Its Thursday again!

Which means its time for the Thursday Three questions from our illustrious Axis of Weevil leader, Terry. He dug pretty deep for some questions this week.

1) Name three events that occurred in your life that you look back on occasionally and wonder how things might have turned out if you had done something different.

Three things? Probably the first event that causes me to wonder how things might have turned out differently ocurred in the summer of 1973, between my junior and senior year in high school. My parents moved from Dublin, Indiana to Alliance, Ohio and I went with them. I was offered the opportunity to stay behind in Indiana, to live with a family from church and to graduate with my classmates that I had been in school with since junior high school. I liked Indiana, I had a job, a car and a motorcycle and a couple girlfriends, so leaving it all to move to a new school and town was pretty daunting. I have a sneaking suspicion that had I stayed in the Hoosier state, I would never have left, much like many of my classmates who still live very near the community of Cambridge City where we attended Lincoln High School. I suspect I know the girlfriend that I would have asked to be my bride. Instead, I moved to Ohio, attended a new high school where I knew no one and a new church where I did meet the future, first spouse. From Alliance and a few years of hacking at different jobs, I joined up with the USAF and the rest is history.

Another major life change that could have gone another way? That's gotta be the re-marrying the current BSU after we divorced in 1992. In hind sight, I don't know how it could have gone any other way but for us to get back together after a stupid and destructive breakup that left everybody hurting. At the time, we could have just gone opposite directions, I could have been a weekend and holiday Dad, writing a check for child support each month and following my own interests with the pittance of funds I had remaining. Fortunately for all of us, the BSU and I were able to put away some terrible hurt and anger, begin talking and eventually find our way back to an altar to get remarried. Our anniversary for the first time we got married in 1982 just passed this week, the anniversary we celebrate is coming up next month.

Third thing? If I can't think of a third event that makes me curious as to the alternative outcome, what does that mean? That I've only made good choices throughout my life? Hardly. There's a relationship that I wonder how it might have gone differently but you don't need to know about that.

2) If you could have lived in another time, what would it be? One stipulation--you have to be pretty much what you are right now--no going back in time and being Alexander the Great, no being Einstein or Moses or Casanova. If you’re a teacher, you’ll still be a teacher; a doctor, still a doctor; a car mechanic--well figure that one out on your own. You wouldn’t know the future, either--so no going back and betting on horse races and stuff. You would just be you, only in another time and place.

Well, my first years in the Air Force were as a crew chief on helicopters and I really liked the immediacy of being on the flight line. Fixing aircraft, meeting flying schedule requirements and occasionally be tangentially responsible for rescuing a stranded hunter or crashed fighter pilot was pretty powerful, ego motivating stuff. If I were to go back in time, I might have been satisfied to just go back to doing the same work during the 1940s and 1950s. I think working the flight line at a place like Edwards AFB in southern California while the 100 series fighter jets were being developed would have been pretty exciting stuff.

3) What one aspect of your life, such as your family, job, social life, spiritual life, creative ability, etc., do you find most rewarding?

Geez, Terry has come up with some tough questions today! What's the One Thing about my life I find rewarding? I think I've been a pretty good Dad, especially over the past 8 or 10 years or so and I'm always pleased when one of my kids tells me they appreciate something I taught them, if only through example. I'm pretty certain that I have given my boys a decent example of my idea what being a man and a husband is all about. I think I do fair as a husband too, though it took me a few years to get the hang of it.