right side of my nose. I was out after that. Both eyes were black when I woke up in the recovery room.

Three days later I went back to my unit, black eyes and all. I couldn’t lift anything over 5 pounds for two weeks. It was nice sitting in my gunner position on the gun. After three weeks, I put in for two weeks leave for home to see my Helen Ann and got it. Before I left, there was a very bad case of crabs going through the battery. Ladies of the night would be at the dump grounds where we took our trash, just waiting with all the local pitfalls that they could handle. When the GI’s who visited those ladies of the night used the outhouse, the crabs were waiting for the next guy to sit there and then that guy would have them, too.

When it was time to go home, I got a ride to Hue (way) and then on a C130 airplane to Saigon, then to Hawaii. I was wearing jungle fatigues and going to the gate to fly to Seattle, Washington, when this stupid guy came up to me and said, “ Are you coming from Vietnam?” I said yes, and the little dear spit on me and called me a baby killer! Well, you know me, I punched him in the face. Before I could say anything, two airport police grabbed me and took me to the inspection room and I had to strip down to nothing. They had me bend over and spread my cheeks and blow into the tube to test if I was on dope.They asked me why I hit that man and I told them what he said and did. They told me to get dressed and get to my gate that I was leaving at.

Well on arrival at Amarillo there was Helen, my wife, the most beautiful lady that I ever laid eyes on, waiting on me. I was never more excited in my life. That night, Helen said, “I didn’t know you had a mole there”, then the mold started moving! I jumped and said, “ What do we do?" After we calmed down, we fixed the problem fast. She looked at me and said,” I will never forget this as long as I live!” If I had a camera we would have made a million dollar video!

The rest of my leave went like clockwork. Happy, loving times with all.

When I got back to the unit, we were getting ready to go on a raid again. We would always pass through this village called Dong Ha. We had chocolate bars out of the rations that were given to us. We didn’t like them, so we tossed them to the kids and they would throw them back at us and say, “ Number 10 GI”, with ugly looks on their faces. That meant that they were bad chocolate bars!

We found out later that was an area where Agent Orange was heavily used. The fire bases had been there since 1965. We would not be here if it wasn’t for God watching over us. I saw some amazing feats of bravery from guys you would have never thought possible. It wasn't the muscle guys or the guys saying, “Look at me! I’m great!”, it was the ordinary guys that no officer put up for a medal. I was truly amazed at what happened and what they did! I was glad they were there with us, because a lot of us would not be here today. It was rough. We lost five guys, but no one from my gun. There were seven of us most of the time; sometimes up to 11 . One day, we were engaged in shooting, a bullet ricocheting off the projectile of the gun. No one was hurt. The projectile weighed 147 pounds. After that, we went to a place called Quan Tri and sat up there for a while. The Mexican and I were on guard one late afternoon and he said, “You see that water buffalo?” He had the m79 grenade launcher. He raised it up and shot it. He hit that buffalo right in the middle of the back, and that buffalo went everywhere. Well, the next morning the captain wanted to see me. He wanted to know about the buffalo that was destroyed in the field. He told me that I was going to pay half the bill. It was worth $750 and one American dollar was worth 125 peaster of Vietnamese money. I told the captain what happened and he said, “That’s what I thought”, so I was relieved. If you look at the Vietnam map, up north you will see where I was most of the time. We were there for about six weeks. There was a helicopter pad there. I was friends with four of the guys. One of them hollered at me and asked if I would like to go for a ride. I was excited! Away we went up in the air and skimmed the treetops and we even did a barrel roll! WOW! I was sold on the helicopter from then on. The Huey 14 was my dream ride forever.I remembered when I was in the country a few weeks . We went

up to the fire base Rockason . I was there earlier in the time I was in the country . We would have good fire power there. In front, on either side, there was what they called a duster that was two 20 mm guns on a tank track, and they could put out rounds really fast. Behind the four guns and supplies were the Quad 50’s. That’s four 50 caliber machines mounted on a five ton truck. They were synchronized to fire rounds. When they cut loose, you could trim down trees like a lawn mower would cut grass. Now they were my heroes. As long as they were close I felt safe. We were leaving to head to Charlie #2 firebase. The chinooks were coming in to hook onto our nets that we had gathered up for them to take most of our supplies off for us. Since I was a new guy, the other guys told me to hook up the helicopter coming in. I was standing up there and when I touched my hook to the ring on the helicopter, the static electrical charge knocked me flying to the ground and my muscles were hurting. They all thought that was funny. Yeah, the new guys got some really good teaching of what not to do! After that I knew I was going to get them back when we went on a raid. They would dig big holes in the ground and put the shells in the holes for safety. We were carrying about twenty rounds of shells up a slope to shoot. They weighed 147 pounds. I was ahead of my two favorite people, so I just turned around and dropped the round that I was carrying and let it roll down the slope. and it hit his ankle and he fell with his round. and rolling he went down hard . His ankle was hurting for a couple of days (he knew why ) I got the other with something else a few days later! Anyway, we were heading that way again and the monsoons were on us. We were wet 24/7. All we wore were boots, pants and flak jackets. No shirts, socks, or underwear. Once in a while, we got care packages from home. My gorgeous wife would send great stuff like shampoo, candy, cookies; lovely things we all enjoyed. I got one from my mom once, bless her heart; it was white T shirts and white underwear. 😂😂😂😂

The guys came up with the name Big Dog because I was the leader. I was there in the country the shortest time. The First Sergeant, an E8, liked the way I got the guys feeling good about doing things and trying to be the best. The guys respected me. I was the highest rank in the gun section and we tried to be the best and fastest at all times, and we were. I was the fastest gunner to lay the gun on the asthma or the direction . height the gun should be pointing. I was a natural at this; it was something out of the blue I was good at. And I held that honor throughout my military career. No one could beat me in the seven and one half years I was in the service

One day the First Sergeant had something he wanted to say , we were gathered in formation. At that moment we started getting rockets hitting the Fire Base . We started to disperse and he called us back . So there we were and he was saying nothing important when he finished we were running for cover . Everyone in that formation was ticked off and wanted to fix his wagon. Well, I came up with something and they liked it. We were going to back this deuce and a half to his door when he went down to his hut. ? Had guys watching him , then the time came when he went down in his hut and we pulled the pin on a tear gas grenade and backed the truck up next to the door. After a few minutes, he started shooting the door, trying to get out. We just happened to be coming by, and hollered at him to stop. We were there to help him get out. The poor guy was in bad shape because his gas mask didn’t work! The Lieutenant said it wasn’t us who did it; we were just walking from our gun. He lied for us because he didn’t like him for what he did, and he held to his story. We got together later and drank beer. The truck is the one we stole in Hue (way) but that’s another story! He put eight or nine rounds into the truck. It didn't do any damage to it really .

Well now on the story of the truck. Every time we would go on a raid, we were always be short on vehicles to put supplies on or to move anywhere. Well four of us were going back to the rear to buy beer and other supplies for us or the battery. You would buy beer a pallet at a time. It had 42 cases of beer and just all kinds of mess hall chow. So we were at a supply depot and there was this Deuce and half. It was there, so we took it. Then that day came when the chief of the firing battery. He came and wanted me to be the leading gun of the Battery if we got hit. He wanted me and my crew to be at the front because we were the fastest getting ready to fire at the enemy .During the times we were going on raids I was always the lead gun first to encounter the enemy .

Most of the time nothing would happen , a few times it did , I lost two of my guys one was instantly killed he was the head shot , the other died a few hours later I really didn’t get to know them .But this was war and it will happen .Days would go by in two weeks of the same thing Fire Missions around the clock shooting twenty to thirty rounds at a time . Dodging rockets and other things that the Emery would send at us . And time was no object or important thing at times . One place looked like the other we just left . Or we might say this place looks like the place that so and so was killed. Remember him, that was something . He was a funny guy or strange guy .And nothing more on the subject .

I was getting short on time in the country and I had collected four eight track players. Guys would get short (on time ) in the country and I would buy them for $10-20. I had a whole new crew of guys.

My best buddies, Thomas and Frenchie, were killed at Charlie #2 when we were out in the powder bunker, just talking. I was in the doorway saying, “ Let’s get out of here,” when the rocket hit the outside wall and blew in, killing both of them. Because I was in the doorway, I was pushed straight through to one of the fighting spots. I was really dazed. They were only thirty days short of going home. I can still see them clearly to this day. I think they only shot four rockets. It was one of my sad times because the three of us were always on the gun. We were a team. God just had other plans for me.

I had been in charge for a while by then. One night, my captain came down to our hole in the ground and said, “Willingham, when was the last time you wrote to your mother? I want you to sit down and write to her right now. She has got a hold of the Red Cross and wants to know about you! When you finish it, bring it to me and I will send it off.” Did I feel like a million dollars? No, I didn’t and I got teased by the guys! “Hey Big Dog, what’s Mom doing today? Did you write to her?” That went on for a week or more.From that day on , that was my name Big Dog ! We were in and out of battles the following time and lost a lot of GI’s in our company in all sections , the guns, service and motor pool .

They were times I felt that this was my last moment or hour that I would be alive . And my Beautiful Wife I wouldn’t see again or my loved ones . I think now how I would have asked my Dad about his life and what he would do in this or that position . I think my Dad would have liked to talk to me but didn’t know how to bring it up . There’s been times I see now that he was lonely. He and my Mom had drifted apart , in their marriage. A point of being alone with no one to talk to . I see now , how and why he acted like he did .He was a man that worked from sunrise to sunset to support his family

And was not a part of his family, because he was never around . A sacrifice to give his kids something ,now he has nothing to show for it .He had a HighSchool deployment but never used it . So that was his life working all the long many hours and no sleep . All the kids are grown and he is not a part of it because he was never around. I feel sorry for my Fathers life . He got sick and through that my Mom and Dad began to love each other again .It’s funny how things can turn around and what can make them do what they need to do .

I don’t remember what I left or what I got all I knew I was going home to real life. My life was about to begin a new chapter for me . I processed out of the Army in two days.

I went to Hue (way) to catch a flight on a C130 to Saigon to Seattle, Washington, then to Amarillo, Texas to be with my gorgeous Helen Ann and let our life begin without Uncle Sam in it. I was scared of the man I had become. Would I be able to start a new life where we left off? I noticed she had changed as well, but l knew that there was still enough of her there that I grew to love so much. Let it all begin once more!

We talked a lot when I came home about what we wanted to do and make up for the separation we went through . She held my face in her hands and said,” I love you , Donnie Ray Willingham. I will always love you!! You are what I always wanted and now I have you! I will never let you go again!”

Well all my doubts left me that beautiful day in Amarillo, Texas. And I repeated that to her and meant every word as she did! We held that promise until her last breath of 51 years, 8 months, and two days.

I got my old job at the Cookbook bakery again. I was getting off work one day when these two men walked up to me and asked, “ Is your name Donald Willingham?” I said, “ Yes it is, what can I do for you?” They asked some questions about when I was in Vietnam in artillery. They began to tell me they were out looking for men of my combat experience. Would I be interested in a thing like that? I told them I was honored to be thought of, but I said, “ No thank you, gentlemen, I am out of that business.” My chest swelled up big time! I never told my wife about the two gentlemen, in what

Before the month was over, I was tired of the bakery and I was hunting for a retail position. Helen and I were on our way to an interview when we passed the army recruiting station. Helen pointed to the place and said, “Remember that? I wonder what they would give you if you join this time.” I said, “I don’t think so.” When we made it to the place we were headed, we found out that the man that I had the interview with was out of town. He was in Dallas for a couple of days. When we were headed home she said, “ Maybe there is a reason for this to happen. Go into the recruiter’s place and just see what they can offer you.” So we did, and they offered me three years in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. We went home and talked about it and then agreed to it. It would get us out of Amarillo.

One night we were over at Mom and Dad's house and my dad called me over to tell me something that he was carrying for a very long time. We went to his bedroom and he sat on the bed. Icould tell this thing was heavy on his mind. He took a big breath and said, "Son, remember that real bad beating I gave you when you were younger?” I remembered it. He said he was going through some very hard times and he wasn’t himself and he was very sorry, and he wanted to tell me before I went to Vietnam but he couldn’t get over the shame he felt for doing it. I stood and held his hand and said, “Dad, I was acting out and showing off with a smart mouth. You did your job to straighten me out. I don’t hate you or anything; I never thought much about it. I love you, Dad, and I always will.” I saw a tear fall from his eye! My dad was never emotional about anything, but he was then. I didn’t know what to say! He looked at me and said, “Thank you, son" and more tears fell. Well, tough guy that I was, I said I had to go to the bathroom. I got there as fast as I could so nobody would see my tears. A little later, we left their house and Helen asked why Dad and I went to his bedroom. I told her what happened. She said, “The poor guy! What a burden he has been carrying all this time, thinking he would not ever get to tell you if something happened to you over there!”

Well we got busy getting things all together to move to Fort Sill and we left two weeks later.

They told me if I quit this time, they wouldn’t give me another job. We were off to bigger skies and greater adventures.

We liked it there. The battery I was in was great.i was put in charge of a Gun section of nine men . It was an M109a 155 millimeter Howitzer , the people were good. The guys would come to the house sometimes. They liked Helen right away. They respected her and asked her what she thought about this or what she thought would be the best thing to do. She would give it and they would do it more times than not .That was a Special privilege that was bestowed upon me from her . They would bring their girlfriends over and we would laugh and have nice times.The Guys would call her Momma Helen . You just didn’t say anything wrong about her,and if they were around, look out that person was in for it .

One day we were heading back to Amarillo for the weekend. We stopped at a Kentucky Fried Chicken to get chicken and potatoes. We were going along the highway when Helen said, “ Look, a pimple.” She pushed on each side of her cheeks and pushed mashed potatoes out of her mouth! Well, that was the first time in the two and a half years we’d been married that she made a joke. I just started laughing and I had to pull over; I couldn’t keep driving. We laughed about it most of the way there. She was usually a serious person.

I became a sergeant one month after we’d there in Fort Sill. In the meantime, we had gotten a new captain. He and his wife were giving a party for the officers and NCOs at his house. The first sergeant was a real ass. During the party, he was ordering people around just to show off. He had a paper plate in his hand and when Helen walked by, he shoved it at her and said, “ Throw this away.” Well, he didn’t know what he was in for, and my lady said to him,” Ugh, you got the wrong squaw! There she is, over there!” She walked over to the sink and everyone got quiet. So he said, “ I gave your husband his stripes!” and she said, “ You didn’t give him anything that he didn’t earn twice over!” I just sat smiling away. She did not say anything out of the way. And he didn’t say a word more and no one stopped it. When the party came to an end, the captain asked us to stay. Well, I thought my rear was going to get it bad, but it was just the opposite. They both said how happy they were to see him get put in his place without any disrespect and they thanked Helen for handing it to him. Well the next morning, I, and especially Helen, were everyone’s hero. That's all everyone talked about. Even both lieutenants came up to me and told me to be sure to tell my wife she was their hero.

