Morgan Complacency Can Kill You

A True Story
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-0983-0436-2
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 268 Seiten

Entrepreneur, adventurer, adrenaline junkie come together on the pages of this story-telling, but factual book. If you have a bucket list, this man has probably completed it. Living the life of a small-town boy, Tony Morgan manages to work his 9 to 5 jobs while weaving tales of adventure and misadventure between the ordinary. Flanked on either side by friends who wish to take some risks and live out their own dreams, Tony takes you through their underwater, as well as their air born, victories and catastrophes. He journeys to interesting destinations both near and far, describing in detail some of his harrowing experiences which range from scuba diving into an ice-covered lake for the local sheriff's department to bungee jumping while on vacation in New Zealand. The stories are sprinkled with the humor and pranks that these characters share during their times together. His is not a life for the faint of heart, but for the heart that wishes to soar through life's journey without being halted by fear. Tony lives mindfully, and completely aware in the moment, to not only soar out of joy, but also out of necessity, because complacency in these adventures can kill you.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Morgan, Tony

Leseproben

High School Years As I was approaching sixteen, I wanted to drive and Dad purchased a Volkswagen truck. I loved it. The sides of the bed folded down, and under the flatbed were storage compartments. I drove it on the dirt roads out at the college, too. Now instead of the scooter I was driving a vehicle and learning how to slide it around turns as if I was Bond in a chase. I’ll never know why that thing did not flip over, but it would sure slide nicely on a dirt road. It was time to start thinking about a job when I was approaching sixteen. Dad told me that if I wanted a car I had to work and pay for it. No problem, I had been working when I could as a kid, but now the toys would be bigger and cost more money. In high school, we had the ICT (Industrial Cooperative Training) program that helped students who were interested in working find jobs. We were trained at these jobs and were able to leave school early to go to work as part of our classes. We also had a class session every day in ICT that taught us different things about being out in the working world. This is something that is greatly needed these days, along with shop classes. I was turning sixteen and needed, or I should say wanted, a job so I could buy a car. Grandfather Dabbs, who had married my grandmother Gracie, had become ill. When he retired from his full-time job, he got a little job at a local funeral home. He was going to have to go ahead and retire completely, even quitting the part-time job at the funeral home. He was able to get me that job, replacing him and doing things like cutting the grass, handling the flowers, and setting up the gravesites along with working the funerals. They told me if I wanted to learn, they would start teaching me about embalming and allow me to take out-of-town trips to pick up bodies. A most unusual job for a sixteen-year-old, but I thought, why not. I was too young to be picky and had yet to even think about what I was going to do as an adult. Besides, it was different and I liked that idea. It was all set up in ICT to allow me to leave school early to go to work. I would also work on weekends. Everyone in class just shook their heads and said “I would not do that job, dealing with dead people, no way.” It would have a great effect on me throughout my life, in more ways than one. One day in ICT class, our teacher came barreling in. We could tell she was upset or pissed off, and it didn’t take long to figure out why. She told us for that day’s class we each were going to write a paper about what you will expect out of a spouse when you get married, then turn it in at the end of class. She then stormed back out and went into her little room that had this huge glass window where she could watch over us during tests. The little office was almost soundproof, too. We all looked at each other and we were all thinking the same thing: fight with hubby. As we sat there looking down at our blank papers, I covered my mouth and said, “Hey, why don’t we all write the exact same thing? Each one of us will give a sentence and we will all write it down word for word.” Everyone was snickering and bouncing ideas around. We started writing, word by word and sentence by sentence as someone gave one. Each student took turns giving a sentence, it was a small class of maybe a dozen. We wrote things like: they would have to be able to cook meals, they would have to be able to do yard work, someone even came up with they would have to be virgins. When it was all done, we were hysterical but trying to be cool. We waited until the bell rang to all get up and stack them on her desk for her on the way out. She was still in her little office. The next day we were all in class laughing and waiting for her arrival, wondering what our punishment was going to be but still laughing about it. The door swung open and everyone was silent. She walked over to her desk and set her books down without cracking a smile. She finally spoke, “I want all of you to know that I must have read three or four of these things before I realized what was going on.” Some of us snickered, and I mumbled to