I did let the boss know that I was sick and would be be back as soon as I was able.  A couple of weeks later, after recovering, I reported back to the turkey farm for work only to find out from the boss I was fired.  I remember the boss’s words: “I’m not interested in excuses; when I hire someone, I expect them to be here and working”.  As I stood there at the front door where he met me and heard his words, right there and then I said to myself: “Bob, this isn’t going to work” and decided that it was time to find a career.

I might add that prior to this point in time, I had been praying and lookng to see if God would give me an indication of what He might like me to do with my life however He had remained silent on that issue.  In the face of His silence and being fired at the turkey farm, I decided that He was leaving the career choice up to me and that I would use the time while I was out of work to choose and plan for a career.  I went down to the public library to research different careers and discovered that they had a set of encyclopedias devoted to careers.  For each career, a description was provided regarding the work itself, the type of working environment, the wages or salaries one might expect, the availability of positions in that field, and the requirements for that career (training and/or education).

It took two weeks for me to go through the whole set from A to Z and to develop a list of those occupations that I might consider.  My primary criteria was that the career meet the following conditions: I wanted a career that was not confined to working eight hours a day in an office nor eight hours a day in the sun; I wanted a career that would meet my expectations in terms of being interesting and challenging; I wanted a career that would pay me a wage or salary that would enable me to support myself and a family, not hand-to-mouth; I wanted a career for which there was a good demand; and I wanted a career that was within my reach in terms of cost, time, ability, and educational requirements.  After going through the list of careers and giving the matter a lot of consideration, I decided that electrical engineering would be my choice.

Shortly thereafter, I secured another job in Montevideo working for a grain terminal.  Because it paid higher wages and was 60 hours per week, I began setting aside money to pay for the education I would need to have a career as an electrical engineer.  I held that job for approximately six months during which time I arranged for my Veterans education benefits and submitted my application to a two-year technical college in Lake Worth, Florida, that had an excellent reputation for their electrical engineering technology program.  My plan was to acquire a two-year Associate of Science degree in electrical engineering as well as a two-year Associate of Arts degree and then leapfrog to the University of Florida to acquire a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering.

In August of 1969 I left Montevideo, Minnesota, and headed to Lake Worth, Florida, to begin my education; due to begin in September.  Just prior to leaving, I decided that I needed a good vehicle and, although I dearly wanted the blue Corvette Stingray at $8,500, settled for a Ford Maverick at $2,800 since the Stingray and college were mutually exclusive in terms of my income.

As interesting as this story may be in terms of my career choice, that is not the most notable aspect of this story.  If you will remember from the story “God I.D.’s my wife and Hurricane Betsy”, you know that in 1965 God gave me a dream in which I saw my (future) wife.  The real point to be noted here is that although God refused to give me an indication of what He might like me to do with my life, He knew what my choice would be before I did.  He knew that I would choose electrical engineering, subsequently attend the University of Florida and, in so doing, meet the girl he showed me back in 1965.