Gayle Sparkman:  

Life Walker Gayle Sparkman: Family called me Gayle; Acquaintances called me Sparky; As a man, they called me Walker. I still answer to all three of these. Grade School in Marble Falls (47-50). Johnette Schaeffer was special. Graduated from Brownwood High School (51-54). Undergrad studies at several colleges, no degree. In high school I was in love with Dotty Mosely, but she broke it off with me due to some heavy lying and scheming by Matt Kyle, whose father had me working on his ranch as a hand while Matt was always on the phone, telling Dottie lots of lies that I did not even know about. The only reason I am telling you this is that I have been regretful and sorry I was so stupid, and all of these years since, looking everywhere for another Dottie Mosely and never finding one. My parents moved to Las Vegas while I was in the Navy, so when I got out , with nothing to go back to, I never returned to my beloved Texas, although I am as much a true Texan as I ever was. After high school I worked as a plumber, roughneck on an oil rig, glove turner for a glove factory, and a year as a travelling telephone dial exchange installer all up and down the sunbelt. Then I joined the Navy, schooled and trained to be an Aviation Electronics Technician, where I learned my trade and applied it to submarine chasing helicopters and fixed wing aircraft in Navy squadrons in the Pacific Fleet. After 4 years, I left the Navy and married my first wife, Bonnie ( 8 years together ). We had 2 kids, my daughter Robin, who is now an IRS agent of all things, and my son Scott, who drowned at age 3 in his mother's pool after we divorced. Robin had a daughter who was killed in a car wreck at 18. After the Navy I went to work in California as an electronics engineer on Space projects (NASA). For 8 years I worked in Satellite tracking stations all over the country in deserts,on mountain tops and in swamps, winding up on the Orbital Geophysi...Expand for more