Before I go any further with this tale of woe, despair, and gloom, let's get some things straight. There is no off the wall, high-tech, spy type crap in this story. There is no burn the bitch or the bastard. This is a story about a regular man and woman who, due to their faults and shortcomings, find out that life can be a bitch and sometimes things aren't what they seem.
I, the narrator of this tail of miscommunication, almost comedic coincidence, and woeful misassumptions, am Donny Stanford. In my background, there is nothing special. I have never been a Delta operator, SEAL, or special forces. The CIA, NSA, or anyone from Area 51 have no connection or interest in me. My IQ is average, and my educational accomplishments run-of-the-mill. I was never a star athlete, a musical prodigy, nor am I the son of parents with massive sums of money. I am 44 years old, average in height, a little over weight, and nothing to speak of visually. If you look up average on Wikipedia, you will probably find my picture.
That being said, I have done my best to be a solid husband, an above-average father, and a good wage earner for my family. I have spent 22 years as a professional firefighter and worked my way to the rank of Lieutenant. I command a first line pumper and crew and am the senior lieutenant at my station, supervising the other two shift crews.
That brings me to my wife of 23 years, Brooke. She is three years younger than I am. Yes, I robbed the cradle, marrying here when she was just 19 and still in college. Her mother wasn't at all pleased, I don't think, but we managed to work out a level of détente that kept peace. I joined the fire depart after we got married and just before our first child was born. One other joined the family and since that completed the set, a boy, and a girl, we decided to bring the child bearing phase of our family to an end.
I didn't finish my degree. I was intent on becoming a brilliant success and was sure that I had already cornered the market on wisdom and knowledge. That led to my first encounter with Karma. Just as we were expecting our first child, who was to be named Colin, I decided that my get rich schemes were not going to come to fruition, which led me to apply for the fire department. I was successful and began a career that allowed me to provide a level of security for a growing family as well as continue to explore my entrepreneurial dreams.
Brooke, through the first pregnancy, managed to complete her undergraduate degree in psychology. If you know anything about education and the real world, you understand the job market for undergraduate psychology majors is challenging to say the least. Usually, the job opportunities involve such things as taking orders for burgers and fries or dealing daily with a room full of other people's screaming children. That led to more education and eventually a teaching certificate.
She wound up still dealing with a room full of other people's children, but at least the pay was better, the job had some benefits, and, eventually, the carrot at the end of the stick, a pension. So there we were, a happy and content family of four, with reasonably secure jobs, a mortgage, car payments, and the usual day-to-day problems that affect most couples.
For those of you who don't understand what the life of a firefighter entails, allow me to explain. Our department worked on a three shift schedule. Shifts A, B, and C. I was assigned to B shift. Each shift works 24 hours on duty and then had 48 hours off-duty before the cycle repeats. There are advantages and disadvantages to this arrangement.
Most firefighters have a second gig that they pursue on their days off. Some work for other people, while some of us go our own way. I went to work for another firefighter who ran framing crews for a third firefighter who built spec houses. Yeah. I know. It all seems a little inbred, but you have to understand that firefighters tend to work, play, and socialize with other firefighters. It's part of the brotherhood thing.
Brooke, tried her hand at first as an elementary school teacher in a private church run school. She lasted two years. During the summer break, I carefully explained to her that if she went back to the classroom, I would gather the two kids and we would find other accommodations. She didn't handle the stress of 30 7-year-olds well at all. She had a tendency to expel that stress at home with me and the kids.
Over the next three years, she tried her hand at numerous jobs. She worked for Goodwill for a while as an instructor in life skills. She did ok, but there was no real money or satisfaction. A change allowed her to do a short stint as a recruiter for a temporary job agency, but had a hard time dealing with some employers. Finally, she got a job with the school system where we live in the early childhood intervention program. It required her to go back to university and complete a special ed certificate. While she was there, she doubled up and got her certificate as a hearing impaired specialist. Basically, she learned sign language well enough to pass the state certification test.
Her job required her to work with families who had children from birth to three years old who were developmentally delayed. That could include premature babies, those with birth-defects or physical problems, and babies who were drug or alcohol exposed. Brooke didn't have a classroom. All of her contacts were made at the homes of her assigned children. She loved it and seemed to have found her niche.