I was chosen to be on the funeral detail with 21 gun honor guard sergeant in charge. I had seven guys firing a volley of three times each, totalling 21 shots. Well, this American Indian guy who had been in the military for twenty years had died, so he was getting his burial plot. His family was showing up when these drunk people who could barely stand up were there. One lady fell over the chairs and knocked over other chairs, so some soldiers went and straightened up the mess she made. When my crew and I were finished with the volleys, they folded the flag and presented it to his wife who was also drunk. They put 21 empty shells in the folded flag because it was tradition. She turned up the flag and the shells fell out on the ground. Well, she tried to catch them and almost fell from her chair. The man beside her caught her, and so in a few more minutes it was over. It was a long month of December, a very interesting detail.

We had it pretty good there in Fort Sill for 14 months until I came down on orders to go to Germany. I didn’t have enough time left for them to pay Helen’s way over there and back, so I got this big idea to join up for three years! My MOS (?) was a critical job in the military. They were giving out $10,000 bonuses for those who enlisted for 3 years, so I thought that was my way to get her over there with me. In January I went to see the enlistment officer. He told me that that offer had stopped in December, so I asked him what I could do to get my wife over to

Germany. He leaned back in his chair and said, “ You can extend 20 months and they will pay her way over. “ I said, “ Great! Where do I sign?” So another adventure was going to begin.

We got everything ready to move. The army came and loaded up the furniture and put it in storage and shipped our clothes to Nuremberg, Germany for us. We caught a plane to South Carolina where we waited with other GIs and their wives at the military base. Some kids were licking the floor and I said to Helen, “ Those are officers’ kids.” She said, “How do you know?” and I told her to watch. A few minutes later, the second lieutenant came over and picked his kid up. She looked at me and said, “Smart ass”. Then we loaded up and away we went. I think we stopped in the London airport and then went on to Germany. It was late that night when we unloaded at the airport. They told us to load up on the buses with the white tops and they would take us to the hotel. Then they took us to the train station to go to our main destination. All this time Helen said, “ This is some messed up deal with no organization whatsoever!” I just laughed and said, “ Welcome to the army, my dear.” We got to the train and got tickets to Furt, Germany. They told us to walk to the second track and get on the train there. My lady was nervous. I was a little nervous,too, but that’s how the army does things.

The train moved fast. They called it a D train. The guy we were sitting by looked at us and said, “Furt, right?” He said he was going there, too, and he’d show us the right way to get off. He told us we had to be fast. I told Helen that I’d let her get off first so I could toss the bags to her because we only had 5 minutes before the train took off again. It was a two hour ride. When the train stopped, Helen bailed out and I threw the bags to the ground and got off as fast as I could. Then the guy just stood on the steps and said, “ Ohhh, I forgot to tell you; as long as you stay on the step the train can’t move! Safety thing for the people,” then he just laughed! Well we told him how highly we thought of him!

We walked out in front of the station and there was supposed to be someone waiting to take us to the post. There was no one there, so we got a taxi. We had the address of friends we were going to stay with, so away we went . The people drove fast there, and in a little bit over ten minutes we were there. We paid the driver and he left us standing on a busy street corner. I felt stupid. There I was supposed to be the protector of this lady standing beside me and I had no clue of what I was going to do! Then we heard someone hollering, “Helen! Helen, up here!” It was our friend, Jennie. She was in a three story building. We went to the door of the building and she buzzed us in. Right behind us on the street was the military post. That four story building was the battalion that I was supposed to go to, so everything worked out great that day. About one hour later, Jennie asked me if I wanted to take a shower. The shower was in the kitchen, so I closed the kitchen door, undressed, got in and turned the hot water on. I got wet and soaped up, then the hot water was gone! There was nothing but ice cold water coming out of that little spicket. I almost tore that shower door off trying to get out of there with soap running down my head! She hollered through the door, “Sorry! I forgot to tell you we only have five gallons of hot water at a time.” What a wake up call! It took a little longer to shower.

Well, it wasn’t long until we figured out how to run things. After about two months, we got a ‘69 VW Bug and it ran great. Helen studied for her international drivers’ license and passed so she could drive to the PX and the grocery store.

I was there for about a month and they gave me a Gun Section.

There in the battery was an NCO I had been with at Fort Sill and he told everybody that I was the fastest gunner he ever saw and that I got awards for it. Pretty soon, four battalions arranged a shoot off for the fastest gunner. There were sixteen guns. Sergeant Stokes bet me $50 that he could beat me. I won in all events and I won $50 with an award. There were two more guys who had come into the battery at the same time I did and there was one E7 who didn’t like any of us. He said, “ You’ll never make a staff sergeant as long as I’m here.” I looked him straight in the eye and said, “ You can’t stop me. Now, I don’t know about these other two, but I will make it with or without your help,” and turned around and walked off from him. Now in reality, I didn’t know if I could, but he wasn’t going to know that! I won the shooting match each year when I was there in Germany. I went to the field for 30 days, twice a year then we went to a nuclear place twice a year.IT wasn’t long until Momma Helen was back in the swing of things again . We played war games once a year for 30 days. We went all over Germany for five months a year! Along with all of that, I got a secret clearance and had to go in to decode messages with an officer at times. Now a funny story of getting that clearance. The FBI came around to friends' houses and asked questions about me. They asked how I was and if they knew if I was associated with certain groups. They asked about the places where I had worked. They went to my mother’s house and asked about the normal things there. Soon after that, Mom wrote to us to see if I was doing something wrong, or what the story was. I explained what was going on and why.

I was given post charge of quarters along with battalion CQ. I had 11 duties total. We moved to post-living housing and we were the lowest rank there. A first sergeant was in charge of the grounds and stairwell, making sure it was cleaned every month. He would make a list every month with who was to clean what. One morning, he knocked on the door and said we weren’t doing our duties. Helen told him it was our month off. He told her it was not and that the yards looked bad. So Helen walked out the door to the list and showed him. It was his buddy's job; he just walked off. We had a few other run-ins with him and he would always lose the battle and Helen would show him his mistakes.

Helen tried to go on tours, but she was refused because of my security clearance. She and some lady friends of ours would plan things to do during the times the men were out. Each time we were in the field, they would have family days. Our wives would join us and we would have meals and games for the day. One time Helen was coming with a buddy of ours, a German girl. When they left, the lady sent her the wrong way. Helen told her

they were going the wrong way, but the girl said, “ This is my country, I know where I'm going.” They ended up at the Berlin border. The iron wall came up and the MPs surrounded them and asked them to get out of the car and show their IDs. I got a call from the MPs saying they had Helen at the border. I had to verify she was my wife and the company commander had to do the same and then they released her. Wow, I knew my lady was mad! I became famous again for my wife, the spy. We were known at the post for things like that.

One time the guys in the company were acting up, so before I left for the day, I told the CQ if the guys caused a disturbance to call me and I would fix the problem; don’t call the MPs. At about 7pm I got a call. I was five minutes away. I flew up the four flights of stairs and said, “ What’s going on here?” Three guys had jumped on my man while he was showering, so he grabbed one and tried to put him between the radiator and the wall. He kicked the other in the mouth. They took the radiator guy to the hospital and the third was mouthing all the time. I told him to shut up and he told me that if I didn’t have those E6 bars he would kick my tail. Well, I walked into his room, took off my shirt, and said, “ There you go!” He came running in there and met my left fist right above his eye and he went down to the floor hard. He got up and I put him down again and the fight was finished. His eye was bloody and his lip was busted, so I couldn’t let him go to the hospital. I took him home and had Helen patch him up. He told her he thought he could beat me and it would have made him a hero, but it didn’t work out that way. I took him back to the barracks and asked if they were in any more trouble. The CQ said, “ Hell no! After what you did to Gram , people started going to bed.”

On the second day after the ordeal, the first sergeant told me the command sergeant major of the post wanted to see me at 9 am and I was told not to be late. So I rushed to see what was up, with my knees knocking. I saw him. He said, “ Sergeant, I heard what went down the other night at your company level. I was told a certain sergeant took care of a problem they were having there. Do I know who that person is?” I said, “ It was me, Command Sergeant Major.” He said he knew already and he told me that he needed someone like me. He told me that he’d make it happen shortly, if I agreed. He said I’d be an E7 in three weeks, or even the next day if it was needed. He said, “ But I want you to think about it for a couple days.Talk it over with your wife. I checked up on her and I found out she is a fine lady. She’s got a good job and a promotion looking at her, too, and she is well liked in your battery.” Well, I told him I would see him in a couple of days. My time was getting short in Germany. When I got home, I told Helen what happened and asked her thoughts on it. She told me that she got an offer from her boss. The H&R Block in Germany was going to Sweden to start up there, and he wanted her to take over in Germany. For a 25 year old lady, that was a huge step! We talked about both of the offers and she decided that it was time to go home to Texas. Within an hour I agreed that we'd been away from home for too long. I told the command sergeant major about our decision the next day. He said I was making a mistake, but that my wife meant more. I said, “ Definitely, she does!” We shook hands and he said, “ It’s a shame we couldn’t have met sooner,” and I agreed. Two months later, we were home. In the time we were there, we saw a lot of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. We had very good times traveling through the three countries with our good friends. Crazy times that I will remember for the rest of my life! On our closing days a E6 Staff Sergeant was having a party at his apartment and we were invited to it . Well he was drunk and asked Helen to dance with him . And she said what she didn’t understand him . Then he grab her by her hair , then Helen pulled away from him and said stop what you are doing . No one does that to her ! Then I saw what was going on I was across the room talking to some guys . I made a quick exited to Helen she looked at me and said let’s go and not make a seen . I looked at him and said you are drunk and this is your party , but I will see you tomorrow. The next morning at 9 am I went to his tool shed for his gun . The word had gotten around what happen the night before , so his people cleared out . I just came in and said , it’s pay up time . He tried to talk his way out of it . But it didn’t work. No one puts his hands on my Lady . Then I beat him in the corner and left him in a bad way . Then everyone knew you don’t touch my Wife !

We got everything ready packed to be put in storage until we could get a place and deliver it to our home there.

I found out later in 2025 , that one of the guys I was with name Kenny Martin, the Guy we went to Switzerland with and his wife at the time . He sent me a text from a Facebook account . Of a group of guys getting together . And what they thought of me , and that really made me feel Great . All of them said nothing but good things about me , from them !

I was going to work with my father-in- law to lay water lines for small towns. It was good hard work and the pay was good. One day on the job, he told me to get a shovel to help Juan level the ditch so that the pipe we were going to lay would be straight. I looked at him and said, “ You're being funny, right?” He smiled and said,” No, Juan will show you how.” Well, I jumped in and started getting after it. I could outwork his little guy. Thirty minutes later, I was huffing and puffing, and the little guy said, “Are you ready to learn now? Let the shovel do the job. Don't force it." Then I learned the easy way to do it.

Helen and I bought an 8 x35 ft. trailer to live in, going from town to town with each job. I wasn’t crazy about the job. We went to some windy, dirt- blowing places. I don’t remember how long we were with her dad. I think we were in Tyler, Texas when I told him that I was giving him my two weeks' notice because this was not for me.

I got a job at a mom and pop convenience store. We moved into a house and rented the trailer to a guy who worked with me. Things were going well for us. After eight months, I made a friend who’s name was Dennis. He had a company named VBS (Very Busy Salesman). He sold items like small plants and odds and ends you would see at checkout counters. One day, he asked if Helen would like a job with him. She would have to get a van for her merchandise and she would get 25% of sales. She was doing great after a month, so he gave her 35% of sales. Shortly after that. he got a divorce, and went out of business.

One year later, Helen’s dad went to work in the oil field as a supervisor of a frac tank company that Helen’s uncle owned, setting frac tanks on oil locations. It was named Well Solutions. It was a very good company. He was making a killing on the job. We were very happy for Helen’s dad and mom.

Helen and I decided to move to Austin, Texas to try our luck there in the stores. There were a lot of U-Tote-M stores in Austin. I was hired right away by a store next to a high school. After being a helper for two weeks, they made me a manager. That store had been really short on inventory, so they fired the previous manager and gave the job to me. I was told that the store has not made a profit in two years. They said that if the inventory was right twice, I’d be rewarded.

That night, I told the assistant manager what I wanted done. Among other things, I wanted him to call the police to have all the guys who hung around the store gone. That next morning, I was there. It was warm out, and these kids came wearing big coats. I knew what was going down. They were in the store for about ten minutes and started toward the door. I stopped and said, “Young man, I haven't kicked anybody's ass for stealing my merchandise, yet, so do I start with you? Give it up now, so I can wait on this lady this morning.” He gave up three sodas and three candy bars and left. Then two others left with their coats open. And later that day, the teenagers that were hanging around front, about four of them, were waiting on some girls for lunch. I walked outside and looked around them at the front of the store and one guy said, “ What are you looking for?” I said, “ I am looking to see what it is that makes you guys hang here.” They said they weren’t hurting anything and I corrected them on that. I said, “If you don’t leave here in the next two minutes, I will call the police and get you for loitering!”

I had to confront many people. I dragged one kid across the counter and got a beer from him. Word got around, at the end of the month I came up good on inventory.

Later, I was promoted to a zone manager. They gave me nine stores around Texas University! My assistant got the store that I left. I was with U-tote-M for ten or eleven years.

In those 10 or 11 years, we bought three acres of land and a three bedroom 14X80 ft. trailer house. The best part of it is after being married to my dream lady for 11 1/2 years we had a beautiful little girl on August 19, 1981. We named this gift from God, Lisa. We waited for so long that we had given up.

