Dylan stood at the counter eating his cereal this morning, waiting for the pop-tarts to finish in the toaster. His body is tall, fit and tanned. He has been working out, drinking protein drinks and lifting weights. Still thin, he is bulking up. Yesterday he took the pre-entrance exam for a branch of the military. Today he again will go and talk with a recruiter. He wants to do this. He wants to get away. His father and I have both suggested college first then the military. He would prefer the military first, then college. He prefers to be his own person, to follow a completely different path from his brothers.
He has chosen the Air Force. His dad was in the Air Force and was stationed in California during the Vietnam War and was in late enough that he didn't ever go overseas. Once the war ended he moved to San Francisco and met his first wife. They married, he went to college. They divorced. She remarried. He returned to Missouri to finish his Master's Degree at the University. He began working at the University and has been there ever since.
We met at the University. We both worked in the same department at the time, Soil Sciences, which was under the aegis of the Agronomy Department before it moved (not literally) to the School of Natural Resources, then Agriculture, then finally, Engineering. His lab and his portion of the department moved, equipment et al, to the school of Engineering. Ray, our second son, is following in his father's footsteps in this area of interest. He too is studying Engineering (his father's first degree pursuit, at Rolla--UMR, before the military, before California). Ray's area of interest is Environmental Engineering with an emphasis in Structural Engineering.
Dylan does not know what he wants to do. He has thought of a business degree (emphasis, finance). He has thought of Accounting (my mother's undergraduate). He has thought of teaching high school math and this morning, he has been invited by one of the CardioThoracic Surgeons at Boone to view a surgical procedure which is why he was awake, showered, dressed and finishing breakfast by six-thirty and out the door soon after. Add that to the list, he is thinking Pharmacology or Medicine. He does not know.
The weather, so hot last week, has cooled significantly.
There are birds that sing outside and the cicadas are quieter.
A young woman from the radio station has been using the cicada bodies in different dishes, to eat.
My lone tomato plant has not produced yet, but the pepper plant has been very pepper-productive.
Ray and I met this past week for breakfast and Chuck and I will breakfast together sometime this week and next week will be Dylan's week. He doesn't breakfast much with his mom. We see each other all the time anyway.
Life is good in this middle age and very satisfying.
The boys and their dad.
