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So much has chanced in the last twenty years. First the pain and then the joy of five children and watching the Colony grow and thrive. Tammy is now 21 and itšs a wonder she isnšt married yet. Karl is 20 and I have to say takes after his old man. Billy Jr. is 11 and the younger girls, Kim and Terri are 8 and 6 respectively. Bartlett and Fortson Lumber has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. We are operating three mills with 60 full time employees and would hire more if we could get them.
Surprisingly the lumber operation nowdays provides less than half of our income. Decisions we made in the early days (it seems strange to talk about twenty years ago that way) either supporting or defering payments when times were hard for small stakes in many ot the startups have paid over and over. We never took an intrest of more than five ot ten percent so the real owner had incentive to make the business work. In return assides from the money we gained so many friends and associates that even without being directly involved with the government we always get listend to. We still live out on Janiešs Point. The house is a lot bigger and far more impressive as one would expect. I never have enough time as I want to spend on my boat the Bluenose but we do use it, in fact I am about to build another to take its place. The one thing we seldom do is think much about Earth, Alchibah is home now. Copyright (C) 2006, 2007, 2008 by Jeff Soyer. All rights reserved. |