This Little gilf was perfect, she was no trouble . We started feeding this Little girl milk with a little cereal in it because she was hungry . As she became a tattler she was easy to take care of . Two years later we moved out on three acres of land in a double-wide . We also got us a Great Dane. She was black and white , She took Lisa right away. Lisa would lay on her and put her little hand in the dog's food . Mercy was the dog's name and she would let Lisa do anything and after the dog would eat her food . We would let Lisa and the dog outside to play in the yard . Every time Lisa would start towards the road , Mercy would block her from going to the road and make her go back towards the house . She was a great dog and quite a babysitter as well . As time went on Lisa was going to school and had to ride the bus . She had to catch the bus at 6:15am , she was so small, shorter than the average 6 year old , she loved school and that made it better

In 1985, Helen joined the Worldwide Church of God. She found out that the Sabbath was on Saturday, not Sunday. She decided to stop doing Christmas that year as well. I advised her not to do it, wait until next year to give your Mom time to adjust to this new side she was showing to everyone. Well that year was tough on Helen . Her Mom went out of sight on Christmas that year with the tree and presents .They were kind of thinking we were joining a Cult . But a few months later we were back in the fold of her mom and dad . My mom said I was weird anyway, and that was it with my family. I really feel that I was meant to help her grow in the Church the right way . Along with getting to the point she was destined to be with the Church of God. I was the one appointed to do that along with my oldest daughter, Lisa to be on the right road. I feel that Helen is waiting to take her place in the plans of God.

We adopted our second little princess, Sarah, on April 25, 1986. We adopted her from my niece, Janet, who was the stepdaughter of Harold. She was 31 minutes old when Helen put her hands on her, and she was in heaven at that moment. Both girls were a blessing. We were as happy as any couple could be.

As time was moving on in months to come , I would do my usual thing at bedtime. I would tell my girls bedtime stories like The Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood, Little Black Sambo, ect. I never knew how they ended, so I would put my own twist to them to spice them up a little. Helen would go wild and say, “That’s not how it goes!” Then I would tell her, “ That's how mine ends!” Lisa tells me later in life that she just loved the stories I told her. It’s one of her fondest memories of childhood. That's one of my big accomplishments in my life to hear that .

Well the time came when we decided to move to Tacoma, Washington. Helen’s brother, Robert, was in the Air Force there, and we wanted to see what it looked like. So we sold land and then packed up and moved there. It was interesting, the two years that we lived there. It rained all the time and we mostly managed apartments while there. One night, I was in the store getting things with the girls. I had Sarah in the basket. She was four years old and she had been giving Lisa trouble all day. She was acting up in the store and when we got to the checkout counter, Sarah was doing her thing and I was trying to write a check, so I said, “ Lisa, choke your sister!” I heard this noise and I turned around and Lisa was really doing it! These two guys at the checkout were laughing hard! I just looked at them and said, “ It’s been one of those days.” One of the exciting times of raising children, they are filled with all kinds of adventures. If you have kids you know what I mean ! But I wouldn’t change a thing . So 1991 was coming to an end and things weren't improving with our finances, we were doing okay but there was something missing . It was a very disappointing time for me , I would usually have jobs stacked up before me at any given time in my life . But not here in Washington, but then everything changed in a moment's notice ! I was going to this Aviation class, learning how to be a mechanic on airplanes . I was working at this KMart and out in the Garden Center and this old woman came out there and had a garden pinwheel . The things was about five years old and she wanted a new one . Because this one stopped working! I told her no, it's worn out . Well she wanted to see the Manager so after she talked to him she got a new one . A few days later , this same lady came again and was looking at these plants in six inch pots. They were all the same with the little tag in them but one . She called me over and asked me what kind of plant this one was . It didn’t have a tag in the pot , and I told her with a lot of restraint in my voice . That it was the same as the others . So she said she wasn’t going to buy it because it didn’t have a tag in it . So as a nice guy that I am , I took one out of another pot and shushed it in the pot . Then she bought it, and everyday that lady came into the store no matter where I was I had to wait on her . No one else could wait on her. She wanted me , the rich oh bitch , maybe it’s I didn’t take any shit from her and she liked it that I would and the others wouldn’t. Shirley McLean and Linda Evans would come in that store, and I waited on her a couple of times. They would try to hide their Identity, but it wouldn’t work. Others would see them and tell everybody and draw attention to them.

On October 17, 1991, my Dad died. I went back to Amarillo, where my Mom and Dad lived. Helen and the kids stayed in Washington because we didn’t have the money for all four of us to go. I was going to stay at my in-laws house that night but something told me that Mom might want me there for her comfort . We buried my dad on a Saturday and that night I was sleeping in the first bedroom on the left down the hallway. I heard a noise in the hallway and my sister was asking my mom if she was okay. I got up immediately and put my pants on and went out in the hall to see what was going on. Mom was leaning on the door facing of the bathroom. I asked what was wrong, and Mom was mumbling something. Edna brought her back to her bedroom and when she sat down on the bed she just fell back and I heard a rush of air leave her lungs. I had Edna help me pull her up straight in the bed and I started giving her CPR. Edna brought the other brothers and sister to come to the doorway of her room. I was still giving Mom CPR. I had gotten CPR lessons in the army and I had given many classes on it afterwards. The army said probably the first time you will use it will be on a loved one. They were right on that; here was my mom. I had Barbara blow in her mouth the proper way as I gave her the chest pressure pumps. Not one of my family members knew how to help Mom. Edna went to get the nurse that lived across the street. Barbara just jumped up and said she couldn’t do it anymore and ran out of the room, so I was doing it all by myself again. Fifteen minutes later the nurse took over for me and we called for the ambulance. When it arrived they took over from there. I was relieved she was alive and breathing. I don’t recall that she said thank you for my actions that night. I was thinking that she wanted to live.

Years later, she told Barbara and Wanda that I should have let her die that night. They didn’t tell me about this until years after she told them .

I talked to my father in law in the next few days after the funeral. He offered me a job at Well Solutions and I said I would take it. I moved my family from Tacoma, Washington to the oil fields in Giddings, Texas. Giddings is a small town between Austin and Houston. We were glad to be back in Texas. I was hired to set frac tanks wherever they were needed. I worked long hours. That’s what we needed to get settled, and I was very happy to do it. I was working with four others doing the job. Brady was well liked by all the oil companies, large and small. This man was a man of integrity. If he said he would do something, he did it. If something was needed, it was done on time. If, for any reason it couldn’t be done, he would be there telling the big bosses how and when it would get done. That’s a rarity in this business! That’s why the work would pile into the company by the truck loads. That man was everything men wanted to be.

This one guy named Randy was Brady’s number one man. He knew the job inside out and ninety five percent of all locations were and we would be going all the time and I told him that I would learn where they are in a short time and he would not have to go out after hours and set a tank . Within that year I was setting them mostly at night . Funny thing I looked at Helen and told her years ago that I would never drive an 18 wheeler ever.

We were working on our house trailer on top of the roof one day and we quit one afternoon and were going to finish up the next morning . So the next morning she was going up the ladder first and I was right behind her , then she stopped halfway up and said I can’t go any higher. I am scared shitless . I thought she was playing then she started back down. She put her butt in my face and said what are you doing , so I got off the ladder . And just that fast she was through with heights ? Well it wasn’t ever or for ever just 22 1/2 years in the business of driving trucks . But it was exciting. It was something new everyday the animals you saw and the people WoW THERE were something out of the norm I tell you . I saw alligator , ostrich emus donkeys bobcats deer pheasants how many birds just to cover the surface of things wild hogs more than you can count they were wild running loose snakes a lot .You had to be alert at all times . All kinds of bees would attack you . You can say just abounce of things to keep you on your toes on locations and driving ! Like I said, keep you on your toes.

My Father in law died of cancer before I left Well Solutions. It was a very big loss to our family and to the company. His funeral was very large. All the oil companies’ bosses showed up. There were flowers everywhere. It was something to see!

I remember about one time I was out at a location. I was already hooked up to the saltwater tank pumping into my vacuum trailer. It usually took about 20 minutes to do so . It was in the summer and sunny and hot , I had my door opened and was writing up the ticket for the location. My mind was totally focused on the ticket. Then all of a sudden there was this black face with its beak open and staring at me ! I did not recognize what it was ! But it Scared me very badly . I Screamed Like a little girl , and did my best trying to get to the other side of the cab. I shoved myself over the steering wheel and gear shift and I thought I pushed the knob in my leg . Then I knew that it was a black faced emu. Well then I knew I wasn’t going to be eaten ! All it was doing was being nosy; they are very curious animals . Well I didn’t walk very well for a couple hours after .But that’s just the small excitement you run into in this job . I also remember a time I was to go to a location and was told not to forget to close the gate going to this location . The owner of the land had his bull separated from its herd so don’t forget to close the gate . Well when I got there I looked all around and I could not see the bull so as good as I was I left it open I would be finished real quickly! No worries mate , so I was loading up my tanker of salt water . Then the land owner drove up to me and said you know what you did and I want that bull back in his own pasture before you leave . I said sure no problem, I got it . Now when I was leaving I noticed that the cows were all white faced cows and the bulls were very gentle , well I got this ! I pulled across this cattle guard halfway and stopped just to keep the bull from jumping over it to the other field . Then I noticed the bull was a very large Jersey Bull and they are one of the meanest bulls they are ,this bull was about 1500 pounds and about five feet from ground to shoulders then add neck and head with large horns , the first thing out of my mouth was Man Am I IN TROUBLE !! Well I got out and walked until about 15 feet from it and Hollowed and it took off to the end of the fence to the corner and turned around and looked at me and then pawed the ground . Well I was a tuff Guy but this tuff guy was thinking could I make it to the fence close to me it was about ten feet away and get over the barb wire before that bull would eat me up . Then I just Hollowed again and the Bull took off to the field he was in and went running in there and kept running . Man I did not know why I screamed but I am so glad I did . I ran to the truck and went through the one the bull went through and got out and closed the gate!

My sister Edna died of Lou Gehrig’s Disease in March, 1993.

Two Years later, after Dad .One year I don’t remember the year , myself and the girls were at my Mom’s house in Arkansas. Helen stayed at home because of her job . Helen thought it would be good that myself and the girls go for a visit . One night at Mom’s place, the remainder or I should say five of her kids were sitting in the living room of Mom’s house. I asked her, “ If birth control had been available, how many kids would you have had?” She straightened up in her chair and said, "Honestly, just two." The family gasped in surprise. They said, "What?!"

I thought that was funny. I laughed for about three minutes, knowing they did not have a clue of the hardships she went through with all of us and the grandkids. Then I asked another question, “ Mom, if you could have left Dad, would you have done it and gone home, if your mother would have let you?" Again,she straightened up and said, "Yes, but that was out of the question with her." There was the same reaction from the kids.

She turned to me and said, "Well, it looks like you were the only one we didn’t fool." Then I asked the most important question to me of the night. "You didn’t like Dad much for years because he changed jobs all the time and it made it hard on you. But after he retired and got sick, you and he became friends again and the love started building again. You told me that I was a whole lot like Dad. Is that why you didn’t like me for a long time? You didn’t encourage me in school or jobs to do better, just a little job to get by. That told me that you were unhappy in your life."

She looked me in the eyes and said, "Yes." She looked at everyone in the room and told them that she had given up everything for them and never had anything but them or for herself . (Then said we could have a life like you and Helen Ann?) The cost was way too high. Helen had brought it to my attention about twenty years back. Then we started looking closer,and it was all there. My brothers and sisters said they never had a thought of them being unhappy and feeling unloved. I wanted to tell them that if they weren't so wrapped up in themselves, they would have seen it years before. Mom was beaten and ready to call it a life that day in Amarillo, when I saved her life . I wished Helen was there to hear Mom say what she and I had known for years. The next day, my brothers and sisters were back in their own little "me,me'' world. Helen and I talked about what happened when I got home.

My mother looked at me differently from that day forward. I don’t recall my mother ever telling me that she loved me. I guess she did, in her own way. That was how she was raised by my Grandmother Guy. That’s how Grandma Guy was. She didn’t tell anyone she loved them. My mom only said it to Tommy, Edna, and Harold; then later in life to Barbara. She didn’t tell me, Wanda, or Richard. Funny, but I guess she had her reasons.

Then some seventeen years later when we were still living in Giddings, Mom called us one night and asked when we could come and see her. She felt that she wouldn’t be around much longer. She was tired and needed a rest, so Helen told her to come and live with us. Then I heard my Mom say, “You would do that, after the way I treated you all these years?" Then Helen said, "I understand why you did, and yes, I would”. The day after that, Mom died in the hospital on August 12, 1997. It's strange how it ended.

Then just a few years later, I lost two brothers and my youngest sister within nineteen months of one another. My oldest brother, Tommy, died of Parkinson’s Disease. Richard died of heart disease. My youngest sister, Barbara, died of liver cancer. Only my sister, Wanda, and brother, Harold are still going .

We lived out of town about three miles and we had friends down from Waco visiting us. Their names were Troy and Zona Rigs. They were our age. One day he was aggravating Helen while she was fixing dinner for us. She told him to stop, but he kept on. He loved to aggravate her. So she told him if he didn't stop she was going to take him down and give him a carpet burn on his face! Well, that’s what happened. That made his wife mad and he said,” Baby, we were just playing”.

I could take my vacation anytime I wanted because I never missed a day's work and My wife was in the church of God Inc.and every year we would go to the Feast for ten days at a religious retreat.It was usually in Arkansas or Missouri. We got to go to South Africa in 2009 so off we went afterwards at the end of the retreat we got to go on to . Kruger national wildlife game safari . For three days that was the most rewarding trip we got to go on . Stayed in thatched roof huts, outside showers and saw many wild animals . After that, I was back seeing regular animals again back home in Texas! The guys asked me how I can afford to go to Africa. I just said well I don’t buy my kids $500 dollar phone or $360 dollars game boxes and all that other stuff!

When I started with that New Company it was doing $300 thousand a month . In the Seven and half I was with it, it was doing one million dollars a month.I was very glad I was a part that made that way . Not bragging, just fact is all there is to it !

We would go shopping in town or the towns close by .You know me I would come up and say something dumb or stupid just to get a laugh from her. I Loved hearing her laugh . So today we were in the Walmart frozen foods area. I was being silly. She said when did you get so dumb ! Well I turned around in front of the buggy and started singing a Temptation song loudly. Well it was the third of September, a day I will always remember, after a short time doing the song . Then I looked around and there were about nine people there ! They were never more than one or two around , no not that time ! They laughed and clapped for me and Helen’s face was as red as a red crayon , I guess mine was a little . I would do things like that anywhere . And other times when the girls were with us and Lisa would laugh and enjoy the moment. But Sarah was just the opposite; she didn’t care for it . But I still did it , that was just me wanting to get a laugh from Helen . Sarah and Lisa were going to public school then. Sarah loved being with other kids her age, but Lisa wanted to go back to homeschooling. Lisa really did it all herself and got her GED certificate. After that, she went to Blinn Community College in Brenham.

