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School. Well no, I guess I don’t go there anymore.
Both my parents died near the beginning. My dad
made a business trip to New York, and I think he
caught it up there. I don’t have any skills yet. I’m
too young.”
    Janet interrupted Ruth. “Nonsense Ruth;
I’ve seen you do pencil sketches; you’re a very good
artist. You’re able to capture the emotion of a scene with just a few lines on a piece of paper.”
Ruth blushed, “I guess I can draw pretty
good.”
“What about you Janet?” I asked.
    “I’m a retired school teacher. My husband
and I just moved down from Minneapolis last year.
I got my degree from the University of Minnesota.
George died seven weeks ago in the hospital. They
didn’t know what happened to his body. I never
had a chance to say goodbye. There was so much
confusion there. It was horrid. They just had dead
bodies lined up in a garden behind the hospital;
just stacked up, one on top of the other; can you
imagine that.”
    Janet began to cry. Ruth put her arms
around her new friend and just held her for all she
was worth.
    George continued on. “I’m an electrical engineer. I worked for a solenoid company for twenty
years and then moved down here to manage a design team working on miniature transformers.
Marge, that’s my wife, passed away three weeks
ago. I had to carry her down sixteen floors, but I
knew she would have wanted to be buried looking
at the beach and the ocean. She loved to walk
along the beach each morning looking for shells.”
    It was Stan’s turn. “I don’t have any degree,
but I worked in construction, mostly new developments, and ten years ago I began doing major rehabs. I buy a beat-up property in a good neighborhood, fix it up, and sell it for a profit. I’ve made a
lot of money; not that it’s going to do any good
now. Oh, and I love to fish. I’ve got a boat on the
river over by the Naples Airport, so if we need some
fresh fish for dinner, I’m your man.”
    I asked Stan, “There’s a fishing fleet over at
Fort Myers Beach. Do you think you could operate
one of those boats?”
    “Sure, but I’d need a crew, and I’m not sure
how long the diesel fuel would last, but I can go
over there and scout things out.”
    It was Bill’s turn. I’m a mechanical engineer
by training. I got my degree at the University of Miami, but I haven’t used the degree in forty years. I
own ABC Paver Company, maybe you heard of us.
We specialize in commercial projects. I guess we
won’t need that skill for another hundred years.”
    “You’re right Bill,” I said, “but we will need
your mechanical engineering skills. I think you
should be studying your old textbooks again.”
    We moved onto Jessie. “I’m studying genetic
engineering at Duke. I’m a Senior there. I was going to specialize in bio-pharma manufacturing processes. I interned last summer at Amgen, and they
said they were going to offer me a job after graduation. My parents and younger brother died a few
weeks ago.”
    Blaine was the last to speak and after identifying himself as a loser, I wondered what he
would tell the others. “I received a degree in economics at Princeton. I manage a hedge fund in
Manhattan. I guess that job’s on hold for a long
time. Other than knowing how to make money
trading foreign currencies, I know how to fly an
airplane. Mine’s parked over at the Naples airport.”
I asked Blaine, “What kind of plane is it?”
    “It’s a twin-engine Cessna Turbo Skylane.
On a full tank it has a range of 1360 nautical
miles.”
Jack, who was listening to the conversation
said, “Can I fly on the airplane?”
    Bobby immediately said, “Me too, me too.”
Blaine was smart enough to answer the
question with no definitive answer. “We’ll see guys.
I’ll know better in a few more weeks.”
    Both Jack and Bobby accepted this answer
with no complaints. How many years before that
would end? Margaret and Mary decided it was time
for the two boys and