Paxon Sr Hi - Class of 1960

I went to school with the class of 1960 from 9th grade thru the first few days of our senior year. I was not a good student in English and wound up having flunked 10th and 11th grade english. This caused me to have 3 english classes in my senior year. Not having been able to pass them one at a time, I did not feel I could pass 3 at once.
I quit school in my first few days of the 12th grade and joined the Air Force when I turned 17 in October.
After 2 hitches in the Air Force, I decided to get out and try civilian life.
My Air Force record was good and I had several good job offers and finally decided on a career with a finance company.
The intention was to settle in Jacksonville. I worked in Jacksonville for about a week and was transferred to Fernandina Beach. In about a year I transferred to an office in Ybor City with is a section of Tampa.
After about 2 years I was promoted to Manager and transferred to Boca Raton. I spent about 2 years there and was transferred to Sanford Florida.
By this time I had 5 sons and wanted to settle down permanently and give them a home town. So when I was up for transfer again, I quit and started a Janitorial Service, which I have operated for the past 30 years.

My first wife was german. I met her while stationed in the Air Force. After 13 years of marriage and 5 children, she decided to divorce me. She gave me custody of the children and I was "Mr Mom" for a year.
I met my second wife at the local 7-11 store. She had five children also and we started dating. At first it was mostly for the novelty of it - load all 10 children in the car and go skating, to the beach, for a cook out or whatever.
We fell in love and got married after dating for a year. Our house was like a beehive. With 10 children, we usually had 20 in the house.
After 20 years of marriage and having gotten all the children raised, my wife died of heart problems.
For a couple of years after her death I just kind of played around on the computer and internet. I wasn't really interested in getting married again.
One day I was in a 50's chat room and a lady named Wanda from Alabama wandered in. We chatted for a few days on the computer then we started chatting on the phone and then we met in the real world. It was either love at first type or first sight.
Three months later we were married.

In Feb 2003, Wanda and I divorced and now I am fending for myself.

Retirement is looming on the horizon. And the best is yet to come.

R.L. Dukes

Note - click on any of the photos below to see a larger version.

R.L. at Keesler AFB - 1961	R.L. with wife JoHanna and son David Germany - 1964	R.L. with 3 of 5 sons Sanford - 1972

RL & wife Nancy 1980	RL & Nancy 1985	RL & First Grandchild Sharing A Milkshake 1985

RL & Nancy 1989	RL & Nancy 1990	R.L. - 1995

RL & Wife Wanda Christmas 1999	RL & Wanda Christmas 2001	RL & Part of his Grandchildren Christmas 2001