I was looking back to the start of my growing up in Bandera storytelling and the date attached to story #1 was 2015.
Eleven years have passed since my friend Jessica encouraged me to write a couple stories for her to print in the Bandera Bulletin about the town I grew up in. I figured I would do 3 or 4 and now here I am pounding out number 461.
It got me to thinking about all the changes that have taken place not only in our town over the last 79 years of my life but also the changes in my life.
Everyone knows I love talking about my carefree days as an adventurous kid running free on the banks of the Medina River.
During that same time, I began building friendships that would last a lifetime. I was attending St. Joseph's Catholic School with people who would remain close to this day.
Those were indeed the best of times.
Moving on to the high school phase of my life, things started to get more complicated. I knew things were getting more serious because I was wearing shoes every day instead of going barefooted.
I needed more mirror time to get my hair just right before heading to school. Cars, girls and looking for ways to earn money to finance a date were top priorities. I still had some of the same friends from elementary school but the conversations we had weren't the same.
Before starting my career in the big city of San Antonio I had gained work experience all through my high school years by doing various jobs like hay hauling, fence building and working as a service station attendant at a couple places in Bandera.
After graduation I managed to get in about a year and a half of apprenticeship training in plumbing before Uncle Sam sent me an invitation to report for duty. Maybe invitation isn't the correct term to describe what the notice contained.
It was around this time I started to see a pattern in my life.
Twelve years after the beginning of my schooling I had graduated from Bandera High School and had a feeling of freedom that was short lived. It seems the road to a decent income would involve more schooling.
That's where the apprenticeship school came in but it wasn't over yet. The U.S. Army decided I needed some school lessons on how the repair microwave radios.
They preached daily on the importance of the training and the cost to the taxpayers involved in my latest round of education. Then they put me behind a desk for the remainder of my enlistment.
Here I am in my late years of growing up in Bandera, and I just want to inform all you younger folks out there about one thing. The schooling never ends and if you are smart you will embrace it whether it's the classroom type of education or simple life lessons.
Love one another and trust that God will get you through till the end.
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