Tommy Kubler:  

Life Yes, I changed my last name. No, It wasn't because my wife was twice my size and beat me into making that decision. In my 8th and 9th grade years, my stepfather was in Vietnam or stationed in another city and my mom was a waitress at night; I raised my half-siblings from the time I got home from school until we all went to bed. Moved to San Antonio in 1971. Went to SAC while working as a bartender at night. When the step-family got orders I had to move on. I was warned when I was 13 I was out when I turned 18, so I was on borrowed time. Hell, at age 8 I was being told how great Carl Farley's Boy's Ranch in the Texas Panhandle was... so... I joined the Air Force hoping to get into a special Computer Programming unit on Lackland. Slipped out the right door at the right time, By-passed the tech-school, and made the grade into the unit. Went to school at night; alternating semesters where I worked parttime at night as a bartender to build up funds to wrap up a degree at the end of my enlistment. Tracked down my biological father in a SW suburb of Dallas-- a BMW big-wig by that time. Without his possession of the proper hardware years before, I wasn't known to his family-- and I didn't look to change that. Bought and sold a couple of houses in the old neighborhood. Got the First Shirt to extend my enlistment up to the beginning of the fall semester for "the best interest of the service". Weeks before starting Texas A&M, I got a full scholarship in Aerospace Engineering; a 90 degree change from my earlier Computer Science moves, but it was my first love. The opportunity let me support and house my mother and a half brother in a home I owned in San Antonio while I went year-round at A&M. With credit for time in the service, the 4 yr Aero degree got crunched out in 32 months. I went back into the USAF as an officer, a goal since 7th grade. Jet engine project engineer; aerodynamic performance engineer, aircraft mishap investigations, aircraft battle damage repair and recovery, airborne electronic systems evaluations and development, weapon systems compatibility, stability & control eval, loads, environmental systems design and evaluation. During this time I changed my name. I was able to get back to Texas A&M and retook a few of the exams I missed the first time around. While they were still grading them, I skipped town with a MS in Aero Engr. I took my leave of military service, for better or worse, when family priorities seemed to me of unquestionable importance. I had a son of 6 months then, and a young, deaf stepdaughter who presented us w/ an alarming out-cry. About a year later, I was blessed with a second son. Both boys were totally unexpected entrants to a stage filled with action, dramas and emotion-- but nothing, absolutely nothing, can compare to the eclipsing joy of their presence. As the turmoil of the following few years waned, and my wife's job in Civil Service in San Antonio seemed to sour I told her I would could find employment wherever she found opportunities to improve her lot. And she took me to task! I am pretty beat up and bruised from being blown about, packed in, towed out, sunk and blasted. I even have physical scars from it! I'm tired of being a leaf on the wind. It's romantic in song, but hell on the spine. She has found her way near her Mother & a position she never dreamed she could ever attain. I've kept my word; always have. Home is where the heart is. I hope to find my way home soon, either with backpack or trailer in tow. I left my family in Troy, IL in Aug '07 for a job in NM. I've move on since and in Amarillo, TX where I attended Middle School. Back in Federal employ, I'm an Aerospace Engineer for the Defense Contract Management Agency at the local Bell Helicopter plant where the V-22 is being built, and the H-1 (U&A) are being remanufactured. I miss SA, and all my friends and contacts there. Let's all give thanks a little more often. School Jay seemed to me a great school from the mixture the surrounding neighborhoods brought to it-- established, highly transient, diverse income levels and every corner of the country if not the world-- and with each of these diverse personalities came an equally unique perspective addition to the "mixing pot". No other school in San Antonio was as equally matched-- in more ways than one. Before entering Jay, I had never attended a school a full two years (with one exception), and with one school I was there only two weeks! At least once a year I had the Parent-Teacher meeting go, "Hello Mrs. Johnson." "Sorry, I'm Mrs. Haack/ Baker/ Kubler/ etc..." Any new school is intimidating, but Jay was even more so with the number of students who knew each other, and their way around. "What do you man there's HUNDREDS, i.e. a couple thousand, students??"... Sigh... So enters the new naive, kid from the small po-dunk towns of East and West Texas. It took more than half the year just to say hello to the cute girl with the locker next to mine (really deep sigh). If I wasn't such a social misfit, SHE would have been a KEEPER! (wipes a tear from an eye). I didn't even understand what the Sadie Hawkin's Day dance was, until after the dance. And by then, why a couple of really nice girls treated me like sewage. My radar screen of the thought, emotion or intent of the fairer sex was even less effective than an unmanned pong knob. One gal asked to borrow a jacket one cool morning, and by 2 p.m. I understood she was announcing we were going together! I was WELL behind the power curve on a lot of things, kissing not the least of them and I'm glad I didn't experience such a thing while driving. What is it about the BIG city that some sweet young girl will plant a kiss on a bloke at a party and CHECK OUT HIS DENTAL WORK?!?!?!? I soon realized where the cartoons got the nervous twitching leg from. I got it only two other times. The first time driving a car, and the first time at the stick of an F-4E...Expand for more