The one thing about life is, that it stops for no one! And we were no exception. I still needed to work, and learn about child care, cooking, cleaning, and playing!  

Did I mention learning how to spend money so that you had enough to make it through the pay period, making sure there’s food on the table, electricity to light, heat, and or cool the place? 

Transportation was a whole different experience!  Making sure the car functions, and functions safely, insurance, gasoline, maintenance.  And still making sure that there is play and fun in there somewhere!

Yes, I had done some of this before, but the addition of a little boy ups the ante quite a bit.  He is depending on me and rightly so. 

There were so many things I took for granted as a child growing up and I had no idea what it took to make things happen.

Society is structured really to take advantage of those people ignorantly struggling, such as myself.  What I mean by this mostly pertains to credit cards and the like.  I never knew anything really about balancing a check book or budgeting my money.  If I had checks I had cash and if there was still credit left on my credit card, it was no problem to spend it!  

We had needs, right? 

The nice part about living in Cherry Point was that we were really pretty close to the beach. So, in the nice weather months, we had ready access to fun. 

It didn’t seem to take long before I got orders to go to Camp Pendleton California for my new duty station.  That was an adventure within itself!

PS: Life as a military police officer:

I remember getting an alarm off at the PX, which is nothing more than a “Walmart” for the base.  We found an open door and began doing a sweep of the building.  I was walking down an aisle, with my weapon out, thinking we may have had a potential burglary, and was turning to the right to enter the next area to check, and that’s when I saw him.

It was a life sized poster of the Marlboro Man and I almost shot him, thinking he was the burglar! 

Fortunately all parties survived without trauma!

On another incident I got a call for a disabled vehicle stuck in the ditch at a particular intersection. 

It was me trying to figure out how to get out. 

Now that was embarrassing!