Life seemed to be on rails for a while. I was progressing up the rank ladder at the fire department. I took some classes from the adult education department at the university and discovered that I had a minor talent for computers. In those days, the prevalent programming language was Basic. I discovered DBase, the leading database management program of the time, and began to work on my skills. Another company produced a compatible program, called Clipper, that included and was compatible with DBase but had a rudimentary extensible programming language. I was soon on my way to being a database guru.
That led to a partnership with a non-firefighter. My partner owned a portion of a medical equipment supply company. He was having trouble finding management software that would work for his operation. We soon had a prototype running in his business. Several months later, we had added a suite of accounting, inventory, payroll, and insurance claim packages to the base platform. We began marketing that software regionally in the Southeastern US and had surprising success.
The downside to all this was a brutal work schedule for me. I was working my usual fifty-two hours a week at the fire station, and then putting in another 40 to 50 hours programming and supporting our software. Throw in the occasional trade show trip or travel to meet and support our growing customer base, and you can see the train wreck that was approaching. There weren't two trains about to collide, but there was one on the track running full throttle and a sharp left turn was just up ahead.
It was a prefect storm of mistakes, missteps, and omissions. Most of them on my part. I got so focused on being successful at my career and business, that I lost sight of being successful as a father and a husband. It was to come back to bit me in the ass.
It all came to a head that summer. The kids were not 6 and 9 respectively. We were spending two weeks at a resort on a lake a couple of hundred miles from home. The resort had all the amenities; swimming, miniature golf, archery, hiking, board games, a lake, and a fishing pier. The kids were in heaven and, frankly, I was too. I thought everything was perfect. My wife and I had plenty of time together, and it was more like a honeymoon than a vacation for us.
Late one evening, I was sitting on the fishing pier with my daughter. We were both holding a fishing pole and fighting mosquitos and talking, mostly about fishing and the best methods for catching the catfish we were targeting. Then my daughter, age 6, went off on a tangent.
"Dad, you remember when we used to go to the lake at the park next to our house?"
"Sure honey."
"If you didn't work so much, we could still do that."
I winced as that knife went into my heart. I knew, at some level, that my schedule had become so focused on the computer software company that I was neglecting some pretty special things. What she said next, twisted the knife and left me aghast.
"Uncle Jeff goes with us to the park sometimes, but he isn't as good a fisherman as you are."
I choked and turned to look at my daughter, who was still dutifully watching the bobber in the water attached to her fishing line.
"Uncle Jeff? When does he go to the park with you?"
"Oh, sometimes after he comes over to help mom with chores at the house."
"Chores?"
"Yeah. He comes by one or two times a week to help around the house."
I should stop here and explain a few more things. Jeff Bloom is a firefighter. He and I came onto the fire department in the same rookie class. I went to B shift, and he went to A shift at different stations. We got to be best buds during rookie school. Jeff wasn't married and professed to be a confirmed bachelor after suffering thought a split home where his mother's parade of part-time lovers proved to provide a less than ideal home life. He was a regular visitor to our home. Now I had a suspicion that he was more than that.
I spent another couple of hours with my daughter that night. We caught a few fish, got eaten alive my mosquitos, and nothing else was said about Uncle Jeff. I can honestly say the rest of my vacation had some extreme highs and some devastation lows. I was not in a good place.
Several weeks after our return home from vacation, I was still brooding about the Uncle Jeff situation. I was contemplating how I should proceed. On a firefighter's salary, I couldn't afford the $300 per day for a private investigator. Hell. I made less than half that much for running into burning buildings. There was no way I could afford that kind of investment. I considered some alternatives. Radio Shack had a line of recorders, but the technology at the time was crude, and battery life was measured in hours.
One Saturday, I was playing golf with five other B-shifters. We had an outing like this once a month or so. Every so often there would be four of us, other times there might be as many as 8 or 12. Today there were 6 so we split up into three carts and played a round of two man scramble. I usually had an enjoyable time. Today there seemed to be more pressing things on my mind than my tendency to slice hitting a driver.
