The Greatest of These by Greg Wendleton (booksvooks txt) 📕

spent in Newark, New Jersey, where we spent the night at the Marriott hotel near the airport. Early on the final day of our journey we boarded our final flight and landed in San Antonio just before 1:00pm on a sunny Sunday.

It was time to get back to my regular paycheck job and my main mission of making up for all the weekends spent with old, bald Conrad instead of my young, beautiful bride, Fonda.

Thank God for Fonda!

CHAPTER SIX

Over the course of the next fifteen years there were a dozen more assignments from Conrad that I conducted on my own. Never a doubt in my mind that each bastard deserved the punishment that was ordered. After each mission, the same $100,000 deposit would be made to my off-shore, and I presume illegal, account. That, most likely illegal account, had over one million dollars on the balance sheet despite withdrawals I’d made along the way. Each assignment would result in a new adventure for Fonda and me. Paris, Thailand, Australia, London, Prague, and several more trips to Italy where we visited Venice, Genoa, Sicily and of course Siena and our friend Federico. Our love for Tuscany and each other blossomed and we kept our relationship lively. And our wine closet, it was full as well.

To maintain my shooting skills and to keep a keen eye I would occasionally make trips to Conrad’s farm outside of Helotes. But more importantly Fonda and I ramped up our visits to the local gun range. The more we went, the more Fonda’s shooting developed as well. In fact, she was nearly as good a shot as I was. The competition was fierce and the rewards, well let’s just say neither of us was disappointed.

In 2013, a new couple moved into our cozy neighborhood. Chad and Jamie Wilhite, at that time, a middle-aged couple, purchased the ranch style home next door to us. After thirty years in the Air Force, Chad had retired as a Colonel who had specialized in supply and logistics for most of his career. He was a nice guy, a bit quiet, but generous with his time. Over the years our friendship grew and I began to view Chad more as a father figure. Since I, like Fonda, had lost my parents at an early age, I didn’t have much in the way of a family. My mother had succumbed to the ravages of cancer when I was in high school and my father, heartbroken, took his life a few years later, during my freshman year of college.

Chad and Jamie have four children scattered about the globe. The oldest, a daughter lives in the Kansas City area with her husband and four boys. Their oldest son lives in South Carolina with his wife. He works in IT for one of the larger counties and his wife teaches school. Then they have “the twins”, a boy and a girl. The son, never lets his sister forget he is older, by two minutes. He had recently moved, with his wife, to St. Louis for his new job, also in the IT field. And their youngest lives with her husband, who happens to be Italian, in Europe. They both work in the medical field doing research work. You would really have to classify the Wilhite’s and their children as a functional and successful family. With four children and four grandsons they have experience that Fonda and I can only imagine. So, we respect their experience and value their opinions, which came more freely the more tequila we drank. Chad did appreciate good tequila and always keeps a bottle of Clase Azul Reposado on hand for sipping.

Jamie had worked in the federal civil service system for most of the thirty years that Chad had been in the Air Force. They had been high school sweethearts first meeting when their families were stationed at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii. He tells a funny story of how Jamie ‘picked him up’ as he was walking from the lockers after cross country practice. She just rolls her eyes. Chad swears she said, “I’ve been watching you and I like what I see.” That’s when Jamie turns a bright red and says, “Does that sound like something I would say and do?” Everyone always says “Yes!” They are a great influence on our lives.

They had both just retired when they moved to San Antonio, thinking the weather would be good and a fresh start would be nice. Apparently, Chad was not happy with how his career had come to an end and needed some fresh scenery. He was also starting a logistical consulting business that he could operate from anywhere. At fifty-three, when they became our neighbors, Chad was gray headed, slender and fairly good looking. The world was truly his oyster. Jamie was a year younger, Fonda told me, I didn’t ask. She had a vibrant personality with a petite, perky appearance and a lovely disposition. Truly as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside. Little had changed about either of them in the years they had lived next door. And, like me, Chad was a lucky man who definitely married up.

Chad didn’t talk much about his career or his logistics business preferring to talk instead about his family and his favorite sports team, the St. Louis Cardinals. His father, a career Air Force non-commissioned officer, was from Missouri and was an avid baseball fan. He passed that love on to Chad who did his best to instill that passion in his children.

I got the impression that despite their combined pensions and the consulting business they were just getting by, existing if you would. One day late last fall his attitude really improved and he started sharing that his business was looking up. In spite of COVID-19, or because of it, Chad had some new opportunities.

It appeared that a vaccine was about to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration