Lowell Hughes:  

I was the outsider at Keller who had not lived my entire life there and was treated as such, mostly by being ignored and overlooked. I had obtained an undeserved reputation because my last school was Haltom High. It affected how everyone treated me and did not matter that it was not true. I am not even sure what the reputation I had entailed other than being the bad boy that should not be associated with. I think most of the kids ignored it for the most part but the adults embraced it with a passion. My biggest mistake was that I tried to be accepted by playing football but was not very good at it and so played very little. I was good at baseball and always regretted not playing that instead but the football coach required all the team but a select few to run track which I hated. I played tennis well and met my first love without her ever even knowing it. We even played mixed doubles together. I think she knew that I liked her but her father Mr. Benson refused to let me date her or have anything to do with her outside of school. I really liked that picture of me on the tennis court in our yearbook. Most of the girls I dated were from Haltom City and Hurst because they did not have the bad boy image of me. The only girl I dated from Keller was Cathy Hampton and I even followed her to Japan after her and her family went there as missionaries. We met again there in Yokohama where we separated and she gave me back my class ring. I had joined the army and was stationed on Okinawa at the time. That was before we gave the island back to Japan who the Okinawans hated, but our government did not care about what they thought and returned them to Japanese control anyway. I returned to Newport News Virginia and met a woman who I thought I loved and we were married. She had a daughter whom I adopted and then she gave me a son. We were married for 28 years before I had enough of the mental abuse she heaped on me and told her I wanted a divorce. I hated the fact that my marriage was a failure and so for all those years I tried to keep us together for all the wrong reasons. We were divorced a month short of 30 years together. She still hates me but now it is for divorcing her. While waiting for my divorce to be final I met the most wonderful woman in the world in China and after only a few months ask her to marry me and so we were married 3 weeks after my divorce was final and have been so happy together ever since. She also has a daughter that I have adopted and is now a US Citizen. I did not know what love was until I met Wu Jing. There is nothing about her that I would wish to change in any way and she feels the same about me. When we look into each other's eyes it is like seeing into her soul and all I see is joy because of me. She says she sees the wonderful man that all women want but seem to always ignore and she is grateful she has me. I am the lucky one although we have agreed that we are both lucky to have found each other. If things had worked out differently we would not have met and I would probably be a miserable old man, instead I feel like I am 30 again and life has just begun. I went from a woman who on a daily bases told me that she hated me and wished that I would just die to one that loves me unconditionally exactly as I am. My eldest daughter has given me two wonderful grandsons. My son is still looking for the love of his life. I am afraid that his mother and I have spoiled that for him as he does not want to live like he saw us live. I had thought I was being brave for my children but it turns out that they lost respect for me because I did not stand up to their mother, but just took her abuse. They wrestle with our divorce even knowing that it was the only thing I could do. Both of them even told me that they expected it to happen years ago. They both knew she would never change her attitude toward me as I she had never had any respect for me took out all her anger from her first marriage on me. The only good thing I got from that marriage is my daughter and my son whom I love dearly. Now they have a sister who is only 16 and they have to learn to deal with that. The problems my children have had to deal with never seem to end. I think they both have accepted her and will learn to love her as a sister in time. I have traveled all over the world and visited many countries while in the Army. My children have benefited from that experience and so have a world view that most people can only dream of having. They have traveled to all the great cities of Europe and walked on the lands from northern Holland to the southern coasts of Spain from Western England to the Greek Isles. They have been places and seen countries that do not even exist anymore. They have lived world history at the sites where it actually occurred. They of course think of it as just having been there and seen that, but when their children talk about a place they are studying about, they can say I have been there and seen that and tell them about it. That is a legacy that I can leave my two eldest children with even if they do not realize it yet. I lived in China for over two years with my new wife and daughter before I brought them to America. I wanted my daughter to have the benefit of an American Education which I have discovered is not as good as a Chinese Education in some ways but is much better in others and it is more highly regarded because it is American. In China a high school student get up and gets to school by 8am and comes home at 10pm with at least 2 to 4 hours of home work at least 6 days a week and usually 7 da...Expand for more