And a mess of fish for supper was a welcome change of food we usually had for supper. Either Mom or Aunt Emma would roll the cleaned fish in corn meal and fry them in the frying pan in bacon grease. That fried fish was always really good eating for each of us anyway.
Both Connie and I were good students in elementary and high school. With my good grades I got a couple of college scholarships to attend the state university. My scholarships covered all four years at the university just about twenty miles away. I still had to get a part time job to help cover my meals and housing costs.
A couple of years later after Connie graduated from high school Connie got a couple of similar scholarships with her good grades to attend the state university with me. Connie had turned 18 just before she graduated from high school. So by the time she enrolled in college that next fall she was well over the age of 18. She was now a grown woman in her own eyes and in the eyes of others.
We were both so excited that she was going to be going to school on campus with me. We got a room where she could stay with me and that helped cut her costs of attending college. Both of our Mothers were so proud that their two children were going to college. That’s because neither of them ever went past eighth grade in school. And I was so proud to have my cousin-sister, Connie, there with me, too.
We were forced to sleep with one another when we were in college because our room only had one double bed. We still did not have sex as it was always drilled into us that it was taboo. Then we were always cautioned about the possibility of Connie getting pregnant as well as it being taboo to have sex with my cousin-sister.
Although, it was really hard for me not to make love with her I think that Connie kind of felt the same way, too, but, we never talked about it. I always slept in my skivvies and Connie used to snicker when I got up in the morning with a stiffie showing in my skivvies.
By the time she was in college with me Connie had developed into a really good looking very shapely young woman. With her long brown hair, her dark brown eyes and her pretty face. She had a pair of voluptuous breasts and an hour glass figure that attracted many of the boys on the campus.
She had her pick of the guys that she wanted to go out with. But, when they found out that she was living with her brother, or so they thought, most of them were very hesitant to ask her out. I think that they may have been afraid of crossing onto my fighting side. Although, I never threatened any one, since there never was any need for me to threaten any one for any reason.
At the end of my four years I got my degree in Civil Engineering and received an offer of a job with a major railroad company in one of the Rocky Mountain States. My job was pretty well paid and I sent a lot of my pay home to my Mom and to Aunt Emma to help them.
They passed some of that money on to help Connie pay for her food and housing at college. Even though, she had to get a part time job to help out with her expenses like I had done. As my job responsibilities grew and my pay was increased I sent even more money home to my Mom and to Aunt Emma each month. That helped them and it helped Connie, too.
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I used to get a big kick out of people when they asked me what I did for a living and I always told them, “I’m a railroad engineer.”
They would always reply, “Do you drive one of those ‘big ole’ trains.”
I had to tell them, “No, I was not that kind of railroad engineer. My job as head of my department was to keep the locomotives and rolling stock in good working condition and to keep the railroad track and the right of way in good repair, too.”
A lot of them seemed to be disappointed that I didn’t drive one of those “big ole” locomotives. Although, those “big ole” locomotives are interesting, and exciting pieces of equipment to work on and even to ride in, I was never a railway locomotive engineer.
Just as she had done in elementary and in high school Connie really made good grades in college and when she graduated she got many good paying job offers. Like I did, she sent a portion of her pay home to my Mom and Aunt Emma. Connie met a guy at the company she worked for and they got married a year or so after she went to work for that company.
I missed her wedding because I did not have the vacation time to cover that time off and the travel distance. It was so far that the travel time each way would be at least a three days drive or more for the beat up old car I was driving. I was concerned that it wouldn’t even make the trip there and back anyway.
A few months before the time that Connie got married, I met a young woman in the town where I worked and we got married. My wife, Brandi, and I had twin Boys. Interestingly enough Connie and her husband had two Girls but, her girls were not twins. Connie’s oldest girl was born about a year or so after our twin Boys were born.
After her girls were born Connie went back to work and continued to work through the time her girls graduated from high school. They both were good students and both got scholarships to the state college that Connie and I had attended back home.
Connie’s husband was in upper management and he had a really good paying job at the company that he and Connie both worked for. They had put a large amount of money into an education fund that would put both their girls through college. They had also funded their retirement account very well, too, and paid off the mortgage on their house.