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| We experienced a full aerobatic airshow routine |
We had many ideas when our children were born and one was that I would stay home with them until they started school. We were able to accomplish this goal with a lot of sacrifices. This gave me the time to concentrate on raising our girls whom I thought were the most brilliant children ever born. Some people have a hard time believing this about us now but Bob and I truly are introverts and it took us many years to gain enough confidence to stand up in front of people and talk. In school we were the wallflowers. I knew though raising our girls that they WERE going to be comfortable in a group and they WOULD enjoy school. Through a lot of hard work and attending many events I did not want to attend the goal was reached and the girls did enjoy school and both are comfortable in crowds. Still to this day the girls are brilliant and now have grown to adults and or our best friends whom we still want to spend time with.
While our lives were wrapped up with raising children we still had to make a living. Bob worked as a diesel mechanic at a trucking company. Robertson's had water trucks that hauled water to wells and also hauled water away from wells. He also had over the road trucks; bull wagons, grain trailers, flat beds, and pneumatic trailers. Bob was for many years the only mechanic and he worked many many hours to keep these older trucks going. Luckily for our young family Jack, the owner of the company did not mind us coming to see Bob. Now looking back I know that it kept Bob working and able to see his family. The girls learned to play hide and seek in tires and they got filthy playing around and under the trucks. Now that would probably not be allowed but then they saw the shop as a HUGE jungle gym and neither was ever hurt. The drivers always looked out for them and they had a lot of drivers as friends. While the girls were in school I worked at our local county courthouse in data processing and was able to use comp time to attend all of the events the girls were involved in.
Bob and I both got our chauffeur’s licenses in the early eighties, as it was not enough to work on the trucks, sometimes it required driving them. During grain harvest extra drivers were needed to haul grain to the elevators and when a rig lost circulation it required anyone that could drive to haul water to the well. Many times Bob would take one girl and I would take the other and lay them on the passenger seat and they had no idea they had left their beds. They are still very sound sleepers. Bob also was required if a truck broke down at night within 200 miles or so to go fix it if possible and those were trips we enjoyed as a family. Any time we could spend together we jumped at the chance.
They we found racing and at a time we really could not afford to do so. We learned about Honda Odyssey's that were a 4 wheel off road vehicle with a full roll cage. Bob and I each had one and once powder puff became boring Bob and I raced against each other. We were close in our racing styles and at most races one or the other won. We raced all over the mid west and one trip out to California for a national event. At that time it was legal to have the girls in the race pits. Their rule was while we were on racing or practicing they had to stay on the trailer. They had a blast and sometimes I wonder why the girls did not become gymnasts. Once again our racing family kept an eye out on the girls and we never had any injuries or problems. Bob and I still love dirt racing and our favorite races to watch are "World Of Outlaws".
As the girls got older they took up more of our time, as they were involved in a lot of school activities as well as 4-H. We started trap shooting and became the shooting sports project leaders and we shot every week at the local gun range. When Bob was not working he was often reloading. Both of the girls are very good shots with shot guns as well as pistols. We also added horses and I became the horse project leader and that kept all of us busy as the girls were showing horses, pigs and sheep.
Nicki graduated high school and went on to get a PR degree at Fort Hayes University in Kansas and we had a wake up call. What were we going to do when both of the girls were gone? Brandy all ready had plans of going to Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, becoming an engineer in the Air Force, and we did not have a plan. What is life without two very active girls?
We fell back on something both of us enjoyed doing and that was driving. Once again our lives were in for another change and it was going to be trucking. It took a couple tries to find our groove in trucking and since 2000 trucking and the business of trucking has been our main focus. Something we both enjoy and has keep us looking forward to the next day and the experiences trucking will bring.
Each stepping-stone in our journey to get us where we are now we needed for the experiences. Bobs mechanic skills has kept our truck in top shape and saved us a lot of money. Running a small mechanic and lawn care business helping me with the book keeping skill needed for a successful trucking business. Our racing honed our driving skills to think fast in an emergency, analyze the situation, and then react with confidence. All of our time spent with our girls taught us to enjoy life and getting involved helped us become part of a group instead of migrating to the corners and keeping to ourselves. The many times when it was just Bob and I working to get a truck fixed and back on the road taught us to depend on each other to get a job done and to make us a team that can be together 24 hours a day and stay married.
Here is to thirty-eight years of marriage and still counting. Happy anniversary!