The past forty years of my life have been busy and to update you here is a recap....

After Central in 1963 I married and later became an interior designer. That required many long hours of hard work but I enjoyed it. My first marriage ended after 12 years and my young son Patrick and I lived alone for a few years. Then I met a wonderful man at work and we got married. I kept working for several years, but finally I decided to retire and become a full time wife and mother. I had Patrick and Ken had two precious boys, Allen and Carl, from his first marriage.

We kept his boys a lot and had so much fun with the kids as they were growing up. The boys were all athletic and we went to a lot of sporting events...

Allen was Patrick's age and Carl was three years younger. In 1994 Sears offered a buy out package to their executives, and after Ken and I talked it over he decided to take it. We were in Nashville, Tennessee, at the time and had always dreamed and talked about retiring in Florida. We had hoped Sears would move us there, but they never did, so we decided we would try to find a place to move around the Pensacola area.

While Ken went on a six week long motorcycle trip out west with other Sears guys celebrating the end of their careers, I started visiting cousins in Pensacola looking for a home. Ken loves golfing, so the place I found was Stone Brook Village, which is a golfing community. I found a lot on the first tee of the golf course and a house plan for a patio home I liked. While Ken was gone our Hendersonville home sold, and when he got home we went down and looked at the lot and house plans. He agreed this would be perfect for us to retire.

We lived with our cousins as our home was being built and moved in three days before Christmas. Needless to say we didn't get a Christmas tree up that year! We love it here and the weather is great....hot summers, but mild winters with no snow! Our boys are all happy and Pat and Allen are married. Pat married Kristy five years ago on Valentine's Day and Allen married last summer. Allen met his wife Lydia in law school in Birmingham and they both should graduate this December.

Carl is not married yet but has a serious girlfriend, Joy. We just may be going to another wedding before too long! Carl lives in Hawaii so that should be fun. Pat and Kristy live in Bartlett, Tennessee. just outside Memphis. Allen and Lydia live in Birmingham now, but she has an Uncle who has invited them both to join his law practice in Mobile, Alabama, when they get out of school, and that is only a little over an hour from us!!!

I have never been able to come to a reunion yet, but this year I am coming, so I hope and pray to get to see many of my old friends there.

All of you make every effort to get there so we can all see each other and get caught up on the last 40 years!

Lynda Goodwin