The long, hot summer of 1988 came to a close and I could tell that my job at the café in Westport, along the shore of Washington State, was coming to a close as well.  The summer tourists were long gone and the locals don’t eat at waterfront restaurants; especially in the winter.  At the end of November, the boss gave us the news.  The café was closing for the winter.  We would all have to find new jobs.

     I put on a business suit and went out to apply for another job.  A very young adult, I did not have many skills, but I had worked in food service.  Because it was close to the bus station, I stopped at Jack in the Box to use the restroom.  I saw a sign on the window “Now Hiring”.  I didn’t think that I really wanted to work in fast food, but I needed a job.  I filled out an application and turned it in to a well dressed man at the front counter.  He set me up for an interview that day.  Little did I know that he was the owner; the franchise belonged to him.  I was offered a job as a crew member and I started on December 9.

     As I think back, I wonder, had I know then what I know now, would I have run the opposite direction and never looked back?   It was a wild ride, those years at Jack in the Box in Aberdeen, on the coast of the Great State of Washington.  So wild that my supervisor was fond of calling my locale The Wild, Wild West”.  I don’t know if I would have stayed, had I known.

   What I do know is that every day, I was given a measure of God’s grace sufficient to get me through that day.  And that is all I needed.

     This is my blog, in which I will be sharing my Jack in the Box story.  You may not believe all of it, but I swear to you that every word of it is true.  Each entry will tell a story.  They will not be in chronological order; they will simply be in the order in which I remember the events.  Some stories are funny.  Some are tragic.  All of them are mine.

Free—Breathtaking, mystical photo of WA’s Mount Rainier