Day 6: Honolulu, 2

Come to think of it, throughout our lives there often tends to be a person or two who, through seeming simple circumstances, become a milestone in our lives. Today, I reconnected with one of my milestones.

Following a civil-service job with the U. S. Army, David and Lucy Vargas moved with their four sons from the mainland to Honolulu about three years ago. After a number of years of touch and go email communication, David and I connected via Facebook about one year ago. In the past year I learned of a traumatic health matter that nearly took David's life since arriving in Hawaii. He suffered liver failure, and he nearly died following a liver transplant. He and his wife shared with us their conviction that it was only through the fervent prayer of family and friends that he has survived and is now back at work full time, and thoroughly enjoying their new lives here in the islands.

So, what was that milestone event? David's early adulthood had been as a career Navy man. In 1993, as a Yeoman First Class, his was retiring from his last assignment at the Naval Base at Port Hueneme.

It occurred that, at that time, the Navy was short of yeomen, and as David's date of separation approached, there was concern that his station would suffer somewhat if they could not find a replacement to handle his work in their Office of Military Affairs.

At my home in Bakersfield, I answered the phone one day. I was asked whether I knew this and that computer program. I lied. Then I was asked if I could show up the following week in Port Hueneme to be trained in some or another specialized work by a Navy guy who was retiring. Sure, I could.

David's retirement from the Navy was the simple action that led to my subsequent years fulfilling Defense Contractor assignments. That work led Dan and me to move back to Oxnard, and to my doing that work until my own retirement.

It was a little touch and go for David and me as we tried, via email and a few phone calls, to pull off a reunion today. We met up in Pearl City, at the Aloha Stadium. Dave, Lucy, Dan and I spent some time catching up on one another's lives before they drove the two of us back into Honolulu. It was time well spent.