Since I have recently been Blessed by catching up with friends from the Great Back Whens, I thought that I might thumbnail sketch my life since we parted company.
1981-happy and set in Michigan, part of an aggregation of good people who were part of the Jesus Lighthouse Coffeehouse.
I was bodily the chattel of the United States Coast Guard, and while we were on a Summer cruise to Chicago on our ship the Mackinaw, Fidel Castro decided to empty his prisons and insane asylums, encouraging the Cubans who didn't love him to wash up on American soil. So I had T.A.D.-Temporary assigned duty down to Key West. In August. It was hot.
Can't recall if I even got to say goodbye to any of my friends in Michigan-right after that I was transferred to Base Milwaukee to finish up my term of enlistment.
TL/DR...okay. Milwaukee to Duluth, Minnesota where I was cooking for three years. Duluth to Missouri, cooking a year and a half. All kinds of personal stuff happening, as it does for us all.
Missouri back to Duluth for three years, still cooking.
Sister invited me out to try my luck in Las Vegas, stayed seven years. Working for an office complex doing Maintenance-my brother in law got me the job, and I was very grateful to get out of the kitchens.
Seven years, and then back to Minnesota, up the North shore of Lake Superior to a little haven called Lutsen/Grand Marais. Back to cooking for four years until an opportunity opened to do building maintenance again. Did that for three years at a ski resort, then back down to my home of Two Harbors, near Duluth in 2002. Went to college as an ancient student, graduated towards computer networking. Two things happened back then-I began working in a business to business company sort of in the IT field, and my parents started not doing too well, so they needed me to help them in their last years-I had been planning on moving to the Twin Cities with my fancy computer networking degree...they both passed in 2010.
My Dad in August, Mother in December.
October of that 2010 I bought the house in Two Harbors where I am currently writing this long 'sketch'. It was built in 1893, and is solid.
I am still working at the B2B company, with one little bump in the road a few years ago when things changed and I was let go for a year. As soon as they could bring me back in they did, and I am very grateful.
Family/friends reading this might make mention of the fact that I have left someone out, my girlfriend during my time up in Lutsen/Grand Marais. We parted ways in 2001, and I wish her well, but am very happy to be single at this time in my life. There were a few other possibilities over the years, down in Missouri in particular, but God knows how to shepherd His sheep.
So there it is in miniature-an entire life from 1981 to 2017.
Any of my back when buddies who want to follow my example, I would love to see how your lives have been. Our 'real lives' wait for us in Heaven, but what we have down here, good and bad, is part of us. May God richly Bless you today.
