COULDA' BEEN A CONTENDER..

I often wonder what direction my life could have taken if even one factor would have been changed. What if my dad never went in the service or if my mother did not suffer from alcoholism or if I had not gone in the navy. I was in all sports at school. I played left end on the football team in 9th and 10th grade and Fair at basketball and was the fastest in school in the 50 yd and 100 yd dashes. I was in the top two in math class and stood out in art classes. But because of circumstances, I moved across the river to live with my dad because they were getting divorced. I didn’t like the new school in LeClaire, Iowa so I quit after 2 weeks in the 10th grade. No one questioned about me from school. I got a job at the Ucanco Candy Co. in Davenport. I was 15 but told them I was 17. I caught the bus every morning and worked for two weeks before I asked my dad if I could quit school and get a job. His response was “You’re old enough to know what you want to do”. I was 15. Then I told him what I already had done. I remember he used the exact same words when I told I had been smoking for the last year. 15 is not old enough for those decisions. What if I had stayed in school and followed through with math as a career or followed through with track and field. Not my mother or my dad even knew I was in sports or was good at math or actually anything that I was interested in. I wound up working for 2 years at the Candy co. and then joined the Navy at 17 with my dad signing for me. It probably, under the circumstances, was the best thing that happened to me at that point in my life.