Turning Point

     8:00 pm, Friday, April 4th, 1980.

    We were at Milton's Pizza in Virginia Beach.  I looked across the table at my two friends.  Our pizza was finished, as well as the second pitcher.

    “So,” I said, “what do you guys want to do?”

    “We could go down to the Oceanfront,” one offered.

    “Naw, it’s not tourist season yet.  Nothing going on down there.”

    “Well,” he said, “what about Nag’s Head?”

    “Why?”

    “Why not?”

    Even though Nag’s Head would be as dead as the Virginia Beach Oceanfront, the scheme sounded logical.  So, after a detour to a liquor store to pick up a bottle of Jack Daniels and Seven-Up,  we headed two hours south into North Carolina.

    A few hours later, my Chevy lay upside down in a Moyock, North Carolina ditch.  Miraculously, even though none of us wore a seat belt, we were virtually unharmed.  

    But, the car was totaled.

********

    Last week, while perusing Twitter (X...whatever) in search of some lunatic to pick a fight with, I came across this...

    It caused me to ponder.  Sure, there are many events in my life which caused me to go in this direction or that.  After all, 65 years has a tendency to do that.

    But, if I had to choose, it would be that decision made by (okay, let's be honest) impaired numbskulls who thought driving to a darkened beach on the Outer Banks was genius.

   Now I know that this may bore you.  We all have those things in our past that have profoundly affected us, but don't feel the need to put them down in writing.  Not so with me.  Such is my ego trip.

Speaking of ego trips, still available by the truckload.

    So, I may be typing this is in a vacuum where only I will tread.

    Anyways....

    By the time April, 1980 had arrived, I'd nearly reached my fourth anniversary of serving in the Navy.  I had seen a lot and done a lot, but I was determined to get out when my time came in August and return home to Connecticut.

    Even a few months after my accident, that was still the plan.  However, I had lost a few thousand dollars and was dropped like third grade English by my insurance company.

    Despite brave attempts to put on a happy face, things were bleak.

    Then the career counselor told me I could reenlist for four years of shore duty.  What's more, the Navy would give me $10,000.  

    Well, since it was for shore duty and I was going to get thousands of dollars, I saw a way to ease the financial burdens in my life.  So, why not?

    Plus, that summer I started dating a local girl.  So, why not hang around?

    If you've read this far, I'm going to cut you a break and "speed round" how a night of idiocy affected me:

1.  I remained in Virginia.

2.  I married the aforementioned girl.

3.  I did separate from the Navy in 1984.  But, I joined the Naval Reserves.

VA-0686 at NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach.
Huh.
I didn't know we had a patch.

4.  The aforementioned girl told me she was leaving me at our fourth anniversary dinner (this sounds depressing, but things turned out pretty good).

5.  I then determined to return to Connecticut to go to school.

6.  I met another girl from Virginia Beach (if you think you know where this is going, you'd be correct).

7.  Stubbornly, I moved to Connecticut in August, 1985.  However, because of that girl, I remained drilling at Oceana.

8.  While making a sock puppet as part of my elementary school teacher training, I decided to drop out of school at Central Connecticut State College.

9.  I returned to Virginia Beach.

10.  I married the girl I had met several months prior.  No, I can't figure it either.  I must be a player.

11.  I reenlisted in the Navy and changed my specialty to Naval Aircrew.

Yeah, this was fun. 
Cheesy moustache notwithstanding.

Fast forward because even I'm getting a little bored...

12.  My wife gave me two beautiful children while we were living in Maine.

Fast forward some more because it's close to dinnertime...

13.  After thirty years, Wife #2 told me we were done.  Clearly, I could get 'em.  I just couldn't keep 'em.

14.  Our daughter moved with her husband from Pennsylvania to, you guessed it, Virginia Beach.

15.  Once I retired for the second time (I had retired from the Navy in 2005), I planned on moving to, I get the irony, North Carolina.

16.  My daughter asked if we could live together while they saved up for a house so I moved to, you guessed it, Virginia Beach in 2020.

17.  Shockingly, I met a girl who will become Wife #3.  These women I meet must have shockingly bad taste in men.

18.  We bought a house in Virginia Beach.

I call it the "Kenderosa." 
Remember that ego trip I was talking about?

19.  So, though my daughter and her family moved back to Pennsylvania, I know I shall remain in Virginia.

    None of this is what I would have envisioned over an empty pitcher of beer (or in an upside down Monza) all those many years ago.

    But, that is what happened and I am very happy that that was the turning point that set the stage for a wonderful life then, during, and now.

    And now?  Dinnertime.

I remain impaired, though.