Ray Justus:  

Life since Watertown: In my sophomore year, our family moved from Watertown, South Dakota to Phoenix, Arizona. It was an exciting change coming to a large city. When I look back, I often wonder what things would be like if we had stayed in that small town. What happened to all the friends I grew up with? I have met a few from time to time, some more than half way around this very small world. The Internet has made finding old friends much easier. In November 2003, I received an unexpected call from a school friend who now lives and works in Illinois. Mike Conway was planning to be in Arizona the following week to open a new warehouse. My wife Judy and I picked him up at his hotel and went to dinner with him. Afterward, he came to our home and we caught up with each other's lives sharing many old memories. We have kept in touch and he has visited our home during two additional trips. After high school, I enlisted in the Navy. Following boot camp, I attended Aviation Electrician's Mate School in Florida. After school, I transferred to a small air station in the central San Joaquin Valley of California. It was my home base for the remaining years of my service. Over the next three years, I made three Western Pacific cruises as a member of the Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club. That is a nice way to say I had three tours of duty off the coast of Vietnam on aircraft carriers. Even so, the carriers were a much safer place to be than it was for my "in country" counterparts. Between my first and second cruises, I met my beautiful wife in Fresno, about forty miles north of the air station. I asked her to marry me on our third date. Six weeks later, we were married. Judy was only nineteen but did not need permission. I was twenty and had to write home to my folks. Fortunately, they gave their approval. Those early years were a bit lean but we made it through. On our first anniversary, we threw out the ...Expand for more