As My Mind Wanders Back

This personal story of an aging grandfather who, in his waning years and declining health, wants his nine year old grandson to know how he lived as a young boy and later know of his wandering ways in his adult life. The grandfather tells of growing up on a farm in rural northwest Alabama, joining the U.S. Marine Corps after high school and serving as a Morse Code Intercept Operator in Adak, Alaska, San Miguel, Philippines and aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S.Oriskany. After military service the grandfather worked for the U.S. Postal Service in Birmingham, Alabama and then in Maitland and Longwood, Florida. He later obtained his accounting degree and began a career with the U.S. Defense Department auditing defence contractors in Florida, New York and other northeastern States. During his move to Rochester, the grandfather reconnected with, and married his childhood sweetheart and gained two stepchildren. After five years in the cold and snow, the family relocated back to northwest Alabama. Tragedy struck when the stepson's life ended. The stepdaughter became the grandfather's adopted daughter and only child. After her undergraduate studies at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, she served in the Peace Corps in Ukraine, obtained her graduate degree from Georgetown University, married and gave the grandfather his only grandson. The daughter then obtained her law degree from Harvard Law School and joined a law firm in Philadelphia. Miles apart and with minimal connection, the grandfather longs to tell his life story to his grandson.