Going back to Florida to work the shuttle program was a bag chock-full of “stuff.” El was happy that we were leaving dismally grey VA and getting closer to her family in Tallahassee. I was achieving a childhood dream of working in the space program. I used to play with toy rockets (as an only child) and often imagined doing “space stuff,” in some way or another. Of course, moving down with our 2 year old, dealing with company provided temporary housing (a condo no less), and one car was “a lot of fun” too.
I was assigned to launchpad 39B and had two younger guys as co-workers; neither of which were too inclined to be helpful. I guess their rationale was that it made them look better if I remained the village idiot, so I dug into the job head-n-feet first. Suffice to say that months later, both gentlemen moved on to something else and as I learned more, I took on more responsibility.
As our month-long free ride in the condo wound down, we rented another condo (on a lagoon, but locals called a river) closer to work in the same complex as one of my shipyard buddies. I can’t remember when, but eventually, we bought another car so El could get around with our ‘young-in’ and I could have a work car. Space work meant a lot of shift work and unpredictable hours, which also meant paid overtime to cover the new car payment. El’s job was child-rearing and domestic fun-n-games. It was during this period of “river condo” living that’s my first recollection of my sexual stupidity resurfacing. Fantasy land returned with the focus being on the wife of my shipyard buddy and the wife of our new upstairs neighbors. I pity the poor gal upstairs because I would purposely wash the car in the parking lot before she got home from work and made sure my gonads were dangling out of my shorts for her viewing. Never heard a word about it from her or her husband – go figure.
I should mention that at his point in my life, I still had no use for God. I was still foul-mouthed and still thought I was living the way that all “manly” men lived; in other words, I was still clueless. I had to continually stifle my mouth around managers, etc. Not just the swearing, but the unending sexual innuendo that (unfortunately) I was becoming known for. I thought I was hilarious. It didn’t matter what someone said; I could take their words and twist them into something sexual and vulgar. Yet somehow, in roughly three years I managed to advance to the lead position for both of the launchpads and mobile launch platforms.
It was also about the time that El and I purchase our first home and had our second child – another son.
“Another son,” just kind of a casual reference, eh? I had to go back and insert this paragraph that having another child was something that I didn’t take lightly. I had been so amazed about the depth of the love I had for my first son. I couldn’t fathom having another; kept asking myself could I love him (#2) as much as #1. I had no idea that I had that much “fatherly” love within me. Was this a by-product of never knowing my biological father? Maybe so. Suffice it to say, that I loved (and still do) my 2nd son equally with my first and third (comes a little later), and I miss them so.
“Some” might try to be charitable and say it was due to the additional stress of house payments, another mouth to feed combined with added responsibility at work, but I’m not sure if that would be honest. As the lead engineer, I had around 6-7 people under me. I was responsible for their training, work assignments, etc., and ensuring “the team” met our obligations to maintain and launch off of both pads. This was also the time frame when masturbating came back into full bloom. Driving to work, at work, on the launchpad, in the bathrooms…anywhere that I could get by with it. I don’t know what spurred this on, but it was rampant and also coincided with the arrival of a new female employee from TN. She became known as the “Tennessee Two-Step.”
Off to the next chapter…in the Tennessee Two-Step.
Or back to the previous blog Yard Bird.
babychristian55 