It was a good feeling.
Walking off the ship 21 days before my enlistment would have been officially over – felt like I was getting a little pay back for all the long hours on that “haze gray and underway” monstrosity. Yet I did check into re-enlisting for something like a $10k-$12k bonus for 5 more years of my life; provided they gave me overseas shore duty in Rota Spain. El was into it, but in retrospect I’m not sure how well she would have handled being away from her family for 3 years. I didn’t sign the papers because I would have been required to spend almost another 2 years on the carrier. My job was considered ‘critical’ and required 5 years sea time, then you get 2 years shore. So ‘they’ would have been doing me a big favor to give me 3 years overseas shore duty early. No thanks.
Now it was back to civilian life, but the odd thing was – I didn’t really know what single adult civilian life was like. I went into the navy straight out of high school and came out as a young married man; unemployed at that. For the longest time I blamed all of my marital problems and personal sex issues on never having the opportunity to living a ‘normal’ single life, aka sow my wild young adult male oats. In retrospect I did plenty of oat sowing, and I reaped what I sowed.
Before I deployed on the last cruise, El had moved out of the Neptune Beach apartment and went back to live with her folks in Tallahassee. So when she picked me up from my last walk off the ship, we were headed to the new apartment in Tally-town. When I first met her, she was a telephone operator; after returning to her Florida stomping grounds she secured a job as a dental assistant. The dentist was just establishing his practice; his wife worked the front office, and he was willing to train her (so he could pay her less money than one with experience).
I doubt if El’s income would have supported the new apartment for long; in addition, to buying furniture, etc., so I need to get on unemployment/find a job – quickly. So what did I do? I sat around in the living room – a lot, and watched the view. The view being the young 20 year old bikini clad girls frolicking in the pool, and of course – I took matters into hand.
It was ‘strongly suggested’ by El and her mother that I play the ‘name drop’ game and tell anyone that I was applying to for a job, that I was Mr. Outdoor’s son-in-law. I had a real aversion to that. I felt that if I couldn’t get a job on my own merits, then it wasn’t worth having. However, after a few or so ‘you are not qualified,’ I gave in and tried it. Guess what? That didn’t work either. And I could have sworn that it was almost had more of a negative effect based on the interviewer’s expression.
Finally I did get a job, but I was getting paid under the table. Mounting pumps and motors on big steel bases. They tried to teach me welding; I tried my best, but I sucked well enough that the job didn’t last long. Turned out to be more of an interim thing, now that I think of it more. Waiting for the new semester to start at the junior college, since I had had a longing to become an engineer after my days in the engine room.
So it’s off to TCC Land.
Or back to the previous blog Matrimony – Take One.
babychristian55 