Sarah went on to finish public school and graduated. We were proud of both the girls. Lisa went to a local college nearby. Sarah went to work in town right after school. She was not interested in college at the time. She got her apartment and started working straight away and she had her own car . She was doing good on her own in town. Lisa was still at home with a job as well.

I left Well Solitons after working there for 15 years. There was a new oil field service company starting up in town. Other people I had worked with were working there, so I saw a chance to advance in the newly started company called Advance Hydrocarbon Service. After working there for two weeks, I was asked to be the dispatcher there. I was the one who got the trucks there with the right equipment needed at the right time. I started out with 12 vacuum trucks and we had six trucks at night. We ran 24/7, 365 days a year and we never closed. As oil companies called in for a truck to come out and help the pumper he was the company man who kept the machines working to pump the oil and saltwater to the surface and into the right tanks each the oil or the saltwater tanks. . Everyday was different from the time I was a Vacuum truck driver . I dealt with 12 different oil companies,and it got wild at times! In just a few years, we were up to 22 trucks during the day and 12 on the night shift. I learned from my father in law how to treat people in the oil field, and the outcome was very good. I talked for years over the phone and never saw them ,you get to know them , but never meet them and as years pass then you get the chance to finally meet them and they don’t look anything like you thought they would ! And you were not like they visioned you to look either . It was really a nice thing to meet them finally and both of you just laughed and said what they thought you would look like . It was one of those really nice things that happened .I developed a bond between the drivers , because I knew what they would run into during the day they would be asked to do and help them in knowing how to do the job they would be asked to do .

And to go along with the drivers thing I would work with the pumpers as well tell them when I could get them someone out to the location . My SUPERVISORS WOULD SAY TO THEM YES WE WILL HAVE SOMEONE RIGHT OUT ! So about 30 minutes after the time was said the truck was to be there ,the Pumper would call me and want to know where the truck was. I would tell them I had no idea that they wanted one ! And would tell them when it would be there or as close I could get . I became friends with the bosses of other oil companies that the company was working with. They even stopped to visit me as they came to talk about the things that they talked to the supervisors or the yard boss.

One day I was going through the Mechanics shop and I noticed this man was talking to the guys in the shop and the man asked me who I was. I knew his name was Don Parkinson

the owner of the business. So I told him this was his lucky day and I told him who I was ,and he said he heard a lot about me and he came to meet me . So I said follow me Sir because I got to get to my job and I don’t want to be late !

He thought that was really funny and followed me to the dispatch office . We drank coffee as I started my job and found out all about what's going on. He was sitting in the office for about an hour. He told me that I was very popular with oil companies. I told him I was just doing my job that I really liked. He told me he listened on the radio to me talking to the drivers; how I would carry on with them and help them find the locations. He said that that was another reason why he was there. He personally wanted to give me a raise of two dollars an hour starting that week. I said,” Thank you very much, sir”. He said he also noticed that the drivers thought very highly of me because I didn’t show favoritism to any driver. I didn’t save easy jobs for anyone. Another hour passed, and he left. When drivers go out on a job they usually have Wasp spray in their trucks for flying insects, bees etc.

So we had this big guy and he was sent to a location .

He informed me that he didn’t have wasp spray in the truck .

So I told him that bees don't sting people in August because it’s their mating season , I was just pulling stuff out of the air to be funny 😄! Well to my surprise no one said anything to him,the Guys would normally come on their radios and say something but not today they didn’t so he went on to the location . As he was going up the ladder to the top of the tank he would take a gauge of a tape measure to see how much saltwater was in the tank. The yellow jackets bees would build their nest under one of the steps . As you would go up and step on the step the bees would swarm all around you the driver would start swatting at them as the driver would give off this smell of Farr moans an order of fear and make them mad and sting you . The trick to that was to stay calm and they would not sting you. But he didn’t do that so the bees got him good in a little bit he called when he finished the job of loading said he was going to kill me when he got to the yard .Well that was going to be his last job for today ,now the other drivers got on their radios and started laughing at him because he believed me knowing as much BS as I would tell them in fun just for laughs ! Well he was coming to get me so I told him , well come on I am not going anywhere ! I had this bat that the drivers use to check the tires on the trucks. It's two inches around at the top and tapers down like a bat and it was hanging on the wall beside me. The night shift dispatcher had it for safety reasons . I am 6 foot 1 inch tall 200 pounds so that made me 2 inches shorter and 75 pounds light . So in a few minutes he was in the doorway to my office and stopped and looked at me and said !! I came to kick your Butt and after thinking on it and after all the guys reminded me of all the things you do to make us laugh and help make our day . I know I was a Dummy to believe you . So I am sorry I got mad at you. I should have realized it was BS , like when you ask how many hoses we got on our truck., We would naturally think we were going on a service job then when we tell you . You say well don’t lose any because the night shift will need them so come on to the yard and get the truck ready . Then we laughed about the whole thing. The bees stung him nine or ten times. He wasn't feeling good and went home . So I tell him my secret, try to ignore the bees and come out without one sting. Try it you will like the outcome, an old man told me the trick some years ago when I started !

So goes another day in the life of a dispatcher in the oil field. The owner, Don Parkinson, had two yards and I was operating in the Giddings yard. He also owned one in Bryan College Station some thirty miles northeast of Giddings. There was a very large oil company named Union Pacific Railroad Company (UPR). The manager of this company came by and dropped off tickets for a concert in Austin for me. Johnny Condell, the top supervisor of the yard, was jealous that he didn’t get one, so he gave it to the owner, Don Parkinson, instead of me. I was off that Friday night, so James called me and asked if I enjoyed the show. Then I informed him I didn’t know anything about it at all. That man got mad and knew what went down. There was trouble coming down the pipes, and when it was over, Johnny was mad at me for months. I asked him why he did that. He never said a word because he thought everything should be his. If James wanted to give Don Parkinson a ticket he would have gone to the other yard. Johnny gave the ticket to him to get points. That's the way he was for the twenty years I knew him. Being that way costs the company a lot of money. He was good at his job, but I heard it finally cost him his job. Again on this Johnny Supervisor Guy , Sometime when I had four or five trucks out on location filling Frac Tanks and they could hold 500 gallons of fluids the tanks and they were five or six to fill Johnny would go out there and try to Supervise the drivers and he would just cause mayhem on location . Then I would get calls from the drivers asking if I got rid of him ,even the Pumpers would call me and beg me to get him out of the way so the drivers could get the job done with speed ! So Johnny would give everyone and me misery. The YARD BOSS WAS NOT QUITE AS BAD , he would do things and if it turned up bad he would blame it on someone else . Sometimes another Supervisor or I would find out and had to correct it, call the pumper and tell him or them , we had a miscommunication on the subject ! Yes, lie to them , and you know they knew who did it and would say it to me ! That ‘s the kind of trust that being Honest with the companies I had , built over the years I was there . But don’t think I was Perfect. I wasn't. I did my stuff too on occasions .And I had my Beautiful WIFE AND TWO BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTERS LISA AND SARAH in all this time . Married and having aWONDERFUL LIFE AS WELL . My Wife Helen was a Caregiver and maintained our home . She was working with some of the Oil Company Bosses wife I was working with and they knew Helen from their wife’s tell’s of how good and caring a person she was with their patients.

Both of my girls really grew up in Giddings. It was a town of 5,200 people, mostly of German descent. It was hard to be accepted by them if you weren't born and raised there, but where I worked it was easy, because everyone was in the same boat. My wife had to deal with a different environment of people. As for my two girls, they did quite well with the ones they encountered. Sarah married a boy from there . Lisa married a guy in the Church from El Paso and he has been a part of this family for 23 years. They have three children; two girls and a boy, and they are what a parent would want their kids to be. Someone to be proud of. and others to say !

That is one of the things that every parent lives for, to raise their child to be a God- fearing person, having love and compassion for others,,to do the right things and to teach their children the right paths to go down. We feel that this has been accomplished with Lisa and Joseph, our son in law! As for Sarah, she has chosen another path to go down. She has chased the world's way and will not worry about who or how much it hurts someone or herself later. She has three kids and doesn’t care about them. She doesn’t want them hurt, but she doesn’t have that mother instinct that mothers have. I can’t hold that against her because it was not in her biological make up. Maybe one day she will find her way. My oldest sister was another that didn’t get the gene of motherhood you might say .my two other sisters did .

Do we all come under some shortage of genes being passed on? I think it would be a very interesting quest to explore.

After twenty one years of Giddings, Helen had had all she could take. I was still working twelve hours a day or more. The girls were married and gone and she got lonely. Lisa was living in Denton, Texas, so my beautiful lady wanted to move to the Dallas area. She wanted to be near our grandbabies, so after two months she found the house that she wanted in Oak Point in 2011. I was going to retire and join her in 16 months, but in the meantime, I would spend a weekend with her in Denton; then she would go to Giddings the next weekend.

I retired on July 3,2013 at the age of 63. I was glad when we could be together all the time, but it took some adjustment. We were not used to being around one another every minute of the day. She told me I got in the way of her routine! So I was trying to work on my routine as well, but in time we adapted to one another. I had this stuffed bobcat that I was given a few years back and didn’t have a place to put it on display . We had these friends and both of us thought about giving the Bobcat . We were giving them a fireplace Mantel so we took it along as well . We got there and were unloading the Mantel and asked Mary if she wanted the cat and she said she did , so it was hers .We found what Mary did to her husband , she and her two sons set him up . When her husband got home from work she and her two teenage Sons told him an animal came through the open front door and ran up stairs in their bedroom . So all of them go up to the bedroom door and he looks in to see the BobCat. They had it leaning up on the other side of the bed where you could only see him looking at the bedroom door . Matt could only see from his shoulders up . Matt closed the door and said we have serious troubles ! Mary handed him a blanket to throw over it . Matt looked at Mary and said that’s not going to do it . Then Mary and the boys started laughing and said it's stuffed , that they got it from Helen and Don . Well that story went from coast to coast and his work as well . We laughed for a good while over it .

Looking at our finances, we could maintain our means of living, but I was having health problems. I was having trouble walking, and both of my knees needed to be replaced. On a scale of 1-10, my pain was at a 7. After a little while, I received a scooter from the VA to help me get around.

One day. I was going to take the trash cans to the street for pickup the next morning. I got on the scooter. It was at medium speed, about three mph, so I reached over to grab the handle of a trash can. I did it with ease and placed it right where it needed to be. When I was going for the second trash can, I set it full speed at eight mph. I grabbed the can, and I realized it didn’t set right. As I leaned over, the seat on the scooter turned. I was about to fall off the scooter so I grabbed the handlebar on the scooter and when I got it, my hand squeezed the speed bar and away I went! I was leaning out from the scooter with one hand on the trash can, the other on the handle bar pushing the speed bar down full speed ahead. The wheel was pulled to the right as far as it could go. I was going eight miles an hour in a tight circular motion. I could not straighten up. If I had let go of the trash can, the trash would be all over the street. As I would make a round, I was getting closer to the ditch on the other side of the street. Well, I finally let go of the trash can and it went right where it should have been. I grabbed the handle bar with my left hand and I fell off the scooter in the middle of the street! As soon as my right hand left the throttle, the scooter stopped because it was electric. I laid there in the street so I could get myself together. I got up and no one saw my ordeal, so I turned down the speed and went to the garage and went into the house and told Helen about it. It took a minute to stop laughing to tell her, then we laughed for fifteen minutes about it. Well life goes on with us doing silly things that we share with one another.

Life was good with us; we became closer. I didn't think that was possible, but we did. We were happy with one another and the joy we shared was fantastic!

Life is not easy and don’t try to make it that way. And it won't ever be. Don’t fall into that trap,like the entitlement trap of feeling you’re a victim.

Happiness is a different form of joy. If I do this or get this I will be happy; if I don’t, I won’t. Happiness demands a certain outcome. But if happiness is what you are after then you are going to be let down a lot, so get ready. My wife realized this years back, and we talked about it a lot.

Joy is a different thing. Joy is a choice. Joy is the feeling that we have from doing what we are made to do, no matter the outcome. I enjoyed my job. I stopped trying to make daily labor a means to a certain end. It was an approach to doing what we’re made to do and enjoying my work. Do yourself a favor; don’t become someone or something that you are not. At times I thought that I shouldn't leave things undone. Like when you owe someone money and sometime in the future you see them and you have to hide. That would just cause more guilt and stress. You are always looking over your shoulder. So let’s create more outcomes that pay us back for the time we have left. That is just some of the wisdom my wife and I came up with.

I try to smile everyday and make someone smile and let them know that they are important and their smile can and does make their day go better. That is in their power to make their day better! For the last four years I would come up to a person at a checkout line and look at their name and say their name and say that you are the reason I come to this line because they say you have a beautiful voice and I come to hear you sing to me in this line. I would get one out of six to sing. But here is the deal, they were noticed by someone that day! The smiles that were alive and noticed the troubles of their day were forgotten, and they would just be all giggles. It didn’t hurt or insult anyone. And to me, that is something to share with a stranger; a moment out of the day to laugh together . I think it’s nice when someone notices another person to make them smile over nothing.

They don’t think you are trying to pick them up . You are just trying to make them laugh , and when they see this they enjoy it more .

One day Helen said she wasn’t feeling good; something was not right. Her bowels had gotten messed up. It was very hard to go to the bathroom and do her thing on the toilet. She went to an oncologist and he x-rayed her and did some tests. It came back that she had colon cancer. He told her that he could operate and felt certain he could get it all. Well he did operate on her and after three months , and after several months of chemo treatments, the cancer was back and the treatments were starting to work against her body. We were going through a lot of sorrow and pain with one another. This just destroyed all our plans of being with the family and our time together. We knew it wasn’t going to end well; that our life together was coming to a fast end. In October of 2020, Helen was in hospice and I found out that I needed triple bypass surgery. In December, I went to the VA Hospital in Dallas and had my surgery and was out in five days.I came through that with flying colors! I went home to my baby to let her see my smiling face. I was still around for her and nothing could keep me away from her! We had gotten a hospital bed and put it in the living room where she could be with the rest of us during the day . She couldn’t walk. She was bedridden. Lisa and family moved in so she could help take care of her mom. They were glad they could help and the nurses came every day to check her and make her comfortable. I stayed by her side 24/7 for months. Nothing was more important than being with her.

