Dear Garrett..

Chapter 23

WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS 

“When something good or bad happens it will happen again in a short period of time – or it will get worse”

More Flying and Another Girl

Although the prisoner transport flights kept me plenty busy over the next year, they didn’t consume all my time. When I wasn’t flying prisoners, other opportunities showed up to occupy my waking hours – and sleeping hours too! 

As nice as Marie was (chapter 16), I didn’t get to see her again. Like Marie, completely by surprise, I soon discovered another girl liked me too. I had known Jennifer for several months but I wasn’t aware of how she felt about me beyond basic friendship.  Within a few days following my visit with Marie, Jennifer decided to take it upon herself to teach me more about women.  

Jennifer (not her real name) had blue eyes and blonde hair. She was three years my senior when we got to know each other – Jenifer 23 when I was 20. I was glad for my year with Jennifer. She was always in a good mood. We got to do some things you only read about in books!  When the military decided I was more needed in Vietnam than in California, Jennifer and I had to say goodbye. Decades later Jennifer told me when I left her in California for the military, I didn’t leave her alone. 

My daily flights continued to intensify now that I was flying the prisoners for Santa Cruz County as well as other corporate type flying responsibilities. Weekends kept me busy flying shuttle flights for one of my employers. During the summer months, I would depart Watsonville for a flight to the Clear Lake Lampson Field Airport regularly on Friday afternoons with my boss and one of his other employees on board. After dropping them off in Clear Lake, I would return home alone to Watsonville.  

The following morning, Saturday, I would fly my employer’s wife and children to Clear Lake for the remainder of the weekend. I would spend the weekend at my employer’s beautiful Clear Lake, California home. My weekends at Clear Lake were lonesome. I was a pilot and an employee for my bosses family but not family. 

I never knew how the other employee I had flown up to Clear Lake with my employer on Friday’s returned home to Watsonville to resume her job at the company cemetery on Monday mornings? I didn’t see her again on weekends after dropping her and my employer off at the Lampson Airport on Friday afternoons. When I arrived at Clear Lake on Saturday mornings with my employers family, she was always gone?? 

Between flying, Nate’s Bar and Jennifer, life was keeping me plenty busy! When I wasn’t flying a night prisoner flight, I was hangar flying with my colleagues and mentors at Nate’s. I learned a lot at Nate’s about life from our nightly beer drinking and talks together there. After Nate’s, it was time for more girl lessons with Jennifer. I’ll admit I’d show up tired at the airport for work more often than not. Sometimes I even told myself I was giving up the beer drinking all together!  But somehow my resolve to give up the beer and fun with the boys at Nate’s would always dissipate as a day progressed. Regardless of any morning resolve I may have made, when five o’clock rolled around or when I finished flying in the evening, I would promptly head to Nate’s to meet up with the boys. After an evening at Nate’s, missing another lesson with Jennifer was never an option.