My Incredible Journey

By Pat Dodd

Encouraged by three older brothers, now serving in the US Marines, to set goalsDream big, and above all, get away from this narrow-minded home town, they saidJana graduated high school and began making plans to follow her brothers suggestions. She finds a job in Tulsa, Oklahoma. With determination, she works hard, enrolling in evening classes at a nearby college, to become a physical therapist.

Janas dreams are coming true, until she stumbles down an alley and falls over a body. Afraid to tell anyone, she keeps quiet. Murder is not going to stop me, she tells herself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbott Press
• Release date: Jun 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781458209580

Pat Dodd

After two years in college, I became a house parent in a boys’ orphanage. Witnessing young men facing challenges without the love and compassion of a parent inspired my first book. I began studying over the Internet. My second story, A Montana Grizzly, is an improvement. You are now holding my third book. I hope you become motivated to conquer your dreams as my character did.

Book preview

1

T he sweet smell of the freshly soaked earth, stirs up a harmony of the chirping crickets and belching bullfrogs residing on our near by pond, the pond where my brother’s first taught me to swim.

Anxiety over takes me when I think of leaving this home I’ve shared with my family for the past nineteen years.

My aging grandparents living next door, adds to my concern.

My three older brothers, serving with the U. S. Marines, constantly urge me to leave this small town with its narrow minded views.

Jana, working for Sonic Drive Inn while you are in high school is great, but it is time you start setting goals for your future, dream, become inspired.

My parents, along with this older generation, have the attitude, it is a daughter’s duty to stay near home and care for the aging family members.

I think about the great opportunities I will miss if I remain here,

where career opportunities are nonexistent.

Wal-Mart is a good place to work; they have great benefits too, Dad constantly tells me.

My heart is set on moving away, finding a job, and getting my own apartment.

I want to enroll in college. I can attend classes in the evening and work a regular job through the day.

Who do you think you are? asked dad. You haven’t a clue what you are getting into. You will be crawling back home in less than two months.

"Oh God," I sigh. I don’t dare fail. I can do this, I know I can.

Finally––—It is my last week working at Sonic.

My friends can not believe I’m actually leaving home.

Are you sure you are ready for a step this big, Jana?

They can not conceive the dreams I have for my future.

I found a job over the internet, working for Eldridge Electric, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The pay and benefits are excellent; and work well with my budget.

The money I saved while working at Sonic, the past three summers, will help me find my ‘dream’ apartment.

Our home is one of the first, built on this narrow gravel street.

City Commissioner’s apparently felt sidewalks, unnecessary in this area.

We keep the local pharmacy busy stocking foot remedies.

The girls living here, with affluent family’s, are making plans to enter the Arkansas State University.

The less ambitious, will enroll in short term Business, or a Beauty College.

Finances have more to do with our choice, than ambition.

Those lacking support and encouragement, will remain working for Sonic, until ‘Mr. Right’ comes along.

The ‘Sonic Girls,’ come from good families just like mine.

Most of the people living in this small town, expect girls to settle for less.

Anyone desiring to do better, must battle circumstances, which make settling for less, much easier.

This attitude alone challenges me to move away.

I can not imagine being married to one of the local guys, with his beer breath and bulging biceps, only to end up raising his offspring.

I stand up brushing away the loose paint chips sticking to seat of my blue jeans.

After a rain, the pealing paint clings to every thing.

Impatiently, I count the days until I will be on my way, fulfilling my dreams, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I think of the ‘Sonic’ girls and their dreams.

Most will marry the first guy offering any kind of a future.

This usually means, wedding vows said before a Justice of the Peace.

They will move into an old house, with used furniture, left by a deceased relative.

"There has to be something better than that." I tell myself.

Oh, it is only until we get on our feet, explain the newly weds.

Years later, the house may have gotten a coat of paint; and some form of a fence is now around the yard, a yard full of babies running around in diapers.

Definitely not for me, I said. I’m going to accomplishing something.

2

T hursday morning, I arrived with my parents, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Excitedly, I begin my search for an apartment close to my job, or near the Tulsa Transit Bus line.

I dreamed of this move, all through high school.

My meager belongings are wedged tightly in dad’s pickup truck.

After searching