We had a recliner three feet away and I stayed in that chair and slept there every night for eight months. She always stayed in good spirits and smiled. The nurses were always happy to come see her. She had that smile that just made you feel good all over. Her smile and her loving heart were two of the most beautiful things. Plus, those eyes of hers made me fall so in love with her that I never wanted anyone else for the rest of my life! I held to that promise for the rest of her life, and maybe mine as well.

She asked if I could leave the lamp on at night. Maybe she knew she would be in the dark soon enough. On August 4, at 4am, I just woke up and looked at her in her bed and out of nowhere I told her I would play her favorite song; Perfect by Ed Sheeran. After that she was gone. I got to be with her taking her last breath of life. I looked at the clock and it was 4:30 am. That very special lady of my life has gone to the resting place of peace. The next moment she wakes up, she will be with God in no pain ever again!

There’s a poem that I read to her once:

If tomorrow starts without me ,and I’m not here to see

If the sun should rise, you find your eyes all filled with tears for me,

I wish so much you wouldn’t cry the way you did today

While thinking of the many things we didn’t get to say.

An angel came and called my name and took me by the hand.

He said, my place is ready, in heaven far above

And that I’d to leave behind all those I dearly love

The poem continues in saying beautiful things!

That’s just some of the things I think about.

Her ashes were spread over her Mom and Dads graves. she would have liked to symbolically be with her mom and dad. Celeste, her sister in law, came up with that idea.

I have been trying to find my way without her being beside me thinking of what’s best. It’s a new chapter in my life. Alone without my rock in my life beside me. It's been hard some days. She's still here. Her presence is everywhere in the house and in the things I do. We were one. You might think that’s funny, but for fifty two years together it’s very true . I have rearranged the living room and made other small changes here and there. I went to Henderson, Nevada, to my niece’s house and my nephew's house. I’ve been to Bob and Celeste’s house, too. They have still been close friends of mine for fifty six years now. I still don’t know the way to just take each day as it comes. I hope in time I will get something going. I know she would want me to go on and be happy.

So who is my hero? I think it’s myself because I have chosen to go on and be happy and enjoy my life because I have had a once in a lifetime marvelous lady, and not too many people can say that.

So I will continue with my life and see what awaits around the next corner. Will it be another once in a lifetime adventure? We'll see. Maybe it will be my daughter’s family that I will be a part of; time will tell. My life has been an exciting trail of adventures with my wife. The funny thing is, I am just like you, so smile! Your life is in your control and no one else’s.

Today I start a new adventure, a new chapter. I wonder where or what’s next. The sky's the limit! I’ll be seeing you , I remember I started a new life with Helen and I started a new life together everyday for the Rest of our lives. I told her she will always see Happy days and Never get to ruff ! Then I looked at her and said you know I can’t promise you that, but I can promise you that I will never look back.So we were off on the closing of our life together , not knowing how short that would be. We, like all couples, were saying this and that we could do this or that and we had plenty of time to think on the most important things . At first we just enjoyed being together all the time for a couple of months . Then she told me I was interrupting her daily routine in the house, That I need to get on a project outside ,like grow flowers or something so she can get her work done ! Well I will show her , so I said Okay and went outside and started my flower growing job ! It was slow at first. I had experiential trails at first. My Dad did this so it can't be that hard . . Looking at what I could do and before long I was a halfway Gardner not that bad ! I was doing that and doing the yards up keep . We would take a trip here and there. Go to my Nieces Susie in Henderson by Vegas Nevada. Then down to Round Rock by Austin to see our daughter Sarah and family Alex and our granddaughter Danika for a couple of days . Then off to see Robert and Celeste Helen’s brother and sister in law and Tammy and Paul our niece and nephew and kids . They live in AMARILLO ,which keeps us busy . We would go to church every Saturday. Then to the Feast for ten days once a year out of state and stay in a motel . We went to South Africa I said earlier and after we went on going to other Feast sites . We did this for a number of years going out of state .We're starting to save up some cash for a Big Trip. I didn't know where yet but somewhere , we were enjoying our life together. Just being together and talking about anything and everything laughing.Yes I was still doing things like break out to sing to her in public places and she would laugh, to me it gave great pleasure to see and hear her laugh and smile and her eyes would light up ! Now boys and girls that is Happiness and Joy ! Really doing nothing but being together and sharing time with each other ! Like most of you don’t know what it means .That your Wife , Partner the Love of your life was ready to do any and everything with you with no second thought . One of the wonders of life , I know there are some that have been blessed like me having a Lady like mine ! She was liked by everyone, I know you think, I think she’s perfect. Okay she had faults I think ? Anyway, with the story, as things were rolling along, enjoying being close to Lisa and her family Joseph and three lovely children , Hannah,Katie, and Nathan. It has been six years since I retired and I am enjoying it . Then in the year of 2019 I don’t recall the month it was when Helen said she wasn’t feeling too good . She was having stomach trouble and having trouble going on the toilet. So she got an appointment with an Oncologist and he went through the regular exam, x-rays and a Colostomy and found Cancer! Her Mom and Dad died from Cancer.Helen’s Dad They just burned him up with Radiation treatments, her Mom had brain Cancer and both died .

She was not going to let them burn her up . So it was decided that she would just leave it up to God if she was going to be healed .

Things were going very well with the life we were living , our bills were being paid off quickly. Thinking of the places we would like to see far off and near us as well . But things had to be put on hold and we had a new problem facing us . In the last few years there have been problems with myself ! Like Diabetes , I needed both my knees replaced. My pain was a seven on a scale of ten being the worst . I also had MS to boot, I had all this covered by the VA and getting disability payments each month. The same year 2019 I turned 69 and I was at the VA on my MS and after the doctor looked at me she said , you got anything that is hurting you I said yes my knees and told her they have been hurting the last twelve years like this . Then she asked how old I was and looking at my records, she turned to me and said well go to the X-Rays and get your knees done . After that I was scheduled for a complete knee replacement on my left knee . I guess I had to be 69 before this could happen ! It was July of 2019 I had it done . At the same time Helen was taking Chemotherapy for her Colon Cancer every week . She did this for about eight months before they operated on her . The Doctor was positive he would get it all he was a good Doctor and did everything he could with the procedure and follow up process.Went in and cut a foot off her colon and gave her a hysterectomy She had to go back to having Chemotherapy every week and Medicare wasn’t paying everything we was paying as well on this therapy. Then it was the year 2020 in August that year I had my right knee completely replaced , as I was in the hospital the doc came in said you need to have your heart looked at asap because I had a fib action during the operation . Doing this time Helen found out her Colon Cancer was back and the Chemo was going against her body . So it was time to have that once in a lifetime , we both knew that when she came down with Cancer we knew what the outcome would be . Now she was bedridden and she couldn’t do much of anything. So Lisa and family moved in with us to help care for her mom . The time was October 12th 2020 she went into the hospice program company called Vista. It was a really good company and the nurses were great. They just Loved coming out to care for Helen , she was always Smiling and Happy and was not going to be an OLD GRUMPY LADY ! She was a caregiver a few years back in Giddings. We got her a hospital bed for her to put in the living room to be with us. I was spending more and more time by her side . Then in December the first week I went into the Dallas hospital I had tests saying that out of the three blood supply veins . The right vein was 80% stopped up, the left one was 100% stopped up, the center was 70% stopped up. So December the first I went in to have the Triple Bypass Surgery that was a Friday morning. Everything went perfect. I was in surgery for eleven hours . I was feeling Super Saturday morning. Maybe it was because I had full blood flow . Everyone said I was their Miracle child the way things went , I was out of the hospital Monday morning. I was coming home to my Sweetheart and to let her know I am alive and kicking just for her ! I quit doing a lot outside only when I had to , she wanted me to be by her 24/7 . We had a recliner and the table lamp between us , and that’s where I set and slept at night for eight months . We still talked a lot to one another about what she wanted me to do , to have a life and be happy . Now she was getting worse with each day passing , she was going through the normal stages of her body shutting down. In July of 2021 she stopped eating ,the body could last for seven days I believe . August 1st she couldn’t take liquids. The Nurse said she had three days left . The morning of August 4th I woke up at four am , I looked at her and said You look Beautiful and I Loved her with all my Heart ! In just a second I will play your favorite song . Then I played the song PERFECT , she loved that song after the song , I told her I Loved Her again , that’s when she took her last breath of life ! I was so blessed to be there and having her in my life’ I looked at the clock and it was 4:30 am . I then called Lisa and told her . They were on their way over , there was a lot that was going to be going on today . Today or this morning was going to be the last time I would see her body . This Gorgeous Lady will be gone from my life in body and spirit , but live in my HEART forever ! And there’s times I hear her in my Heart speaking to me ! In the times I miss her very much , I hear her saying it’s going to be alright ! The night after her death I remember when I was in Nam . One of the guys got a care package from home. He had two packages of cookies .He was out doing something so I helped myself with two cookies . I didn’t think he would mine if I did , I shared my stuff with him and everyone else . So I told him to eat shit and die . Well we started getting incoming rockets .He was out before me so he was up on the burn and I was below him and back twenty feet and a rocket hit him dead on and his left arm fell on my right shoulder. That got to me, not the blood and arm hitting me . It was that I could never tell him I was just kidding him about it ! My chance was gone in ever telling him that . And now not being able to tell her more that I Love her greatly . You see how things can change in a moment's noise , your chance is taken from you . And you will never get it back again.

So I started my new life without the love of my life. What was I going to do? I had no idea. I was lost in the dark looking for something. It seemed like almost every movie I watched showed someone dying of cancer in it. It made me more aware of death these days and the memory of my lady. I was sad for a lot of days. I had to get out of this stage I was getting pulled into. I knew I needed to get rid of a lot of stuff; the ladies clothes and things. I got rid of some furniture that I didn’t want. Funny, the things you keep. In our bedroom, on the left side of the bathroom door, sits a pair of Helen’s shoes. I just could not move them or pick them up. They’ve been there for two years now. I know Lisa has moved or picked them up, but put them right back.

I have bought two new recliners and a cabinet for the TV and rearranged the living room. It's to my liking. I have five recliners in my living room .

Everyone likes my arrangement , with more to come through the house . Thinking about having someone come out and do my flower beds up so I would have flowers and plants the whole year round this February. I have so many plans in my head . It’s a strange feeling that I want to do something and I don’t have her to say,” Let’s go! Let’s do it!” So for now I will go on in life no matter how long it is. I will have a Smile on my face and try to make others Smile . Just to let them know they have been noticed and are someone and someone who wants to be a friend. That we have come and met one another no matter how brief it may be , we Smiled at one another. Who really knows what might turn out from this tiny introduction. Maybe they needed that Smile to help them through a ruff time or an attitude they were getting . And that Smile that took over their mine for just that instance, saved them from making a rash decision in life Maybe ! Or it gave a better outlook on my life that day who knows , but we both laugh too at one another .

Just little moments in life could make a difference in someone’s life. I started going to Nevada to my niece’s and nephew’s houses to visit.

I think when you are sitting and just thinking about all the little things that happened to each of us has an effect . Think about this if my brother Richard hadn't said what he did that caused a reaction in me . I would have not said anything to Celeste that night. Along with that , was the brief talk me and Helen had . When we came in to help Butch and gave us that small window to say the words we spoke. Just that set a course for us to remember each other later in life . I know everyone has had things like that happen to them . So I can’t help thinking about other things that could be coming my way. I hope it’s exciting, I love adventures! 😉

Tomorrow holds a new exciting adventure and the best thing about it is you and you alone are incontrol of it . You can make it good or bad, it's really up to you . I look at it like this: what part of this is good? How can I make it better for the people I care about? After that I can I make the other part better , say kind words too them maybe fix something that is broken something that might bring that SMILE out and change their outlook on this thing .Sometimes there’s nothing you can do but let them know you are there for them to have a shoulder if they need it . That’s what I did with my wife and it worked almost always !

Yes I will go on in my life I have left ,because I promised Helen I would ! I will have a Smile on my face and try to give Joy to family , friends and others that I meet in my adventures I am on in this life . I don’t know where I am going but people and events will Guide me where I need to be for this to happen . Maybe this is what I am chosen to do, I am not in charge of this in my life,I always said that I am in charge of my day . And I choose to be happy but in this case , I am just the one being used for this path I am on . It will be more than just knowing something. It will mean having Character and Discipline , getting older in life . You will remember your successes and disappointments . Some ways that will bring us to go the other way before the disappointments !

She was my never ending Rock , my driving force that I was so very glad she was there in my life .

I was just thinking about the times going through life , the things that are strong in your thoughts, and some that are fading from memory. Makes you wonder what happens in your mind that memories go away and never return and some Linger on all your life . Is it for a reason that I or you will go through later in life to find out . Life has so many mysteries in it , the ones that you see so easily . Then there’s the ones that hide for a while before they show themselves to you . That makes things come together and makes it turn out right and beautiful. So I ask myself who am I or better yet , who am I not , in finding out who you are . Then you find out where you are going to improve your new life. That's before me so I have a direction to the people I want to be around that could lift my spirits up to accommodate me in the direction I want to go . You yourself do the same of what people you want to be around , to help guide you to the point you would like to be . We do it all the time , we just do not put that much effort in it until something or someone is taken from you ! I am at that point in life .

Well Good Morning to you ! It’s another day on the job of coping with the World . Is it a good day ? I went and got some things done grocery shopping and getting other things done laundry , just everyday things .

I have been thinking that I would like to add to my foreign country list of Thirteen to maybe fourteen or fifteen . Like Ireland or Scotland I think I would like that, Helen always wanted to go to Ireland to see the green grass , they say it’s so green it will hurt your eyes . I would like to say it’s true but I doubt that . I got the money to go so what have I got to lose? Each country had or has its Special things ,like South Africa, the beaches and the Indian Ocean, the color, the way it moved and all the sea creatures I saw . The Safari Outside of Zimbabwe and all the animals I saw there. Switzerland and the snow covered mountains and the waterfalls. Vietnam even in its war torn state had its beauty as well . And I could go down with each one but I think you understand . There are Beautiful places here in the states but like everyone else you think of other countries to go to. It's silly in ways when you got so much to see here in the states . It’s hard to reinvent yourself, because you have come to your habits and Seventy-three years you have molded very deeply ! I wonder if I could talk someone to go with me Exploring different lands and countries , like Robert and Celeste , Joe and Susie and Michael just to name a few !

