Keep on growing

Not long after I joined House Construction the other, partner Dean Robinson decided he wanted to resign. I’m really not sure if it was because of me, I don’t think so, but I do know he never wanted to be in the Home building business so I suspect that had something to do with it. J. D. Called me in and told me my role had expanded. He told me I would now be involved in the commercial end of the business. That was great for me and I was really excited about it but it meant I had much more to learn. I dived in and quickly learned that i liked it even more than building houses. With J.D.’s help I was able to learn enough to get by. I loved the interaction with the sub contractors and just watching a building or home come together. We were pretty busy during this time and often had several jobs going at the same time. I loved it. We went on like this for several years but I began to notice J. D. Was losing his enthusiasm. Before I joined his company he had built a small apartment complex in Wewoka and one in Holdenville. He and his wife Irene were operating those and they stayed occupied. He had an idea to build a motel in Holdenville. He drew the plans , arranged the financing and we began construction. We built a very nice 22 unit motel and it was immediately at full occupancy. His enthusiasm turned towards the Motel business and he seldom bid anymore commercial jobs. Now, what I know now that I didn’t know then is what he really wanted me to do was take the bull by the horns. Grab the reins of the whole building business and run with it and he would nurse his motel and apartments. Now I must , in all honesty reveal one of my HUGE character flaws. When I was very young, sometime right after high school, a counselor told me I had a REAL problem with what he called ” sticktoitivenence “. I know there is no such word but it means stick to an endeavor til it’s done. Boy was he ever right. All my life I’ve been guilty of going into something with great excitement, doing a heck of a job for a while then becoming bored with it and just going through the motions. I had arrived at this point in the building business. Why I don’t know. Business was still pretty good, we were still getting jobs, even though J.D. had lost some of his drive. Suddenly I was looking around for the next chapter. Terrible mistake on my part. We had all the equipment, reputation everything we needed to continue on. J. D. Seeing my lack of dedication decided to desolve the company completely. One of the bigger mistakes of my life. I loved the man and I let him down. I have never gotten over it. He was kind enough to keep me on the payroll until I could find a job. I contacted my former employer, Kingsbury homes, and yes they had a place for me right back In my old job. By this time Susan and I were separated, she had filed for divorce and this time I knew it was for real. I rented a room from a friend in Atwood Oklahoma and was traveling again.

As a single man in a small town like Holdenville Oklahoma there was not a lot of eligible ladies to date. Also it’s not real easy for someone to get back in the dating game after being married. I was just a fish out of water for a while. Then one Saturday I happened to run into a lady I had known practically all my life. She had grown up one house away from me. She was also divorced at the time. I had stopped at the ball park where a little league baseball game was going on and she was there watching her son play ball. In front of what seemed like the eyes of the whole town I walked over and sat down beside her. After a bit of small talk I asked her if she would like to go out sometime. Thankfully she said yes. I was REALLY out of practice asking for dates but I had a little advantage. My mother had told me once that this lady had told her she had a crush on me in high school. I mean our family’s knew each other well. Anyway that’s how I came to have my first date with Barbara. Who knew that one short year later we would be married? That’s another story.