Memories Again

We were coming home from dinner the other night and as we past a little shopping center I was studying the names of the stores.  We were looking for a live music venue we read about some time ago.  We are not sure if we saw it or not, but we did see a dog grooming shop I heard about  almost 30 years ago.  It still had the same name.

About 1983 or 84 I transferred to the Marietta Post Office.  One of the first people I got to know was a guy named Robert.  Robert had a full gray beard and liked to dress western.    He always wore cowboy boots and western shirts. His co-workers called him "Cowboy".  I wondered why.

Robert, aka Cowboy, told me he had just won a dog grooming business in a poker game.  And told me what shopping center it was in.  He said he was going to let it run itself, the same groomer would stay there, he didn't know a thing about dog grooming and did not want to know.

The grooming  business also reminded me of a romance he had with a young lady who came to work at the Marietta Post Office the same time I did.  The lady was married.  I met her husband at a party one time and found him very timid, out of place,  and shy.  She told her mother of her problems with her husband and she suggested to her daughter she find her a part time lover.  One night, her mother came to our work area and the daughter introduced her mother to her potential lover.  Her mother met him and approved of him.   It was no secret, the young lady was never lost for words for what to talk about.

We worked at Station A Post Office on Gresham Road.   Just down the road at the corner of Roswell Road was a Hardee's Restaurant.   We worked through the night and at 7am we took our lunch break and all went to Hardee's most mornings. 

I always somehow miss serious action.  I was not at Hardee's one morning, for what reason I forgot.  About 7:15am one morning at Hardee Robert and his girlfriend were sitting in Hardees eating their breakfasts and about that time Robert looked up and saw a gun aimed right at his face.  He finally got to meet his girlfriend's husband face to face.  The gun fired.

Robert ducked and the bullet hit the lady friend in the cheek.  It went in one side and exited the other side.  The husband went to prison over that incident and she and Robert married, built a very nice house near Cartersville, Georgia, and the last time I talked to her she said they were very happy. 

Of course, unfortunately,  the story did not end happy for every one.