Just stopping to smell the roses that I never took the time to do, even with my lady, we didn’t do much of that. Because we were like everyone else in a dead run, mostly doing other things . It would have been more rewarding with lots of other pleasant memories . But you learn as you go through life do we not sometimes it’s too late to change or you don’t have the want too

If we did do just some of the things would it have a bad outcome on us ? Would it make us different in ways we wouldn’t like , well I am satisfied with what came out of our decisions we made for the most part we were Happy !

Talking like a scholar and I am dumb as the days long . I got to get this roof put on the house along with the Chimney fixed In the next few days .

Well it’s been thirty three days since I started this deal and in the next three days it will be completel , if anything could happen it did happen . My life is going to take a Drastic change, maybe for the better . I need to get on with my life and see we’re it’s going in the remainder of my time . But I can’t be the person I am not , just entering a new look and image that you might say ! After the Beigs go home I think I will put my new life into effect. I think I will be ready to begin. Find myself a companion, someone I can share things with; not marry, just be with.

I sometimes sit and think about what I have seen and been a part of and death has been a part of life in my adventures . The people that got killed or their life has ended in one way or the other . My friends and brothers and sisters, my mother and father as well, and it didn’t affect me deep in my soul, just hurt for a day or two maybe . Was I or am I hard hearted , I could Love as deep as another kind hearted does or could ! My family hurts emotionally. I hurt and if one of my daughters was crying I would cry as well in secret if I made it to a stop where no one would see ! But if my wife would cry it was like taking my heart and shoving a knife in it where it would turn on the water at full force . So I asked myself how could I hold myself together with the others ? I have seen enormous bloodshed and war and the blood and body parts that would shake the hardest men to tears ! Some tuff guys would just break down and cry or they would stare off into outer space to say .They we’re going to a safe space to deal with the horrors of war , what man could do to one another .

So it brings me to this point in my life , my time to be somewhat Human or normal in the feelings department! The day I knew I was going to lose the love of my life . There was no stopping it from happening , this Lovely Woman that was given to be my partner for all her life . To protect and provide for her to cherish all my life ! It was her calling to her resting place that she had done her work and time on earth . And now it was time for her to go to rest and wait for her place in the coming Paradise . I was Honored to be there at her last breath and got to tell her I Loved her ! My heart hurts so often in the time she has been gone in life . But she lives on in our lives. Lisa has parts of her looks and ways. I start to do or clean and to think about what she would do and how she would do it. In so many ways, I can’t count them all but she is still here.

So I know I have those feelings that I had hidden away years ago , I just had to grow into them maybe ? You answered that Question for me , but they came out with the passing of my Helen Ann, the love of my life. At nights I am alone , I break down in emotional pain and my feelings get away from me and I am a sad case for sure. Almost always, I put on a happy front and I get by with it in front of everyone! But I am very lonely most of the time ! The answer to it I haven’t got a clue.

But I have a mean side of myself ,I have always been aware of it all my life .

Helen was always aware of it and watched for me and helped me keep it under control . She told me that I had a darkness in me ! Even before I went to Vietnam. And sometimes while I was in Vietnam I thought that dark side was the reason death and gore did not bother me. When I helped soldiers move the dead, most of the time I was not scared of the things that were going on around me. The incoming rockets or the bullets whizzing by me. One day I knew I had to change my appearance. I had to put a happy face on and smile all I could, to put my being into another world. Helen told me that I could change, and I need to very much, if we were going to make a life together. It was one of the long talks we had when I came back, one of thousands. We talked so many times, on so many things.

As time went on, it was becoming easier to keep that smile on my face when I saw how our life was getting better and better. The love that Helen was giving me was everything I needed and wanted. I knew that I was the only one that had to do this. No one can change another person but themselves! The dark side in me is still there. There’s times that it interferes with my judgment of people,places, and things. Like the time when I tossed all my pictures from Vietnam in the trash because Helen and I had an argument over the pictures. There were one hundred or more of them.She didn’t realize how they helped me, but I didn’t realize then that the pictures hurt her. It was a bad time for her as well. When the pictures were gone, that did the healing for her.

Then countless times, Helen and I tried to make a relationship with Wanda and it would go bad on her part for some reason or other and she would become an ass and just end it. She didn’t have time to talk to us for her reasons .

Then Harold would just stop all communications. If we talked, it was just about us going to his house or calling, and I would say,” If and when we talk again, it would be him that calls me" .He told me,” I am the big brother! You put in the effort”!So it’s been years since I’ve talked to Harold , Why I wished I knew , but I can and will live with that. I haven’t lost any sleep over it as of this day. It’s really their choice. If I was important to the two of them they would have made the effort. You try so many times and it just comes back in your face.

Do, I want to end my life or hurt someone? It has never entered my mind ever. Like I said, I have places to go and people to see! Come join me in my continuing adventures!

January 2023 I am finally going to decide on my new Adventure, this month . I first need to put things in order here at home first , so I can see what’s important to me in the way I need or want to go . I need to get my new roof put on but the weather is a big problem. Is it going somewhere or looking to find someone for a Companion , someone to talk to and share things with . I don’t know if it’s that or not !

There’s a poem that I try to be like. It's written by Rudyard Kipling, called

( IF )

If you can keep your head when all about you, are losing theirs and blaming it on you.

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you ,

But make allowances for their doubting too ;

If you can wait and not tired by waiting ,

Or being lied about , don’t deal in lies Or being hated don’t give way to hating

And yet don’t look too good nor talk too wise

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master

If you can think- and not make thoughts your aim

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same

If you can bear to hear the truth spoken,

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools ,

Or watch things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss

And lose and start again at your beginning and never breathe a word about your loss

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew, to serve your turn long after they are gone

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the will which says to them : Hold On !

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue , Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you , if all men count with you but none too much

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds worth of distance run

Yours is the Earth And everything that’s in it,

And - which is more - you will be a man, my son!

I know it sounds corny, but it has a lot of goals I tried to achieve in my life. There are many more to try, and I have my plans laid out. As I continue in my life, I will make adjustments along the way. To see the morning sunrise in places I haven’t seen it rise . But along with the Sunrise , will it bring comfort and peace along in my Journeys how few or many I have left . So I am off and I will try to make you feel a part of it as I go along this wide open road . Yes I got everything I need, I will be talking to you !

JANUARY was a slow month for getting things done and had a lot of bad weather like rain several times three or four days at a time . Then last week it snowed for three days with rain and ice .

Today is February 1st and it’s trying to get back to normal , by this

weekend the weather will be back to normal. Be in the mid fifty’s and sixty’s sunny as well like Texas should be . I will go to Helen’s aunt's funeral this weekend. It will be close by in Double Oak, Texas. I’ll see a lot of her cousins there. It has been a while since I saw them , so it will be nice to visit them. I will be going again to Henderson, Nevada for one week. My niece and nephews are wanting me to come visit them. “It’s been too long," they said. So on February 14, I will fly out to see them and we’ll have a good time together. Then I’ll come back, change, and do laundry, and be off to Amarillo, to Robert and Celeste’s. I’ll stay for two or three days.

Well today is February 9th and my roof is replaced and looking good . They were here at 7 am this morning and finished up with it at 5:30pm.

I have stayed in my bedroom all day so I will not give the girls my cold. I am about over it so by the morning I will be over it . Then fly out to Henderson Nevada , to see what I can get into there . I guess I need to pack tomorrow morning to get everything ready to pack . I was just thinking about going up to Canada along the west coast line to Alaska . Something I will ask them about when I go Tuesday !

Well when I was in Henderson at Michael’s about 9pm on February 19th I was thinking about moving there and moving into Michael’s place and sharing rent etc with him . So I asked him to turn off the TV , saying that we need to talk about something very important to the both of us . He looked at me and said okay ! Then I told him what I wanted to do and it caught him on the subject by surprise. We talked for about four hours on the move . He was all for it after he knew I was serious . The next morning I talked to Susann and Joe about it ! They were excited about me moving up there with them . My plane ride home was at 5:45 pm Tuesday . I asked Lisa and Joseph to come over for a talk , that there was something I needed to say to them .

When they got there at 7pm , we sat and I told them about the move I was going to Henderson Nevada . And what did they think of the decision I have made? They listened to what I was saying and really didn’t say anything so we talked about the banks that were close to where I would live . It looked like Wells Fargo would be the one I would use . As far as furniture,my bedroom suit and some pictures and the silverware that’s good quality . But that would be it , all else I would not have a need for it . So now it’s the stage , waiting that gets me and turns me upside down .

I was never good with waiting . I will have plenty to do. Believe me I will get rid of the extra things here .

Well it’s the 12 of March 2023 I have given away a couple of thousand dollars in furniture and merchandise that’s good quality. And still got some to go but , I think that I will meet the deadline of April 1st to put it on the market for sale . Tuesday I will have the ceiling in the living room and dining room painted. Then it’s full speed ahead on selling it , and moving on to Henderson Nevada to live with My Nephew Michael ! I will load up the nineteen foot truck and have to tow my car behind the truck ! Micheal is supposed to fly down to ride with me to Nevada , after my sale I think it will be quick . There are a lot of big new companies moving to this area, like University Studios just twenty miles from me and three other large companies moving in as well . The Dallas Cowboys training center has already moved here ! Then a large airport comes as well so it’s a sellers market around my neighborhood.

Other things I have plans for is to go to Ireland for seven days and just look and see what happens . And that will take in myself Lisa , Susann along with Michael and maybe just maybe Joseph is thinking about it as well .

Wow the six of us hit that country all at once . Those poor people wouldn’t have a clue what hit them ! Other than saying those crazy Americans are Great People to be around . We would be talked about for years to come !

The Irish people would be laughing for years. Just thinking what might be in the coming year, what an adventure that would be to tell the Grandkids .

Your relatives are crazy and very funny, especially your Grandfather.

So we will see , and that’s all for now to catch you on the turnaround. I have to make this move in my life . Because I think this has to happen , to further my existence in my life! My outcome is what I was destined to be or do I feel this urge , or this drawing feeling pulling me this way . It could be an amazing thing that I am supposed to be a part of in life . Why can’t I be that person that really great things happen to . This experience or person that I will encounter can make the people say Wow , what an extraordinary thing to come Dad’s way , and why not me . The same thing could happen to you , could it not ? Some of these things have already happened to me ! My Wife, my kids and family , they are way better than I thought I would ever have in my life ! So the question is why not more Wonderful things and people to come . I think I have something to give others in their life , (maybe ) I am willing to try and help change their ways if not their lives . That's to help not force them .

So my house is up for sale as of yesterday, having an open house Sunday starting at 11am until 3 pm I believe . Gotten most everything out that needs to be out. The realtor thinks everything is right and I have little extras to add in the sale of the house . Like a new roof , chimney, painted ceiling, a/c that’s four years old . All appliances including washer and dryer to add to the sale . Maybe the right person will come along to want it .If God wants me to sell and come out on top I will . The money I come out with will be in the end for my beautiful daughter and her family. So we will see what the outcome will be . I am really ready to go to Nevada , and get this adventure started! I will have my VA check free and clear to do what I want to do . Then three hundred dollars left from the SS check so I will be just fine .

I checked on the truck and dolly for the car , added the cost of gas . The two nights of motels and everything . Then I called a mover to see what it would cost me . The mover was just $200 dollars more than all the stuff I would have and go through . Less hassle to boot , so I will just have the moving company do it, it will be there in five days . So that’s taken care of now , on what I will do about the move . Now just selling the house is the top thing to do , Waiting oh what a hard thing for myself to do ! I got my VA and SS checks transferred over to my Chase Bank now ! Today was the 6th of April. Tomorrow I will be 73 years old. Do I feel like it ? I really don't feel like maybe 55 in mine , but my body feels like it.

Today I am 73 years Old , I don’t know how I feel about being this old in life . All I know is I am here to be a part of another day . Ohhh! I know I can make today a Big Day , with bells and whistles and a party . But really do I need or want to , I think I need to focus on the important things that’s ahead of me . I really don’t have that much time left in the changing ways of the World . The leaders of the world are becoming more evil on so many levels , what was good and right is all wrong now by their standards. I know I still can make my life easier doing the things I want to do . I can go on and have a happy life and do the things I can and want . But I fear for my daughters and her family from the evil that is building up against them in just a few years from now . I know I can , but they never run up against what evil is coming for them . God will have to step in and protect them and lead them in the trouble times .

Well I don’t know what made me get on that trail . But my Lisa is bringing me some spinach dip for my birthday and that will be my birthday present. Well Lisa brought my spinach dip and it tasted fantastic. And Alex and my granddaughter are on the way , and will be here at about 7pm tonight . I am thrilled that they are coming to be with me . I just wished my Daughter Sarah would come , it would be a very special day if that would happen . There’s no words that could describe the joy in my Heart ! But it will never happen so I try not to think about it . It just brings sadness deep in my heart . So I will be happy that my Son in law Alex , would think that much of me and would bring Danika to visit me before I go to Nevada to live . I don’t know what we will talk about , our age difference and the things that interest each other are far and wide . So I will let you know how it comes out .

Well today is April 13th , I have had several people look at my house but no buyers yet! As I said, I am not a patient man . I am a guy that likes to get things done fast . And just waiting is ruff on me. I Don't know what to do with myself in this waiting game. I think about moving to Henderson Nevada and dealing with the Relator and the house there . At least I would be building my life there and not just sitting around waiting for someone to come look at the house . Maybe that’s what I need to do at this point , maybe the price is too high that I am asking . Well it’s 5:30 pm no lookers today, so I guess I will see what happens tomorrow.

Monday 4:30 pm I was in a wreck and it destroyed my 2010 Honda Accord . The front end is gone. I was going about 45pmh . This street truck that works on the street just turns in the middle of the street crossing to the inside to turn to go back the other way . I was watching the truck on my left and then the larger truck was crossing the two lanes .When I looked back straight it was there and my car was going under the truck . I was looking to go to Henderson Nevada . May 2nd ohhh well !

Today is April 17th 2023. It was a regular day, and things were going well . I met Lisa and Joseph at the bank to put them on my account when and if I pass away unexpectedly. We got that done and on the way home I had a very bad wreck in my car and totally destroyed my car beyond repair . No, the wreck wasn’t my fault . I came out with a few bruises and a cut on my right hand . A burn on my left hand from the air bag , coming out so fast and my hand being really close by as it came out ! People there were wondering how I could get out of the wreck alive . All I can say is that it wasn't my time . God wants me to do something in my life , maybe to save someone’s life or to change their life . Maybe something for me to witness and change my life . Whatever it is, then it will be my time . No matter how great or simple it will be , then my time will end . There’s nothing or anything I do will change that I know in my heart . I knew a man that went through a terrible battle in Vietnam. Came through without a scratch. After coming home and within two weeks . He drowned at the lake two weeks later after getting home . So see it could happen to me, I truly believe that .

So today is April 22nd , I have got little left to pack up to go to Henderson to live . One week today I will be packed up and loaded on the moving van going to Nevada to begin my new life . Will it be exciting and fun, maybe an educational trip? I am ready to find out , and will let you know as the week continues .

Well it’s Friday the 28th of April , I have a cash offer on the house (as is ) I think I will take it . I will talk to the Relator about it at noon today . She says it will take just 14 days to close . So I will find out what it’s all about shortly. I leave for Henderson Monday afternoon, they will pick up the furniture tomorrow morning then I will go stay the weekend at Lisa’s. Then my new Adventure begins. I can close in Nevada and that’s good. Just wanting to get this done and move on in life .Will let you know the outcome later today !

Well just got back , it’s an investment company and they want to close in 12 days , all is a go !! And the money will be in my bank the day of the closing . Now I need to finish up, the moving company will be here from 2pm to 6pm . Talk later, people !

I got here in Henderson at 8:30 pm , then went to My house and Michael’s house. Talked at 1:30am in the morning about our upcoming events . Got up early Tuesday morning to go to the bank to withdraw the money to pay for the movers when they get here with my furniture. I will be ready for my stuff . Wednesday morning I went to the VA facility to make my eye and doctors appointments along with the forms for my disability car tags . I got everything lined up for settling in here in Henderson .

Today is May 10th and my furniture arrived this morning at 8am. Worked most of the day setting up and emptying the boxes , looking for and making places for my things . Need more room waiting for Michael to take things to his shed , but he doesn’t get into any hurry to do it . I am under a lot of change and I am doing the most changing. Susie is feeling a little left out because I don’t go over everyday . Then she wants to tell me everything to do . I surely don’t want to hurt her feelings over anything . Joe is a strange person in a lot of things , he gets upset very easily . Once it was when I was asking a question about the place I thought I was going to park at Michael’s . I was told that I was going to park on the right inside the fenced in yard . I was asking him what he thought about me putting white gravel down with a four inch wall to keep the rocks stable ! He looked at me and said I will not park inside the fence. That area was his, not mine ! I looked at him like he was crazy . I didn’t understand why he was getting so mad , I just asked a question. Then I find out what the real deal is , Susie and Michael had the wrong information on the deal . I thought that was totally out of line the way Joe reacted !

Anyway I had a long day finding and putting things away , I think I will hit the sack early tonight .

Well here it is the 25th of May 2023 at 3pm . I have been a resident of Nevada for 25 days . I have gotten all my affairs in order and I am closing the sale of my house . Just about sixty days on the market is all it took to sell my house . I am adjusting to the new way of life here in Henderson . In some ways it’s strange and others it’s funny , just how they do things here . I will be in the process of buying a car in the coming weeks . I think a Honda 2022 from CarMax used cars . But we will see , I am coming to look at Michael in another way and understand how he thinks and the reason why , seeing the other side of the story .

Well Hello everyone been away for a few days, I am here in Henderson , and things are going good . I settled in and got a routine down with Michael. We are getting along really well. Know what each of us is willing to do and settle for from one another . He gets up at 6 am and I get up at 7:30 each morning, and we do our thing that morning. We have plans coming up after I close on the house this week . Then we will do some traveling where it is still up for debate . Got to go start my day here in the Desert 🌵.

Well I closed on the house and cleared what I wanted from it for a nice sum . I am planning on going to Denton to see Lisa and all . And invest my money in an investment company that is low risk and low return about 4.5%each year but a hundred thousand dollars will bring in enough . I am not trying to make a killing so to say . It’s really for my kids after I am gone . I will do this in Texas and have Joseph and Lisa take over after I am gone . It won't be much but it will be something to help them out . As I said before I can live on my checks from the VA and the SS too . So my life is set on money without it . And life goes on as planned . Talk later learning more about Nevada car insurance and resources on taxes .

Well today is the 28th of June, Michael and myself went on a Helicopter tour across Lake Mead and on to the Grand Canyon on the east side an walked on the skywalk made of glass six of us was pushed on the thing it was tight but it was alright 3 ½ hour tour it was okay but I wouldn’t do it again . So two more items marked off my Bucket List. Next is Zipline, maybe next year . But got that trip to Ireland and Scotland with Lisa and Joseph.

Registering a car here in Nevada cost me $405 dollars and took two and one half hours , because there were so many people there. It was a one spot shop for everything! Another thing that’s strange here . Texas would have taken me 30 minutes . Also I can’t get my Disability tags here because I am not One Hundred Percent disabled. So Nevada has not shown me much this month but disappointment. Anyway life is taking a turn or a bump in the road , so until next time Enjoy !

Today is the first day of July 2023, and the weather is going for 108 degrees. It will be a hot one . I am just sitting here in my recliner and thinking about everything and nothing . Why did I move here , what was I expecting? Moving in with my Nephew was going to be good because we were both alone . He has got a second failed Marriage, and the first his wife died after just a year and a half from a Grand Mal Seizure. He was left with two kids to raise at the age of 19 years old . So you might say three failed marriages. l on the other hand lost the Love of my Life after 52 years of marriage . And we could help one another out , see what we can do to make it better for the both of us . He has got Aspergers. Which is a major wreck in anyone’s life, the drawbacks are enormous in all ways of thinking and doing . Gets upset at really anything and he feels like he has got to be the first to insult someone . Because they have done that to him , but he doesn’t see he started it . Three days before the rent was due he thought he had to remind me of it three times a day. So on June 30th I went to the bank and withdrew three months of rent money in three envelopes. Then I told him it’s up to him to pay rent whenever he feels the need . I also told him that I rent the bedroom, the bathroom and closet for my clothes and parking for my car from him, not his sister ! Because it is his house so get over it .It’s like it became a bed and breakfast to me . And no you do not and will not think I need assistance in any way.

We need to understand this or I need to move out on my own . Well we will see what happens . , I will surely be in the Adventure of Donald , The Old Timer. I hope you will enjoy it as we ride along together. Seeing my adventures that I create and be drawn into to see how I get out of these .

It went very well on my behalf , I think it made him aware of the rules of his house and the way it will and has to be period . His kids, well two of his boys are always calling him asking for money . The oldest son David is just barely getting by because he just can’t put it together. That he is the reason that he fails in relationships at 48 years of age he has five kids . Both boys have the sickness as their Dad has and they need to look and understand the hardships of their Dad . But if Dad can’t and will not give them money as always , they just will not talk to him . I feel for all three of the boys , they all have it . Deana the girl has a nervous disorder which fails short with what Dad and boys are dealing with .

I guess I need to start making some changes on how I start my mornings . Like not singing and just saying good morning . And just let it go because it gets the boy on the defensive side . His life has always been mostly sad and just not what it could be . He doesn’t know how to correct it in the little ways that would make it better . We talked about how it was with Helen and myself , how we would just sit and talk about everything and nothing . And to him it was talking and making up Fairy Tales . He could not understand or believe that something so small could bring us happiness and help us be a better wife or husband . To him you got to a stage in marriage and that’s where you stayed . We have so many points of interest in our conversations that we have to stop , because he cannot understand . I try to tell him things as you and I would understand that he just tells me I am stupid that it’s not true . If he doesn’t know it then it’s not true , there have been several things that I had to get Paula and her friends to tell Michael what I was telling him was true and then and only then did he believe it, but not 100 percent . Yes he is on a trip, well more on another day .

Hello everybody back again ! Today is the 30th of July , I just got back from a trip to Denton to visit my Daughter and her family ? Well it’s mine as well anyway tried to take care of some business and got half done. Now I will just go through the deal here with the bank and Navy Federal, then transfer it back to them in Texas . I am learning a lot about my Niece and Nephew on how they think . It’s very strange how they look at things along with how easy it would be to throw you under the bus if it would make them a nickel . It seems like that’s all my Niece thinks about is the all American Dollar . She also tells my Nephew how to think and do exactly what she wants him to do . He does it like an obedient child and she eats it up . Tell him what to do with his money and he just does it when and how .

I would like to put up a carport and pay half and my niece pay the other half.

It will only be an improvement to their property and they will get all the benefits. After I leave or die seems like a great deal to me ! But no, if I want it , I pay for it with a smile on her face . She has a million dollars in investments but she just can’t let go of a nickel . So that’s it in a nutshell, strange very strange ! I have been on the up since I've been here , doing everything I said I would . Her and her husband Joe love having Power over someone . They can’t see their benefits from the carport just the few dollars they would put out . But when all you can see is money , they will miss out on many good things they lose . Another adventure in my days of traveling , what awaits me tomorrow join me on my travels . Well I found out that they want or will not have a carport from Lowe’s. No it has to be a heavy duty metal carport , range in cost starting $7,000 dollar and no they will not put in the or some of the cost that’s final on the word . So it’s like the rest of my family total Assholes just ME ME from start to finish . Paula is great at manipulating Michael on her way of thinking. First thing you know he is totally convinced . So for now it’s just forgotten about , just like fixing the front of the trailer , no you pay for it all and she reaps all the benefits from them . So welcome to the World Donald until next time Beautiful People .

Well this week of August 10th I think I will reopen the link to my brother Harold and my sister Wanda ! I haven’t Spoken to Harold in six years and my sister in fifteen years . Well I spoke to them both and believe it or not they were glad that I called and wanted to come see them . I will see Harold from the 25 th to the 27th . Leave the morning of the 28 th to go see WANDA . I don’t know how long I will stay, maybe two days as well . Be gone for maybe eight days, 2700 miles round trip probably drop $1200 dollars . I don’t think it will go as well as everyone thinks. They are set in their ways too long and will never change , so that means that I would either . It’s sad things could have been different. We could be making memories in the past and now but it’s too late for that now ! I hope I am wrong , but I don’t have anything to think I am wrong .

Mark Twain once said that you never know why you were born until the day you do . Then you understand why , and Joy and Happiness fill your Heart ! I found out why I was born and have lived to the fullest so far! Everyone will when they find this out !

Funny, today I started to remember lots of thing’s memories of the past with my brother Harold . We were close in our younger days. He gave me my first car , and got him another car . He would get mad about something and come to me to fight and take his frustration out on me . We would fight because he knew I wouldn’t back down , he would get the best of me most of the time . But every once in a while I would get the best of him to teach me mostly how to fight and practice some things I know now , I did on him . And after time we both took different roads and now we are coming to a crossroad in life . Will we renew what we once had this late in life? In the next few days we will know .

August 14th well this morning Michael was going over his visit with his kids . It wasn't good, just barely fair. I feel so sorry for him because he doesn’t know what it’s like in his life to feel Loved by his kids and others . His question is why ? Is my life like the sinking of the titanic with no lifeboats to be had and all is going down . We talk and I tell him about myself and the things we did as a family . That he has never experienced not even close to normal . Even my jobs I had and the respect I had on the job and the bosses and employees I worked with ! His Aspergers disease has played a major part in all aspects of his life . I feel so sorry for him in so many ways I can’t begin to tell him and make him understand it’s not all his fault, the disease played a major role in all areas. You can just look at him and see the hurt inside of him and the empty feeling that flows out . It’s a terrible feeling to feel that inside him and not being able to do anything about it . So see no matter how bad you feel that things are not going like you want them . There’s always a Michael nearby .

Well the month of August was and have been interesting. The VA is working on new things on my health . And I have just finished 3633 miles visiting my family from Texas , Arkansas to Missouri and back home in my car . A 21 hour drive straight back to Henderson Nevada .

I talked to one of my Niece’s that I haven’t seen in 60 years. She was 8 years old then , she is in her 60’s now . I might see her and her family at the end of October. She was my second favorite Niece when we were growing up .

So my life is being fulfilled in new areas, travel and renewing ties to family .

The trip was long , but it all turned out Great with my Brother and Sister . I had a very good time , my brother is happy living the life he has made there in Arkansas. He has become Arkansas in every way possible . My Sister Wanda is getting her life together again in Leavenworth. She will be alright. She is a survivor , she has most of her family there, the three boys . They will make sure everything goes well.

Well Hello Strangers ! It’s been a few days since I wrote anything down on September 10th My sister's birthday . I sent her some flowers and a box of chocolates yesterday. I hope she gets them today on her birthday. Well she didn’t get the flowers or candy yesterday, it should have been there . They said it would be there by 5pm .

Well my trip overseas to Scotland and Ireland is on for the first week in August of 2024 the six of us Lisa Joseph and the three grandkids are all going for about ten days . It’s going to be a hoot I bet . Memories aboundest for all of us . I am so glad that we can go. I am excited about it . To go to the local Pub and hear their dialect and let them hear mine from Texas . We should have a great time for a few nights anyway . Plus see some sites at the same time . I think the kids will have a great time ,seeing the ways of the old country . More on this as time goes on .

Well today I had an appointment at the VA Disability Office . Wow that LADY Doctor gave me a total exam from head to toe and in between as well .

Went over everything I had listed on my records .

She will turn in her report on me of what she found , and I should be ruled upon within ninety days or longer . She feels by her experience and exam that I should be ruled 100%. I have been chasing that 100% for years and it looks like that I may have achieved the gold finally . I am very tired from that exam and need a nap . Please let me have that rating God , please help me .

September 13th 2023 Yesterday I did something that I told a Lady named Jean that I would sing her a song from start to finish.

I have found a song by DonWilliams . On my iPad I found the lyrics and song I was looking for . The name is called( We Got Love ) . I practiced for four days on it and I told her that by Friday that I would sing her this song .

I told my Niece and Joe, her husband Monday, that I would do it by Friday . Well Joe said he’s not going to hold his breath in seeing me do this . He really didn’t think I would do this for his sister . I said hide and watch ,then I left their place and came home . I practiced a couple times that day , then just forgot about it . The next day my Nephew came back from Waco and I told him what I was going to do on Thursday by 4pm at Susie’s . Well he had an appointment that morning , and would be home by 11:30am .

. Well our housekeeper comes on every other Thursday at 8am always smiling . So I asked her if she would sit down and hear me sing my song that I was going to sing later in the day for Jean . She knows Jean anyway she said yes and I sang her the song and didn’t miss a beat with the song . She smiled and said she would like it truthly . So that gave me confidence in doing what I wanted to do .