the friend beside me, “I bet she read them all.” Luckily, she didn’t hear that, and she smiled and went on talking about the lessons for today. I think we may have made her night at home reading those papers, but we would never know because nothing else was ever said about them. That was basically an easy course to me because it dealt with some things I already did, but one that was surely needed because there was nothing else that gave us any kind of preparation for life once you were out of school. Shop class was also a good class to have and it opened our minds, or at least mine, to learning how different things worked and doing things with your hands. ICT went a little further with everyday life lessons on dealing with things everyone will come across. Starting at the funeral home was fun, and the company I worked for had several branches in other nearby towns, including one just ten miles away. I was back and forth in the company van doing work at both places, and in no time had my own keys to both places and could come and go as I pleased. My parents had brought me up with the skills of respect and trust when dealing with anyone and never to differentiate between a doctor or the person who cleans the bathrooms in the doctor’s office, they all deserved the same respectful treatment. I did my best to do those things and be truthful, and that meant immediate acceptance in my first big job as a driving teen. Of course, now I needed a car. I wanted an Opel GT sports car, but what did Dad find me but an Opel station wagon … a yellow Opel station wagon. At least it was a stick shift, and cheap. One of the mathematics professors at the college, Dr. Somerville, had it. His wife, Jane, let me drive it and I thought it really wasn’t bad. It was small, not like a giant station wagon in those days, and I could haul stuff in the back. Dad helped me get a loan for it and that was my first encounter with a bank loan and how important credit is. There would be many loans yet to come, involving millions of dollars. Now I had transportation to school and my job, I was set to go and even started hauling friends to school every day. I bought a new radio and speakers and taught myself how to install them. Work was actually fun, because I was able to be outside and inside and did many different things so it really became interesting and a big learning experience. Sadly, one of the first funerals that came in was my great grandmother, Little Grandma, who had lived with us as long as I could remember. We loved her so much, and she would be greatly missed, but of course I was with my family and did not work those few days. As time passed, I was able to go into the embalming room to observe and started learning everything I could about the process of embalming. They also taught me about being a funeral director. Embalming and funeral directing were two different licenses. I also learned how to dress and place the bodies in the caskets for viewing, but what I really liked was traveling. I was sent all over to pick up bodies and bring them back: South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington DC. We did not travel that much when we were kids, maybe a trip to the beach and one time Dad and Mom, along with Aunt Georgia and Uncle Bobby, took us to the mountains, but in general, travel meant you were moving. I decided that next I wanted a motorcycle I could use. Dad said I could not afford both a motorcycle and a car. I started looking at everything and figured how much money I would need to keep both up and running, along with my fun money. One of the funeral directors I worked under, Ken, had bought a Honda 750 four, the biggest bike Honda made at that time. He decided he did not like a motorcycle, and I wanted it. I sat down with my boss because recently we had lost our gravedigger. If I could get that job on the side to do on weekends and after work, I could make more than enough money to cover the bike and car. We agreed that I would start digging the graves, back then that was by hand with a pick and shovel. For how much? Well a dollar and sixty cents an hour, which was minimum wage, and a ten-dollar bonus for each one that I dug. Hard to believe that would get you by, but back then for a teenager it was good money for what I was trying to do. The first one I ever dug was, of course, clay. Hard clay. No one checked on me or behind my first work on digging a grave before the service. I would never forget it because the vault man showed up with no one there, and of course cell phones were decades away. The vault would not fit because as I dug down, I allowed the sides to slope inward and the vault would not go to the bottom. He had to dig himself and get it right, because he did not know where to go for help, since he was from out of town. When Ward, the boss showed up, he started cussing, knowing I just did not know how to do it right. They were still understanding with me, after all the cussing was over with. Later, Ward, made a rectangle guide out of lightweight wood. Ward presented it to me and said, “Now when you dig, place this on the ground for your outline and, as you dig down, keep bringing this thing over and putting it in. When you are finished, you should be able to move it all the way to the bottom without it hanging up on the sidewalls or the end walls.” I never had another bad grave digging after that. Of course, I lost out on that grave, because it would have taken longer to dig if I had done it correctly and I would have made more money since I was...