Today I had to privilege to meet and have a nice chat with another military veteran at Walmart. He was sitting on one of the inside benches by himself while I went through the self checkout. Korean veteran cap is what tipped me off.
I finished my checkout and went over to ask if I could thank and shake his hand. He obliged and afterwards we went into about a 15 minute conversation.
Turns out he served from '50 to '54 in the US Navy and then used the GI Bill to attend college at UF where he got his architect degree in '59. He ended up practicing in West Palm Beach and also briefly served as mayor there, moving up here after retirement to get away from the crowds.
Lives with his 3rd wife (it was she that he was waiting for) and had a lot of nice things to say about our beach here. Neither of us brought up the state of Florida football right now...which was OK by me...lol.
He said when he attended UF there were only around 8K students. He also said his architect # is 3094, which I guess is a very low number compared to what it is now.
His wife came up as I was leaving to make sure she was getting the right popcorn for him. Married life!
