Day #11: In my life I have made a three decisions that tower above all the rest. One, in April of 1965, in LeeChester Hall, during the annual Revival Meetings I accepted Christ Jesus as my Savior. Two, in importance not chronology, in August of 1974, sitting down in the family restaurant at the landing I decided to, and wrote a letter to the pretty girl I met a Pinebrook. Both decisions are a clear today as if they were yesterday. The third, until this morning was a blur; lost in the clutter of time, but its impact was just as important. However after years of trying to recall it, this morning it all came clear. I guess, I am thankful for that, too. What I always remembered was, I was alone on the porch of Bacons Store and had been most of the night and it was raining. It was July about a month before my birthday, and my life was going no where. There was nothing in my life I was proud of, nothing. I was trying to figure something out. Like all teenagers, everywhere, I was convinced my hometown, Leesburg NJ, sucked more than any town in the history of towns, and I had to get out because my life in Leesburg sucked. However, I hated everything about me and my life. I was not enjoying my life, I thought I was condemned to my life not living it. After a bit, the rain let up long enough for me to venture home. I left my perch in the phone booth, took a look at myself in the window and I stepped out from under the porch and by the time I got to that house, between the Ambulance Hall (Now Georges Pizza) and Fowlers Sunoco (Now some Motorcycle shop) I had decided that the next morning I would go to Atlantic City and enlist. Back up a little, until this morning that all was a blur: I had always wanted to go to Annapolis, but my many poor choices had sacrificed that dream to excuses. I had wanted to be an officer in the military but with no self esteem that would never and could never have happened. In a moment of clarity during my senior year after taking to a recruiter at school, I had wanted to enlist in High School but Pop wouldnt sign. Another time, I just talked about it to Mom over breakfast, just after I turned 18, and he over heard the conversation and promised me the moon not to enlist, but then he never delivered. But now I was just about to turn 19, I had quit the only lousy job I could get myself. Honestly, I really hated fishing, crabbing, clamming, anything to do with being a waterman. Getting on at the new Correctional Center was still two years away, they let 18 year old test but they would take them, just after Viet Nam, they wanted Veterans. The Veterans Preference points were through the roof. By the time I got old enough all of the positions would be filled. Elsewhere in the world, the times were hard, and you needed connections to get a good job in one of the factories and my connection had let me down. So in a moment of clarity, my thoughts were completely dark, I realized in South Jersey, I had no prospects, no direction, no vision, but that, that face in the reflection could still do anything. But I thought, if I could just get out of there for a while, just a little while, just a few years, I could leave this life, find a new me, find a new directions, get my GI Bill, this new me could go to college, and then come home to Leesburg if I wanted to. Stepping across the road between Bacons and the Firehouse that night I was going home and the next morning I was going to ACNJ to enlist, and I was going to be a lawyer. The military was going to get me out and help me up. Wile walking past the fire hall and ambulance hall I decided to enlist in the USCG. I decided on the USCG because while Pop liked the Lifesaver part (for anyone else), he hated pretty much everything else about it. To me seeing the 40ers rushing to the rescue was always just too cool. Leonard was in the Coast Guard and he loved it. Walt was in the Coast Guard and I remember seeing him through a drunken stupor one night in his really cool uniform. So, it wasnt patriotism, sacrifice, duty, honor or anything else that caused me to enlist. But in so many, many, many ways it was salvation. I rekindled my dream, the dream of who I wanted to be and who I could be. It was the second salvation of my life, it was my second rebirth. I am certain, and I can clearly see, there was Someone else guiding my footsteps. The same Someone who protected me while I served for the next 22 years. The same Someone who guided me away not for a few years but for now going on 40. Would I do it again, I dont know I am not done doing it for the first time, about two months later I left and never fully came back. I never became a lawyer. I met Vicki. We got married and raised a family. I went to college, then to OCS, I became that Officer I always dreamed I be. Someone started guiding my steps that night and never stopped. I was given my life back. My parents moved away two days after I enlisted, Bacons Store is gone, the old firehouse is gone. While it hasnt changed, the town is really small now or is it that I have grown. But, if the cards fall into place and we end up retiring where we want to, about 26 miles away in OCNJ, I will return to SJ but if that is not HIS plan that is okay too: I will always be so grateful everyone stayed home or was somewhere else and I was alone that night. I will always be so grateful the middle Turner girl turned me down for a date, and it was only just for that weekend and that that unavailability started me thinking such negative thoughts. I will always be so grateful for the rain that trapped me under the porch and enprisoned me with my thoughts. I will always be so grateful for Mr. Bacons clean windows and working lights so that I could see my reflection in the window. I will always be so grateful I decided to leave and to serve. I will always be so grateful it was just me and Mom eating breakfast and Dad was fishing when I had to ask for the easiest directions to Atlantic City. I will always be so grateful to Mom, She knew, Mom always knew, I didnt tell her, she just knew, and she gave them to me anyway. I will always be so grateful I didnt get lost and was led by Someone to find where the recruiters were. I really didnt know where in ACNJ to go, I just knew if I got there I could find the building where they were. Finally, I am so grateful to the US Coast Guard for the opportunities it provided me to find the man I wanted to be and the life to grow into that man. I know this was really long, I thank you for reading to the bottom. I have searched to recreate this night for many years. It took seeing and accepting one point and the rest unraveled. I thank the Lord for giving me this gift back. I thank him for me seeing that person in the reflection in the glass. Had I not seen him, I dont think I would have went home, but down to Allens Welding down by the river, the site of another resent failure, and I wouldnt have come home. Funny what you find when your life hits bottom at 19. Shalom
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 14:20:15 +0000
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