And in that year of 1969, I was 24 years old, married,
college grad (but I didn’t know anything) and the first child on the way.
Now, it’s later. The year 2019, and we are just unpacking in
Corpus Christi, Texas where Linda’s son has been posted by the Navy after
completion of his command tour (CO of VFA 103, A/F-18F squadron out of Oceana,
Virginia Beach, VA). Glad to be here, but sincerely, may have one move left in
me, but not many more.
It is likely that we will end up in either the Atlanta area
or the Charlotte, NC area as the plan right now is that Danny will retire from
the Navy at 20 years in early 2022 and get a job flying for the airlines. There
are other potential outcomes, but time will tell. Since grandson Bradley is one
of only three people who Linda knows of that share here DNA (most of us can
count in the hundreds that we know of), we will be close.
Meanwhile, we are trying to find the time and energy to
visit all the grandchildren as much as possible.
Other than being extremely hot (duh—it’s south Texas in
August), we have really enjoyed CC so far. For one thing, the people are really
nice and very friendly, a departure from the East Coast (don’t get me wrong, we
enjoyed Va Beach a lot).
Here is a surprise: we had a 40-year old man, said he was a Mexican,
his girlfriend and his buddy help us unload the 26’ U-Haul truck and 12’
trailer that we drug from VA. Again, they were good people and friendly, but
the surprise is that they wanted to talk politics, particularly presidential
politics. The buddy was a pudgy white guy with a bushy red beard who you would
expect lived in his mother’s basement and played computer games all day. The
girlfriend was…well, let’s just say she was not a Fulbright candidate but nice
enough. To my absolute amazement, without prompting from me they launched into
a full support dialogue of President Trump and his policies and total disgust
with the Democratic candidates. Special disgust for “The Squad” and the leftist
media.
Again, I was not leading any of these comments, and Linda
was whispering for me to get them to shut up and just work as we were paying
them by the hour. Truly, though, they worked hard and steady.
I thought that was an anomaly. A few days later, cable guy
shows up. Mexican. Here for a few weeks to help out, but born, raised and
living in “The Valley.” In these parts, that is the Rio Grande valley. You are
probably not believing me at this point, but he pursued the conversation on
politics, and started it by saying he voted for Trump and so did his parents
(his father was born here, his mother in Mexico). He is in his mid-20’s, wants
to go back to school, probably to study business. In his words, the media “thinks
we’re stupid” and believes that any Mexican or Hispanic person is uniformly a
Democrat.
He echoed my observation—Mexicans work hard, know how to
work with their hands, go to church and are family oriented. They are not
interested in hand outs.
Wanted to let everyone know that we are getting settled,
here is the contact info:
Bob and Linda Peterson
6513 Picante Dr
Corpus Christi, TX 78414
Phone numbers the same, 913.238.2298 and 816.885.1849
