“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”
I don’t expect everything to fit neatly into its own compartment. A Navy assignment leads to a DJ booth. A fishing trip becomes a service project. A second date leads to a disappearing beard.
This is the backbone of the story. There are still plenty of spaces for the next memory.
1950s–early 1960s
Hallstead. Dayton Avenue.
Ralph and Ada, a Radio Flyer, bicycles, a BB gun, and the sort of adventures that are easier to confess to many years later.
1963
A Christmas in Atlanta.
After my father, Jack, died on September 4, 1963, I went to stay with Aunt Charlotte in Atlanta. A bicycle made from scrap parts belongs to that Christmas.
The teen years
Back to Pennsylvania.
Mom married Bill, her old high-school beau and a retired Navy cook. Our blended family grew, and Bill would eventually have a hand in my decision to join the Navy.
The Navy years, after hours
A shy fellow becomes the DJ.
A Halloween costume, a dance I hadn’t intended to take, and Don Copeland’s disappearing act behind the records.
1988–1990
Hawaii. Another beginning.
My last Navy assignment brought me to Pearl Harbor. While still serving, I was teaching myself about computers—and looking toward the next chapter.
After Navy retirement
From learning software to teaching it.
I retired from the Navy on Friday, July 13, 1990, and joined Jenkins Consulting Service on Monday, July 16—three days later. Consulting, college classrooms, and network programming filled the next chapter.
December 1994
Creative Computing Concepts.
Clyde handed me a disk containing his clients. “You know what to do with this.” I started my own company and continued consulting and training in Hawaii.
Back in Virginia
A new kind of public service.
Approximately six years in Virginia Beach, then approximately ten in James City County. Registering voters, training election officials, and helping elections run. Retirement later included substitute registrar work when requested.
2014
A life transition.
Katrina, my second wife, died from cancer after approximately thirty years of marriage. The years that followed brought change, friendship, and eventually a new life with Charlotte.
In the years that followed
A favor becomes MAD.
Jack Bartell asked for help with a fishing outing for active-duty military personnel. That favor became a several-year endeavor with MAD Hampton and MAD Tidewater.
A new life together
Charlotte. And a promise about a beard.
An online profile, a first date, and a second-date decision. Then a quilt, quillows, and a partnership with plenty of room for making things.
Just before COVID—and onward
A marriage. A shared creative life.
We married just before COVID. Through the isolation and afterward, we kept making things, trying new crafts, and reconnecting with God through Bible study.
2023 onward
A welcome comes full circle.
At Tidewater Post 327, Byron gave us the nickel tour. Community, service, and karaoke followed. Eventually, welcoming others became my responsibility.
Present tense
Still doing. Still becoming.
Stories to tell. Things to make. More photographs to find, and probably another idea getting out of hand. There’s a reason the last portal is still open.
How this website began · the original introduction
At 75, I’m putting together a website about my life. That sounds like the beginning of a retrospective. Knowing me, it may be the beginning of another project that gets a little out of hand.
There are stories to tell, photographs to find, things I’ve made, and people and places I want to remember. Some memories arrive with remarkable clarity. Others come with a less precise date: “a long damn time ago.” Ask me what I had for breakfast and your results may vary.
This is where I’m beginning to put those pieces together.
Six doors. One life.
The doors on the home page offer different ways into the story. Service. Music and mayhem. The things I make in the workshop. The photographs and other pieces of the past in the archives. And the question that keeps another door open: what’s next?
They overlap. A project becomes a story. A photograph brings someone back to mind. An old idea leads to something new. I don’t expect everything to fit neatly into its own compartment.
Nor do I expect to finish remembering everything before I start sharing it. This site will grow a piece at a time.
Another way to keep doing
I’m building this with help from Sage, my AI collaborator. I bring the memories, ideas, corrections, and occasional questionable inspiration. Sage helps me turn them into something you can read and explore.
That collaboration has opened up a possibility I hadn’t fully considered: doing doesn’t always have to mean making something with my own hands. Telling a story, following an idea, and finding a way to make it real count too.
So come on in. There’s more to tell.
AJ Cole, Sr.
Still doing.