Wednesday, August 14th, 2002
Wednesday morning I got back in the Jeep and started my trip home. My plan was to stay the night in Lubbock, then Albuquerque for a day with my folks and then back home. I got to Lubbock in the afternoon, but Patricia and Robert weren’t there. Instead, I was greeted by their 16 year old daughter, Christine. On my previous visit, Christine had been in Vietnam, where she had been for the last 6 weeks. Her parents had told me a lot about her as most parents do. Patricia had described her as “16 going on 25”.
It was a little awkward at first, but gradually we got used to each other. Christine informed me that her mother had told her that it was her job to entertain me. My first thought was “this will be interesting”. I will respect her privacy, but suffice to say Christine has had a lot more experience on the more “wild” side of life, shall we say than me. Which in and of itself is pretty strange since I’m 33 years old and she is 16. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I even thought that I might find myself in some circumstances I wasn’t comfortable with.
We went to dinner at an Italian place. Afterwards, we decided to go shoot some pool and then go to a movie afterwards. We only had time for one pool game and then headed off to the movies. On the way, Christine explained that she wasn’t really into movies and she would rather do something else. To my surprise, she suggested going home and talking. By the time we got home it was probably close to 10pm. We walked out to the lake and plopped down by the steel house. It was a beautiful night and the stars were out. We proceeded to talk about life and how we both felt about our respective situations and had a wonderful conversation. We finally came in after midnight. It was a wonderful experience and something I look back at with amusement and wonderment. I had just spent the evening talking to a 16 year old about life and what it meant and the amazing thing was that she actually got it and that we actually were able to have this great conversation despite the differences in our ages and life experiences.
The next morning I had breakfast with the whole family and Robert was on a roll. Making jokes and causing us all to laugh. This continued at lunch where I went to the local deli with them. I was having such a great time and Patricia was persuasive, so I just had to stay for lunch.
Looking back at the summer, my time with the Bruno’s, just outside of Lubbock was the highlight of it all. To you, the reader on the outside, it might not seem worthy of that. But to me and what I was looking for and feeling, it most definitely was.