2nd Chance (eBook)

John Bell (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
216 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-5818-8 (ISBN)

Infos

A company called 2nd Chance introduces a new technology that restores life to the dead for 72 hours.

John Bell was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky andl is a retired member of the United States Air Force. He served almost 26 years before retiring as a Major in 2007. During his Air Force career, John served as a Finance Officer all over the world, including tours in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. John enlisted in the Air Force in 1981 after graduating from high school. He was consistently recognized during this enlisted career as an outstanding performer and was named the #1 Non Commissioned Officer out of over 5,000 assigned to the Far East in 1992. After completing his bachelor's degree in Business Administration and graduating Summa Cum Laude (while serving full time in the Air Force) from Regis University, he was selected for Officer Training School. At Officer Training School, John finished in the Top 10% of graduates and was named a Distinguished Graduate. John was also a Distinguished Graduate of Squadron Officer's School and was named the U.S. Air Force's 2006 Outstanding Contributor to Financial Management and Comptrollership. Following his career in the United State Air Force, John continued his work in the private sector, where he led teams of financial professionals and assisted government clients to identify inefficiencies and implement cost-saving solutions. John retired from Booz Allen Hamilton in 2017 and served as the CEO of a family owned business, Freedom Analytics, which provided last mile delivery service from 2019-2023. John was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 2015 to represent Virginia's 87th House District. After serving two terms in the House of Delegates he was elected to the Virginia Senate and represented over 270,000 people in the 13th District, which was comprised of Loudoun and Prince William counties. During his time in office John worked to pass Medicaid expansion, increase school funding and teacher pay, fight for common-sense gun safety reforms and champion policies to address the opioid addiction crisis, by which his family was personally affected after John's son, Josh became addicted to opioids following treatment for injuries related to a car accident. Josh passed away in January 2019. During his service in the Virginia senate John also chaired the Board of Visitors for the Virginia School of the Deaf and Blind, and Co-Chaired The Virginia Small Business Council and the Virginia Addiction Recovery Council. John lives with his wife Margaret in Sun City in Bluffton SC. They have five children and six grandchildren. John is an avid tennis player, stock market investor and is a proud Kentucky basketball fanatic.

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Chapter 1

Wally’s Plan

Wallace E. Lawrence (AKA Wally) was tired of the waiting and the preparation. He was tired of the pain, the boredom, and the agony. At seventy-one, he was only a shell of his former self. He had been a thick, indestructible man in his prime. A bad heart, and years of manual labor toiling to improve the lives of the wealthy, had left him with chronic arthritis and massive degeneration in both knees. People always viewed him as stocky, standing at five-foot-ten, with arms resembling Popeye and thick brown hair. Now, he struggled to maintain 140 pounds. Arthritis and worn-out knees saddled him with a walker or a cane (on a good day). Wrinkles and sparse white hair on his head had long since replaced his rugged good looks. Despite his worn out body, Wally worked daily to make sure that his mind stayed sharp.

Each day, Wally reflected on his past life and what could have been. Though he’d lived a good life, he regretted things he missed out on. Growing up in the middle of the Great Depression, his father taught him to work hard and develop enough tangible skills so that he could always make a living and put food on the table. According to his father, Earl Lawrence, “A man should spend most of his time making a living and supporting his family.” Earl Lawrence was a plasterer who made a living not just at his primary craft, but also at any other task that might lead to a few dollars. Wally learned from Earl that you take what you can get, and if you’re able to put enough pieces together, you can keep the family going. No job was beneath Earl, and he made sure all five of his children (Wally and the four girls) understood and accepted this philosophy. When he first started working with Earl, young Wallace made many mistakes learning to be a plasterer. Earl told him that being a plasterer is being an artist, and it requires delicate hands. Because his hands were young and lacked finesse, people labeled him as having “stone hands,” but with Earl’s demanding guidance, he emerged as a master. Everyone he knew called him Wally and probably didn’t realize that his full name was Wallace. Wallace is a sophisticated name and Wally better fit the tasks that he did every day. Because Wally was the only boy and the oldest of Earl’s children, it went without saying that he would work alongside Earl and learn the craft. “Businesses come and go, but there will always be work for the true craftsman,” Earl would say. Of course, as Wally learned when gypsum sheetrock became popular, there wasn’t much work for a craftsman plasterer anymore. But Earl had one thing correct: there was still other work for craftsmen of other specialties.

From his contacts in the construction industry, Wally learned of the growing popularity of ceramic tile and made the switch. In days past, ceramic tile was expensive to make and difficult to produce with consistent color. Several manufacturing breakthroughs enabled large-scale production and made tile affordable to the upper middle class and no longer served as a status symbol of the wealthy. Laying tile was easier than plastering, but it required a few more tools and it put you on your hands and knees all day long. Instead of needing the strong steady hands and the rhythm that a plasterer needed, a tile man only needed to know how to put the puzzle pieces together. Each room was a blank puzzle board, and the tiles were the pieces. The biggest problem was that the client held the “picture of the finished puzzle” in their head, and rarely shared it with Wally. So, he worked on the skill and in time, became a master. The pay was adequate, but the work put him on the floor for ten to twelve hours a day. Cutting the tile filled his hands and fingertips with small pieces of ceramic. Again, the pain of small pieces of glass in his hands became a normal part of Wally’s life and eventually, he didn’t even notice the discomfort. Long workdays, coupled with commuting from his blue-collar neighborhood to the affluent areas where customers lived, stretched his days to sixteen hours or more. After dinner and completing the “male” household chores like auto maintenance, home repair, and yard work, there wasn’t much time left for Wally to spend with his family or have energy to “court” his wife.

Wally and May had one child, a son, named Robby. Robby only knew a father who came home dirty and covered with the smell of a hard day’s work. Robby knew a father who would often fall asleep after dinner and had few words or moments for him. A father who kept the worries of “putting it together” to himself and never shared his burdens or emotions with his family. The only emotion he could ever remember was the emotion of anger, the one feeling a hard-working man like Wally allowed himself to show. Providing love and affection for Robby and keeping the home intact were May’s jobs. May was a good wife and mother by Wally’s standards, or by the actions and words of Robby. Each night when Wally got home from work, she always had a warm, home-cooked meal waiting for him to eat. She made it a priority to keep the house clean and take good care of Robby.

May also tried to meet his physical needs in the bedroom, and she learned to accept with grace the necessities of providing and surviving had replaced the romance and love of their younger days. She knew things were missing, but she also always felt protected and knew that Wally would always provide for her and Robby. Wally always thought to himself that they would put some money away, and he’d retire early enough so the two of them could have time for themselves one day. He planned to make up for all that she had done without, and they would have just a little taste of the life he saw so many of his rich clients enjoying. But an early stroke and the silent, unseen killer of high blood pressure took May early. She was only fifty-seven when she died. Her first stroke left her with a body that didn’t function, and her personality changed to someone that Wally no longer recognized. Gone was the happy-go-lucky homemaker that he knew. She hung on for a very long year. During that time, Wally realized he did, in fact, still love May. Wally had hidden away his feelings, and they had gotten out of shape, but they were still there. The tears he privately shed after she died were tears of regret for all that they hadn’t done.

He regretted all the joys they had missed out on and that he had never opened up and told her how much he loved and appreciated her. After May’s death, Wally continued to work, but by now, he was making more than he needed with his son grown and established. His son had received an education that provided him with greater financial opportunities than what was available to Wally when he entered the job market. Wally and May knew that the world Earl prepared Wally to face was gone and they wanted their son to work with his mind and not his body. They desired a professional career for their son. Not a job, or a craft, but a career.

Wally’s education comprised only what you could get through the ninth grade. The families’ needs and a rush of fall work brought Wally out of school and into his “real” job with Earl. Because he lacked a certificate, a degree, or even a diploma, Wally always questioned his worth and intelligence compared to others. Wally was always thankful for his nine years of formal education that had taught him solid basic math skills and gave him a love for reading and learning. Through the years, because his expenses and his financial needs had decreased, he could put aside a nice nest egg. He had also learned a bit about investing by being a careful listener to several of the wealthy people who were his employers. They often spoke to each other about this company and that company and how future trends would change buying and consumption patterns in society. Wally just soaked their words in like a sponge as he toiled away on their floors. Then, in the lonely hours of the night, he would read and try to understand the words and ideas they spoke of. After a few years, he got the courage to call an investment firm and then followed up by “putting his money to work,” as they called it.

Since the only thing that had ever worked for Wally was his blood and sweat, the idea that something else could work for him sounded great. Even though he didn’t know what he would do with the money that he made, he thought somehow it would help make something in his life or family better. In the world, Wally had experienced having money somehow meant you possessed more happiness or were just better than those who didn’t have money. For no other reason other than that, Wally wanted money. Money always seemed to make you look better, smell better, or be smarter than those without it. But Wally didn’t realize that money didn’t guarantee him anything. From Wally’s viewpoint, the wealthy often used money to gain material items. Wally had no interest in using wealth to buy expensive cars, houses, or extravagant clothes. Wally wanted wealth so he could afford to buy qualities that had passed him by; mobility, vitality, and energy. Money was the enabler that would allow him to purchase things he had not just taken for granted, but had never valued until they were gone. He wanted a 2nd Chance so he could appreciate and experience what he had squandered. It had taken years for him to realize that experiences with the important people in life, like Luke, had an infinite value, and he would do almost anything to have even a few more of those precious moments. Even if it meant dying to get them.

One thing that Wally had struggled to learn was an appreciation for the art of recreation. Earl taught Wally that sports, most...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 31.5.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-5818-8 / 9798350958188