Elusive Headpin - Part V

He was the golden boy of the group, the son of the town supervisor and the group’s playboy. He was also a great chess player. I remember taking part in the only chess tournament we had at our high school. I made the finals but lost to Randy in an all too short game. I always wanted a rematch but we never were able to pull that off.

Randy worked at one of the local state institutions for the first couple of years after high school and then joined the Navy (suddenly from my perspective) because he saw the civil service job as a dead end.

I remembered talking to him shortly after he joined the Navy (he was still in boot camp) and hearing all the stories he had of the ridiculous activities that he had to endure during that initiation into the military service. At that point in his life, he was telling us that he couldn’t wait for the first six-year stint to be over so that he could get back to his “normal” life.

I kept in contact with him via phone and mail (yes, snail mail in those days) for the next few years and heard that he had reenlisted just shy of the six year threshold. I was surprised to hear that he had re-upped and asked him via mail for rationale.

He never replied to that mail message but I heard through his sister that he had served for a short period of time in the Philippines, met a girl and married her. The marriage brought an adopted daughter for an immediate family.

The only news I got about Randy in the ensuing 15 years was through the intermediate contact I had with his sister (who was also friends with my sister). I knew he had two other kids, both girls, in the first five or six years of marriage. I knew had gotten into a recruiting position within the Navy which equated to (more or less) a desk job that was pretty regular and he spent most of his time state side. I thought the fact that he wound up doing recruiting within his military service quite ironic given his vehement cries of discontent during his first stint and wanting nothing more than to have it end before the six years that he had initially signed up for.

“Hi Jim, Hi Raymond… How’s it going?”

“Hey… it’s great to see ya Randy.” I replied.
“Damn shame about Joe… “ His eyes trailed over the room and landed on the casket. He looked a lot more frail than I thought his years should convey. He slowly made his way away from us and proceeded to the casket to pay his respects. At that point, I thought that since Joe and Randy were the same age, he must have known Joe the longest of our group. I wasn’t all that knowledgeable about Randy’s life prior to getting roped into the bowling league.