FULL CIRCLE
By Don Gardner
How often this tale is told – The background changes and the names of the characters (but not the characters themselves) change. This is the confession of a man who went full circle who is telling this story for the benefit of hundreds of us who traveled along this same path.
Most
kids don't know what they want to be when they are grown up. For kids,
anticipating life as an adult is uncertain, oftentimes frightening and
mysterious to contemplate. We often dreamed of what we would like to do as
adults. How many people do you know who grew up to enjoy a career they dreamed
of or planned as kids? How many girls did not become nurses, musicians,
singers, or teachers, or boys who did not become firemen, baseball players, doctors,
or writers.
I
often wished I could become a firefighter. I had a vision in my mind of rushing
into a burning building and rescuing a baby from certain death. My picture
would be on the front page of the High
Point Enterprise. Sometimes the baby was replaced by a young woman who the
photographers caught exactly at the right moment looking worshipfully up at me
as I held her in my heroic arms. After reflecting on the matter carefully, I
decided that in spite of rescuing beautiful, young, and adoring women, rushing
into a burning building was not my cup of tea.
Should
I become a doctor? But doctors have to go to school for many years, and I was
spending my classroom time daydreaming of Tahiti or Alaska and wasn't making
grades. Do the women there really walk
around topless! This was puberty, big time.
Most
often after we reach adulthood, or close to it, we seem to stumble into a
profession without serious planning and remain in a job we do not enjoy. There
are, happily, exceptions.
Frank
Hicks, my best boyhood buddy, always wanted to be a truck driver. His only
ambition when he grew up was to drive to California and back in command of a
huge 18-wheeler, double-clutching up and down hills while he smoothly shifted
through about 30 different gears.
To
demonstrate his skills, he used an old tricycle tire and showed us neighborhood
kids his steering ability. But we didn't get too close to him because he would
make powerful engine noises with his mouth and would spray slobber about three
feet.
Frank
explained double-clutching to me but I could never get the hang of it. My old
’52 Morris Minor in Bermuda apparently didn't understand American techniques
either when I tried it ten years later. The engine wheezed and complained when
I pressed down on the gas between gear shifts and would shift gears only when
it got it's breath back. When I rotated back to the States, I bought a car with
an automatic transmission.
My
brother, Roy, got caught in the revolving doors at Wachovia Bank once and had
to be rescued by the fire department. Whenever our large family gets together,
we like to tell stories on each other, and this is one of our favorites.
Then
there was Jerry Pryor who liked to preach. He would stand on the back steps of
his house across the street from our house and exhort everyone to come to hear
him preach and get saved. His voice carried for a block and we didn’t need to
get any closer.
My
brother-in-law, Richard, was living with us and worked the night shift.
Whenever Jerry set to preaching, exhorting, and waving his arms, the shouting
would wake Richard up. He would ask one of us to tell Jerry to keep quiet.
Jerry would oblige for a while and go inside his house, but soon the spirit
would overtake him and he would come back out and start preaching and exhorting
and waving again. My sister, Margie, and brothers Roy, Johnny, and Jimmy were
"saved" by Jerry a hundred times.
While
Frank was driving around the neighborhood in his big truck made out of a
tricycle tire, and Jerry was saving the kids, I was busy reading every book in
school or the public library about Indians and frontiersmen. I could name the
major Indian tribes, whether they lived in teepees or mud huts, how they stole
horses from their enemies, how they hunted buffalo, and how they often ate their
dogs in winter when game animals were scarce.
Did
you know that the Cheyenne Indians got their name because of a corruption of
the word the French called them—chienes? Chiene
is the French word for dog. And did you know the English version of the mountains
the French called the Grand Tetons is Big Tits? (I learned that one in adult
life.)
When
I was in the fourth grade, I had read so many books about Indians and woodsmen
and frontiersmen that I wanted to write a story. It seemed only natural that
anyone who likes to read should also want to write. My main character would be
a boy my age whose family is killed by the Indian and he is taken to live with
them. But I didn't know how to write in the fourth grade and the book died.
Frank
Hicks became a long-distance driver after his tour of duty in the Air Force. He
drove an 18-wheeler to California and back, dropping off fruit at our house at
Christmas and visited with mom and dad.
The
Reverend Jerry Pryor died of a massive heart attack several years ago. He was
an effective and well-loved minister whose family, congregation, and all who
had the pleasure of knowing him will miss him.
My
brother, Roy, became a Commander in the High Point Fire Department. Whenever a
kid gets stuck in a revolving door anywhere in High Point, they send for him.
As
for me, after dropping out of school, I drifted through several jobs and was
unemployed when I read in the High Point
Enterprise that Coast Guard
Recruiters were coming to town on the following Wednesday to recruit. I
announced to mom and dad that I wanted to join. Mom began packing a suitcase
for me.
When the end of my three-year enlistment was near, I spent many long hours wondering whether I should return home to hearth and family, but work in this town for someone who does not have a high school education is limited.
On
the other hand, I was enjoying my Coast Guard service and was getting by on
about $86.00 a month as an unmarried man; I enjoyed being involved in rescuing
people in trouble and developed a swagger wearing those bell bottoms that was a
wonder to see.
Serving
almost twenty-one years, I retired from the Coast Guard as a Senior Chief
Radioman and worked in communications for the federal government for another 18
years before retiring again. My career in the Coast Guard had been unplanned;
but with the luck of the psuedo-Irish, I luckily stumbled into a career that I
enjoyed and which enabled me to continue with a good pay scale in civilian
life.
I
haven't written the long overdue adventure story about Indians as yet, and my
creative writing teacher has not used several of my short stories for toilet
paper yet.
The
End