There was a girl who lived down the street who had a crush on me. Jean was 5'4" and another green-eyed blonde... very attractive, but very young... still in high school. The night before I left for the Navy, she gave me a send-off that started in the neighbors' hot tub and ended in Mom and Dad's bed. It was amazing.
The enlistment up to which I'd signed was one that would get me back to college without too much delay. I went off to boot camp at Great Lakes (20 miles from home), then A-School at the Naval Air Technical Training Center-Memphis, in Millington, Tennessee. After that I was officially a member of the United States Naval Reserve. I studied Avionics and received a letter of commendation for my performance in Basic Electricity and Electronics, the stepping stone to my courses in aviation electronics. (I was one of only four sailors in 1982 to ace both the midterm and the final in BE&E, and I completed the nine-week course in fourteen days.)
Once Navy schooling was done, I was assigned to Patrol Squadron Ninety at Naval Air Station-Glenview, just north of Chicago. From there I was free to go back to college with a few bucks in my pocket... at the cost of two weeks a year and a weekend a month over the next five years. NAS-Glenview was 37 miles from Mom and Dad's house, so I could visit home each month I had duty. It was a good regrouping. I was released from active duty in February, 1983, and only had to wait three months before summer school started at UW-Stevens Point.
Waiting at home was Jean. After a year's maturing she was nothing short of stunning. We spent some time together that spring before college, usually in the woods near home. It wasn't an exclusive relationship by any means... she dated a number of guys in high school, and I too saw a friend from high school that had written back and forth while I was in Tennessee. Debbie was a very skinny 5'3" with dark hair and brown eyes. Debbie said she wasn't ready for a relationship, though, and we parted ways.
Two interesting things about that: First, though Debbie said she wasn't ready to go any further, she was married a year later. Second, her mom, Nora, was a nurse at a hospital in Burlington. A few years later our neighbor Terri's dad went to the hospital after a stroke, and Terri told Nora where she lived. Nora asked if she knew Mark Jones, the two made small talk about me, and both said they wished I would have married their daughters. What can I say? I'm a nice guy.