Tags up front, no willing cucks, cheating girlfriend, gold digger. Not a BTB and definitely not a RCAAC.
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I, Willard Bradley, was blessed with the best parents in the world. They are so supportive of me and my siblings. I'm sure my dad wanted me to be a carpenter like him, but I like computers. My parents honored that choice by buying me a good computer for my 10th birthday and they kept it upgraded after that. They always listened attentively to my ever increasingly incomprehensible explanations of what I was doing on that computer. I always felt loved and secure. I also never doubted they loved one another.
Growing up when they started to PDA I would smile and leave the room. Most of my friends would say stupid things like "get a room" or "ewww" to their parents but to me that was ridiculous. Many of my friend's parents were divorced or never married. I realized early that part of the reason my parents weren't divorced was the PDA! There is more to marriage than that for sure and my parents weren't perfect. Sometimes things were a little "tense" between my parents but overall, the thing they said to me the most about each other was "mom/dad is the best thing that ever happened to me." This is what I aspired to. A marriage like that.
I learned so many important lessons from my dad. He worked in construction. He was a foreman. Every Friday at 4 they would stop for the week and go for a beer. The summer I turned 17 I joined the crew. This was normal in my small town. I was a big kid and almost half of Dad's crew were related. Uncles, brothers, cousins, and sons like the other crews in the company. The key was you had to work. No family connections would save the lazy. It was after these beers that I learned my most valuable lessons. The first one was shortly after I started working. (In case you are wondering it was a small town, and I was a big kid, as long as I didn't act stupid or stay long it was no problem for me to have a beer at the town's bar). It was the second Friday at the bar and after one beer my Dad and I were going to leave. Just like the week before the guys started razzing my dad about being 'pussy whipped' and such. So, I asked my dad about it, and this is what he said,
"Willard many of those guys either are divorced, have bad marriages, aren't married, and/or are alcoholics. Your mom is the best thing that ever happened to me followed by you kids. Why would I want to spend my time at the bar? I go because I like a beer after a week of work and to be sociable but otherwise, I have much better things to do. If you are going to get married and have kids you have to be fully committed otherwise don't bother it will not end well."
After working for two months, I started to think I knew everything about carpentry. Yes, I was young, stupid, and bulletproof. Of course, it got me injured. Not seriously but my hand had a big bandage on it when we hit the bar that week. This time I received all the razing from the crew. On the way home Dad imparted another lesson,
"Willard confidence is important, but cockiness will get you killed. Wisdom is figuring out the difference. Today you got cocky, and you were lucky you didn't get seriously hurt. Do you see the guys at work missing fingers? Do you hear the back complaints etc.? Confidence, in my mind, is knowing what you are doing and doing it properly. Cockiness is thinking you know what you are doing and doing it wrongly, its like playing Russian roulette."
My father was obviously enamored with lessons that used "c" words, and the most important lesson was another "c" word, contentment. It was yet another Friday after work in late August. The bar had a restaurant attached and there was a girl my age that I was attracted to who worked there. My first mistake was telling one of the crew about my interest in her. My second mistake was letting the crew badger me into asking her for a date. She of course shot me down in flames in front of all the guys.
On the way home I started mumbling about my inadequacies, the girl's outright failures, and the guys being jerks. My dad put a quick stop to it all.
"Will you have to be comfortable in your own skin, you have to be content with what and who you are. You totally blew it with that girl for no one's fault but your own. You didn't do your homework on her, you didn't try and feel her out, no you just jumped right in, egged on by the guys and your ego. Now you are discontent, and that will kill you just as easy as cockiness. Let me tell you it's easy to be discontent, most people are complaining about something, not enough money is a big one. And then there's the evils of complacency and compromising your principles."
There were many more lessons learned from my dad and also my mom. One of my mom's favorite things was having a plan and when I graduated from High School I definitely had a three-part plan.
I was accepted to a college 6 hours from home. I didn't get a scholarship, but I had my construction money and a plan. Part of my plan was to work IT in the town near the campus. It just so happened that Stan Kowalsky owner of SK Computers liked my idea of teaching computer classes at his store. He had a suitable room and enough spare computers for those who didn't have a laptop. The pay was fair the students paid $25 an hour. For every student I recruited I received $12.50; everyone he recruited I received $10. It worked out that their was a need and I spent my Saturdays teaching local kids in the morning, local adults in the afternoon and both college students and locals in the evening. On Wednesday nights it was all college students. My roommate Mike was my biggest recruiter on campus. He talked me up like I was a cross between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. According to Mike I would graduate a millionaire and he was a great salesman. In gratitude for his efforts, I promised to keep our beer fridge fully stocked as long as we were roommates.
The job was part one of my plan. Part two was working hard find some like minded individuals to start working on software together. Plenty of guys think that they can earn millions playing games on some streaming service like Switch or be some kind of internet "influencer." That was true for a very select few but if you wanted a more likely outcome in computers you needed to get into programming, software, security, or network management. A combination of the four was even better. Every big company needed its own computer geek or geek IT department to keep the machines running and protected. The small companies needed to be able to hire someone to fulfill that role for them. These were good paying jobs in demand that were not subject to the fickle nature of your 'followers.'
The third part of my university plan was to find a good woman to marry. I saw what my parents had and that's what I wanted. If my plans worked I would have a good job in IT, hopefully some programming success, and a wife or fiancé when I graduated. This would be followed shortly thereafter by a house and children.
However, first year was going to be for fun, having fun playing the field. Not that I was a virgin that went crazy. There just were limited options in my hometown. In addition to my dad's big build, I inherited his rugged good looks. That's what the ladies told me. Since I never lacked female attention in high school it must have been true. I had a good part-time job, so I also had money and a car. Yes a car, I didn't need to haul lumber or things, my tool belt fit in the truck and my 7-year-old Corolla didn't cost a fortune in gas.
When the school year ended I reviewed my plan was coming along. First off, I had a great time in my first year with the ladies. Secondly, I also was having success with my software plans. By the time I went home for the summer, I had met up with some guys who were interested in building an app together. Finally, school went well I had a great GPA. I had money in the bank from my computer classes and Kowalsky was good to have a summer break but let me restart again in September. I was headed back home to my construction job on my Dad's crew to accumulate the rest of the money I need for school and to live. The plan was coming along nicely.
When arrived back at college at the end of August the first two parts of my plan were still in place and doing well. The bookings were filling up at Kowalsky for my computer classes. Word of mouth for the locals and word of Mike for the college students was bringing them in. My two programmer buddies and I had spent the summer brainstorming, and we thought we had a winner for an app. The app we thought up was an aggregator. We planned to have our app analyze all the food delivery apps out there, like DoorDash and Uber eats; to give you the quickest and/or cheapest one at the moment you are looking for food. Perhaps we could make it work for dating apps and ride shares too but first we would try the with food delivery. We divided up the tasks and got to work.
Finally, there was my plan to get serious about a wife. I knew I had 3 more years of school, but this would take time, and it was time to start looking. By mid-September there were a few likely candidates. One was Amanda Cousins. She was physically what I would call my type, big breasts, and booty. I had spoken to her, and she seemed intelligent and personable. There were a couple of other prospects, and I started working on them too. What I didn't expect was Sara Williams to show an interest in me.
