Statsraad Lehmkuhl Oceanics 1972-73

After I got back from Oceanics, I attended a one-year trade program at National Camera Repair School in Englewood Colorado. I loved Colorado and I might have stayed there. However, my dad passed away midway through so after graduation I returned home to Miami.

I immediately started work at Bensons Camera and loved it. Over the course of the next five years I met Jane, bought my first house, welcomed my daughter Monica and thirteen months later, my son Derek into the world. Then I got divorced and moved to LA. The nice thing about camera repair (at least back then) was that you could go anywhere and find a job. I went to work at Mel Pierce Camera on Hollywood Blvd. It wasn’t great money but Hollywood was a lot of fun for about a year.

I left for a better paying job maintaining high-speed cameras for a defense contractor at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. Total culture shock at first but the Tularosa Basin is a stretch of high desert between mountain ranges that offers diverse cultures, climate, and geography. Early on I had the opportunity to buy an apple orchard in the foothills that was within commuting distance of the job. It was my heaven on earth. Mostly apples but also pears, peaches, apricots, wonderful wild plums and berries, and most importantly in that part of the country, plenty of water. I met Rory, my second wife, and together we learned how to grow apples. We were able to get my ex-wife’s blessing for my son, Derek, to come live with us when he was fourteen. That first year we had him was quite an adjustment period for him (and us!). However, he was able to get his driver’s license at fifteen and we found a nice ‘55 Chevy project truck to keep him busy.

All was right with the world for a while but after 20 plus years of working with my hands I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. I was out on medical leave when the contract I worked on for 15 years changed hands and I found myself out of a job. The farm income was not enough to sustain us, so we sold everything and moved (along with our animals which at that time amounted to a dozen Arabian horses and more than a dozen dogs and cats) to a horse farm in Ocala, Florida. By that time, Monica was in school in Gainesville and Derek was at the University of Central Florida in Orlando so Ocala not too far away.

In Florida, I applied and was accepted for vocational rehabilitation so was able to enroll in the Film and Video Production program at Full Sail University (also in Orlando). The last thing Derek expected from his college experience was that his dad would move in with him, but I did just that. He was good natured about it and told me later that he actually didn’t mind having a roommate who, for a change, shared the housekeeping and paid his share of the rent on time.

With my associate degree in hand I was hired for an internship at Kennedy Space Center. If you can imagine taking an internship position in your mid-forties? But KSC had always been my dream job and I loved it right up until the attacks of 9/11. New security restrictions changed everything, so I gave notice and went on to other jobs as a photographer – a short stint at Ft. Benning, Georgia and another at Portsmouth Navy Shipyard in Kittery, Maine.

Next, I was offered a job at Arnold Engineering Development Center, Arnold AFB, Tennessee. The work included a variety of scientific/industrial work for the research facility and general photography for public affairs so it was fun for me. Not so much for Rory as she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer right before I started work there. The way they put it to her was that it was stage four and she should get her affairs in order. The next six months and the last six months were rough. But the nine years in between were pretty darn good and so much more than expected. Four months after Rory passed, my mom, 93, passed also. It was sort of great that Mom made sure everyone came to see her that Christmas, and left with a smile three weeks later.

I only worked a couple of years after that. Just before I retired, I crossed paths with Janet. Janet and I grew up in the same community, went to the same schools (even the same Sunday school!). We knew each other back then, we just never traveled in the same circles. We are the same age (a month apart), both married twice before, and we share a conservative political viewpoint. She is the love of my life and we now live in Ormond Beach, Florida. Derek and the love of his life felt like they were being priced out of Orlando and bought a nice home in Boiling Springs, South Carolina. Monica married her junior high school sweetheart and they have blessed me with a granddaughter and grandson and they still live in Gainsville.

This sounds so much like one of those Christmas letters distant friends and relatives used to send out and I suppose it’s about like that only this one covers fifty years instead of one. So, Merry Christmas all. 50x  

Rick – October 2023