Rick Patterson

  As my book matures to what it is, I was told to tell the back story of the characters. But the last person who plays an active role in this book is the gas station manager, Rick Patterson. He is an original Desert storm veteran, Not the 2001 9-11 Desert Storm the one in 1990 desert storm when Saddam attacked Kuwait. My father was in that same war, but Rick is at least 10 years younger. But anyway, life has not been kind to Rick. He is one of many people who is in love with my mother but he never tried anything as he knows my father will hurt him, he attempted to start many a business then when he opened his gas station/tire repair and sales, they expanded the freeway and only gave him on lane and the small town grew facing the west bound traffic going towards college station. But we are a small town, so he is just bitter two other stations opened. Actually if he bathed more and wore a shirt with sleeves more, and pant vs shorts with his work boots he may actually have better luck with the ladies.
 So he got a smart phone one summer then he determined that game play would build him wealth. It was heartbreaking to tell him in the future that the games people win money on, is not on the phones. Then this one day I was walking past his gas station, and I noticed that he had a chain looped through a hoist so it was dangling from the ceiling. See from the intersection of Rattlesnake Road to Route 6 East/West there is the main drag, Route 6 everything the town has is on this street the post  office, Bushes Fried Chicken/Mobile, Oakleys, Burned Ends BBQ a new place that took Luckys place, Petromart/Subway, Hogg Brothers towing, and Ricks Discount Tires and Lube oil change and car wash. That is Riesel. But again, It was odd that he would have chains just dangling from the ceiling from a hoist. Also, you could see the power plant from there, My father calls it the salt mines where they pay him in rubble's, why? I have no idea, but he does.
 So I asked Rick about the chains, all he did was chase me out and tell me to get lost. So I did, all I can think about is wow the anger in this man. I wonder if that is PTSD, I really don't know what it is, but hear my father tell me is fine and everyone else is scamming the system. Not that I know what that is. So he was the topic of discussion at the round table during lunch the next day. That is where we solve all of the problems, John, Mike and myself.