So the time came to do it , we went to Susie’s house for dinner at 4pm and afterwards. I asked everyone if they were ready for this experience to happen. So they gathered around the table and I got things ready to perform my act . Michael and Susie had their iPhones ready to record me and my song 🎶 Well I sang my song to Jean , I don’t know if she like it or not but they clapped for me and all Smiled . But I look at it like this , I told her that , what she did for me . I did my best to show how much I appreciate she standing and doing

what she did in front of the same people I did . Well like I said I like a good adventure and that was one . Now someone will point me to the next one. Jean started in by saying , she didn’t have music to hers . She didn’t have the words in front of her either , and a few other things as well . In other words she was hands down better than myself . But that’s okay. I said I would do it so I have no problem with it . That’s just who she is really !

Here it is the 25th of October , I had a VA appointment this morning thinking I was going to see the doctor . That’s what it said anyway . But all it was to see the Lab to draw blood 🩸 seven vials . Waiting on the papers from the VA , to see the and get the ruling on my disability claim . It should put me over the 100%mark. It should come in November sometime!!

More to come in the Adventures of My life. Maybe I can tell Michael to go back to South Africa and take another Safari with me ! Come with me !

Well today I got back from my Beautiful Niece Kay Trotter as her name is now for maybe 40 something years . She and her husband Jim live in Mountain Home Idaho . I spent two days with them and had a Super Time . I am back home now , and I am tired. I will be ready for bed at Ten tonight Monday October 30th 2023 .

Today I got Great news. As of NOVEMBER 17th I was notified that I became 100% disabled by the VA and I will get back pay from June 1st 2023 ! It only took me 31 years to get the rating of consistency applying from one thing and another .

It has been a blessing , and I will pass it on , To help someone in need .

Today is the 3rd of December 2023, a Sunday morning . Nothing going on , I am going to Lisa’s next Sunday for three days . I will get some business settled with the family about them going to Ireland and Scotland for ten days this August . In March of 2024 I will be going on a cross country trip . Going up to New York, then to Niagara Falls . After that go across Canada then cut down into the States again .

Who will I ask my Beautiful Daughter and family or my brother Harold .That is still up in the air , Lisa does not want me to drive . But if I take Harold I will have someone to help drive ? You see what I am saying , Ohhhhh ! The trials of being Adult sometimes and being Old .

Well today is January 28th,I have decided to stop driving.Joseph and Lisa are coming to Henderson flying out to take my car. I will give them .I will sign the title over to them when they get here .They will come in the middle of February. It's a pretty big step for myself to take , my Nephew said he will take me to any place I need to go . So we will see how this turns out ! If not I will buy myself another car and see how that works , remember I am giving up a lot of my Independence, that is one big step for me , can I do it !! Wish me Luck people. I think I am going to need it , until next time Smile your day will go better !

Today is February 25th the visit with Joseph and Lisa went Fantastic for me anyway , today is Sunday . They are on their way to see her Moms brother and sister in law. I know they will have a great time there . Her Aunt an Uncle will give them a great time, I am without a car of my own now . Michael will take me anywhere I need to go , mostly to V/A appointments is all .We will see how it goes , I hope it works out for the best .

Today is March 6th and I was notified that my Dental Plan was approved so they will start fixing my teeth.

July 20th Well I went to visit Lisa and family on the 8th of this month . Rode with Michael in his truck to Lisa’s house and he went on to Houston to see his kids and had a good time until he had a wreck in his truck messed it up pretty good . We had to fly back to the house , he will fly back when it’s fixed .

I have gotten so weak in or on my right side ,if I fall on the ground I can not get myself up . My right side has gotten so weak it will not hold me up anymore .

So I think I shouldn’t go to Whales with Lisa and Joseph with the kids . Get over there and the chairs might lower or the bed . Then I will be in trouble for myself and them. So I think my traveling Adventures is over until I get this problem fixed . Well I guess this could be an adventure in itself you think . It doesn’t look good Miss Daisy ! And life goes on does it not ?

September 5th well sorry nothing to tell . I am still in Henderson Nevada, nothing in the works to go anywhere . Maybe later but nothing for now. You had a good day today .

September 11th Just another normal day , nothing happening.

October 15th I received my 300 pound wheelchair from the V/A today. Thursday the 17th I will be getting my last item from the V/A my ramp starting the building of it up to the porch . After that is completed I will not have anything coming to me . I will be glad when it’s all over and done . YESTERDAY Lisa and family went to Whales and got there at 2am this morni;g . And excited as anyone could be . They will be back on the 31st of this month . Once in a lifetime for them all .

November 7th 2024 the year end is closing fast , coming faster than I like . I have to get ready for it when it happens and be happy about it . The last couple of months are not coming out like I wanted it to be . Lately I’ve been thinking about going back to Texas for good . Joseph and Lisa are talking about fixing up the garage for me , with a bathroom as well out there . I told them to go ahead and do it. I will pay for it . Now it is just a waiting game until it’s finished. Then I will tell Michael About it , that it’s time to go . Thank you for what you have done for me , I hope the time we spent together was worth it to him . I am still looking for my place, if I am there maybe I can help the grandkids with their college funds through the V/A. And ease some strain off Joseph and Lisa’s finances. Just thinking of things we need to talk about ! Anyway just going over things we need to talk about at Thanksgiving when I am there ! I think we need to jump in with both feet as soon as possible! Talk more after I come back from Texas .

Well here it is NOVEMBER 17th yesterday was my Helen’s birthday, she would have been 72 years of age . I miss her very much . Lately Michael has been a little tough to live with . He’s been a little , no a lot of a smart ass . We have had a lot of augmentation on what he thinks he is the only one that knows anything about everything. On political issues, he’s always right , and everyone else is stupid . No matter what it is Religion Just anything. So I haven't discussed anything lately with him . He’s the smartest person in the room , he tells me that . And when he starts talking that way , I say yes you are the smartest person in the room .Then he gets blown out of control, and tells me not to say that . Oh I say it’s only allowed when you say it and that’s quite often . Let me tell you something, Mr High and Mighty , You are not in any way the person you think you are . Because your life does not reflect that reality in any way . Think about it , Mister ! Today has been quiet and peaceful , so far ! But another one is coming . Oh and he has informed me that all the people in the Bible are make believe People. And who thinks they are, they are Stupid ! So goes the life in The House of Michael ! As soon as Joseph gets the garage bedroom built at his and Lisa’s house I am gone .

Well good Morning to you ! Well I am here in Henderson still . Combating Michael in his way of reasoning on Trump winning the Presidency . He believes that the US is going to disappear. He cannot see anything else , he thinks that he’s the smartest person that’s around .That everybody is an idiot. He has fallen back into his way of thinking , which cost him his marriage. He is just getting more and more locked into everyone walking away from him . It’s getting very hard for myself to put up with this Way he is doing . When we talk , he acts like he is the only one who knows anything about things . He told me the news I listen to is for idiots . I am about to lose it and hurt him very badly . I will only put up with so much . With or without his illness that doesn’t give him the right to insult anyone , anytime he wants . So until next time you have a great day .

Well Hello to the ones who want and are curious enough to hear more about the adventures of my life . Today would have been our 55th anniversary if Helen was alive in our marriage! I miss her very much and the adventures we would have been on as of January 2nd 2025 . But when life takes away a special person in your life . It usually replaces another one to take their place ! I am planning to return to Texas to live with or without my Daughter’s family. I leave tomorrow and put in plans on getting that started . It’s on their 21st wedding anniversary. They pick me up and drop me off at their house and then go out to eat . I will be super there by myself . I will be there until the tenth . I hope things go like I planned for them to go . They will come out way ahead if they want it . If not, that's okay as well . I will get me a place close by , it will come out super for us all . Until next time be nice to all . I did and it turned out Great .

Well today is Sunday January 5th we went out and found myself a one bedroom apartment . It’s brand new with a washer and dryer walk in shower , along with a walk in closet . For $1000 dollars a month . It’s 3 miles from Lisa’s house. Now go back and get my furniture schedule to be delivered by the 13th of February. Then everything will be done,it went very smoothly for me . So I will let you know how the move goes , until later I will be busy !

Well January 8th here in Denton Texas, and the weather is cold 40 degrees outside . Says it’s going to snow tonight and some tomorrow afternoon and Friday afternoon. I just hope my flight doesn’t get delayed . Because I have lots to do by the end of the month. Just thinking about the things I need to get done by the end of January. Like schedule my furniture to be delivered by February 13th . See a taxman about how to handle my CD by the 25th of this month . Give Joseph and Lisa a gilf each and make a payment on their house. It's the rest from the CD cash . Maybe without paying tax from the capital gains. Return my ultrasound machine to the V/A . Then after getting back to Texas getting everything fixed up in the apartment and the extra electric wheelchair and walker put someplace . Buy a 50 inch TV and a coffee maker , airfryer and grocery list . So I will be busy for the next couple of months . Wish me LUCK people. Will let you know the outcome of this adventure that’s before me . I put all this together from the 26th of December until the 3rd of January nine days thinking about what I need to do that 26th of December and it’s been falling into place so far . Going very smoothly I must say .

Hello everyone, well I got my answers on my CD about how to handle it and pay only on the Capital Gain . And what a relief it is . Now the only big thing left to do is schedule my move to be at the apartment on the 13th of February. Once they put my stuff in I will be set ,happy times then for me .

Well it’s the 20th of February, and I am in my apartment all set up . WOW it was something getting things done without having a car. And depending on others to help you do this like taking you places to get groceries to do this and that on other people’s time it’s just not me but I got it done. It’s a change. It's good in a lot of ways and not so good in others . Lisa and Joseph went to the grocery store and bought many things I needed. Then they came back here and put it all up for me ,it was Fantastic for me . Well the place is all fixed up and looking good . So I will be talking more later .

Well my scooter is not working so Joseph came over and in ten minutes he had both my scooter and electric wheelchair moving around like they should . But on my scooter it needs new batteries. It's over five years old .And it hasn’t been run in two years so for $300 dollars I will have my scooter running where I need to go after I get the two batteries replaced . So let the new adventures begin . Well I will not get my batteries until the 17th of March that one week from today ! But I will just have to make myself wait until then . I am ready to go touring and see what I can get into . For sure people are going to see and remember me on my ride, saying look Bettie there’s that ole Man on his Scooter ! I wish someone would run him over . He’s got most of the old ladies, pulling over and wanting to talk to him . Ask him what apartment he lives in and if he has another one so they can be together,riding off into the sunset.

******March 13th Well Hello , people who are reading this story of mine . I write this to inquire into the minds of people to see what a Strange Person I was or have been . How I come to the decisions I make . Today is my brother’s birthday. He is 79 or 80 years old . We don’t talk anymore. The last time we talked , he wanted money to fix his son's car for 900 dollars. I wished him good luck on it .The time I was there I gave him $500 dollars so he could fix his falling down pouch . He gave most of it to Steven for whatever. I am nobody Special for sure I am just a guy going through life trying to get or find something or someone. That I can fill the hole again! That I lost when my Wife passed three years ago August 4th 2022 of Cancer ! She was my everything that made me whole ! I often thought why was I chosen with this Wonderful person to be with and Love and change me into this person I was with her . As I stated in my writing how she was and how she changed me, it's just maybe Magic from this person ? Anyway I need to take my old batteries off my Scooter and clean it up so when Monday the new ones come I can install them and go for a test drive . That is how I will mostly get around anymore . Until next time Goodbye for now .

Well good Morning to you that’s reading this today , I got up at 5 am this morning and after coffee ☕️ I started in on my scooter . Going to fix it by cleaning up and putting the batteries in hahahaha!! Was that a dream , I got down on my knees and the floor was like a rock surface , really hard ! I knew I was in trouble . I got one arm and hand to do the lifting and cleaning and with knees that will not cooperate I was in trouble . But I managed to clean the scooter up nicely but the batteries were another thing , the box was form fitting and inside that were two more boxes the same way . I need a chair that’s low to the ground but I don’t have one yet . Well I called Joseph to come over and install the batteries, Lisa said they would be over in a little bit . So what can I do until then? They came over and fixed the batteries . And the very next day I went to their house riding the scooter. It was 3.4miles there, and it took me 25 minutes to get there and 25 to get back .

March 20th I made arrangements for my V/A Doctors appointment and myself some new eye glasses today . I got everything all laid and going like it should be . All places laid out for myTELSA SCOOTER I CALL IT NOW ! It runs off battlers , gets 19 miles off a charge , so it handles great . Got a phone holder coming to put my phone on my Tesla. When I go to The Bank, V/A clinic or J&L and grandkids all within 7 miles , one way ! Ohhh! I also got Walmart groceries that will be delivered when I order them. It's Great !! Tomorrow I will go to the bank. It will be in the 70’s !

March 24th, left the apartment at 8:45 this morning and on my way to the bank I saw this old woman and what looked like her grandson . She had this walker , and it was worn out and barely moved . It struck my heart ,so I pulled up and stopped and asked her if she was having a hard time moving . She told me she was, and she needed one like my ride . I said I got this new electric wheelchair that was looking for a Lady just like her ! And also a walker , she looked in her 80’s and I found out when she came to get it she was 61 . And he was not her grandson, he was her son . Well we loaded up everything and away they went . Now I need Joseph to bring my other wheelchair, and I will put it in the closet where that one was ! I went on to the bank and down the way I stopped and talked to four other people before I got back to the house at 2:45 pm ! It was about 5 pm when they came for the items. So I feel good about what I did , the reason was to help people.

April 2th 2025 , Funny I will be 75 years old in just five days . How are you supposed to feel at this age ! I haven’t got a clue , but I feel normal . But what is normal anymore, no one has a clue really . The world is so messed up anymore ,no one knows what to do right ! I feel I know what’s right for me so I do it the others just have to figure it out for themselves.

The last couple of days I have slipped into loneliness. feeling . Yes, missing my Lady , but I will come out of it as usual .There’s times when this happens and just deal with it , it will pass .

Well Joseph and Lisa will be over , she cleans my apartment every two weeks, I pay her to do it . So have a great day if you remember today I will !

Today is April 5th. In the last few days , I was contacted by a guy I was in the Army with while in Germany . His name is Kenneth Martin . That was in 1975 to 1978 . He saw my picture on Facebook from my nieces. So he contacted her and got my number from her . Called me and we talked for two hours. He also sent me pictures of the places and how I looked then . Said there’s a site of the first and ninety fourth field artillery . Along with guys we were there in the unit . So Monday I will have my Daughter or Son-IN -Law will fix it up for me .

They are the best people I know by far ! They are right here in a moment's notice , I am so proud of them!