LIFE IS GOOD

We left off yesterday as Jeanie was buying her home in California, we will rejoin her later when the roads come together.

I was in Idaho, that week, at a Trap shoot doing Gun fitting and selling shooting related accessories for competition shooters. Between Skeet, Trap and sporting clays competition shoots, I  was in a Different venue each week.

 

Skeet shoot in San Antonio

 

Rojo in the shop

The Winnie and the shop trailer

 The shop open for business in the early days.

When I first started the business it was quick to set up.I would back the trailer in put the jacks down unhook the winnie, open the doors and go to work. 20 minutes tops.

I need to clear up something before we go any further with this story. I am not a gun nut. I don't even like guns.I was there because the money was excellent, to say the least. In the words of Forrest Gump " And thats all I am going to say about that"

I will be Skipping around here a bunch and it may be a tad difficult to keep up with,It would be for me If I had not lived it. From 1997 to 2005 it was SOSDDDV.( Same ole stuff, different day, different venue.) for me as it had been for some time.

The business  grew every week and over the years It became more than I could handle by myself.By 2001 It was taking me 12-16 hours to set up for a shoot and the same amount of time to tear down after a shoot. I had to hire people with some knowledge of the shooting game to handle the accessories tents. I usually hired someone from the gun club or a relative of a shooter.

 

Grand American Trap shoot Vandalia OH 2002

 

The accessories tents

 

Inside the large accessories tent

 

The whole set up from the back side 

The load had become to much for ole Winnie also. She had been a good and faithful ole gal for many years. Winnie had carried the load like a champ from coast to coast and border to border.

In Late summer 2002 I bought "Blackie" a cab over Freightliner with a refrigerated box. with a little modification the box became my new living quarters.

 

Blackie had a shower, toilet, 2 burner stove, hot water heater, holding tanks and I called it my Boar's nest. I ordered a new vendor trailer that would cut my set up time down to almost nothing again. Life was good.

Now it is time to jump around some more, Remember at the start I told you this story had more arms than a train load of octopus.

In December 2000 I got a new unlimited ATT cell phone and ran on to a new social network for cell users called "UPOC"

I joined UPOC and several of the UPOC social groups. UPOC was a forerunner to MYSPACE  and FACEBOOK. I noticed that a person"GEANIE" was in some of the same groups I was in, but so were several dozen other people.

It was a lot like any other group, some people you feel a connection with and some you don't. This Geanie person and I never communicated on a  one one one basis, it was always a few dozen of us in "Group". Group was very similar to  status on Facebook.

On December 1 2001 I founded a group on UPOC called "SINGLE NOMADS" it was for single people who made their living on the road and people who wanted to get to know them. I had about 400 members in the group in short order. The only time I was seeing this Geanie person was  in the over 40 group and that was the only other group I had time for.

Every morning I would go into the over 40 group say good morning to the group, read a few GM'S and back to Single Nomads. We had a lot of fun in those groups and a lot of not so much fun ,just like in Facebook.

I noticed that Geanie would be posting about the same time as I posted every morning and it was always a positive thought or comment. Some of the folks in the group just couldn't handle the positive stuff and called her "Little miss sunshine". 

 I  spent that winter in South Texas. As far north as San Antonio over to Houston, Corpus Christi and south for the shoots. Corpus  was my base for the Winter.

I was in a brand new relationship and work was booming,a lot of guys who don't shoot much in the winter get their gun work done then.Between the new relationship and work I was hopping  like a frog in the freeway. I didn't have a lot of time for upoc.

I went in to the over 40 group one morning and Geanie had just been there. She had posted

"What a beautiful day it is to make hopes and dreams come true........ for others".

I really didn't know this person who had sent that message but I thought to myself,"How unusual that someone is thinking about making someone else happy", I answered back "And in doing so wouldn't it be wonderful if some of our own came true".  I sent her an invitation to join single nomads which she did. I didn't know  it then but that was the beginning of a lot of dreams coming true.

Geanie was a regular  adding her sunshine to the group on a daily basis. She was always so bubbly and positive everyone in the group look forward to seeing her messages each morning. After 3-4 months we had voice messaging added to our group and her voice messages were as bubbly and positive as her text messages.

 Tomorrow : A long hot summer

I plan to have a great day,I hope you will join me

Rojo