Coffee with Mike (Part 2)

After High School I went to work and got a few funky jobs. They were all right for just being out of high school. The one I had the longest was Goldworthy Engineering, where I learned welding and the art of metal work and fabrication. It was around this time (about 1980) that I met Debby at a bar. Her legs caught my attention. It was a hot summer day and she had really short, little, pink shorts on. We were sitting at the bar and I asked her if she wanted to go out back and smoke a joint. She said, “Yeah, but you will have to take me home because I will be too wasted to walk home.” We kept hanging out afterward and would meet at the bar a couple times a week. We started going out to dinner. We would go back and forth between each other’s places. She was living with her mom and her two sisters at the time. She was four years older than me (12/6/53 was her date of birth). We dated a couple years before I proposed to her, and by the time I proposed to her we had been living together in my apartment for a while. The day I proposed to her we were both half lit up, and I said to her, “Why don’t we just get married…we are living together anyway?” And she said, “Ok.” So we got married, and that was that. No fancy proposal. We got married February 27th, 1981 in Long Beach, and Debby got pregnant right away. After a couple doctor’s appointments we found out Debby was pregnant with twins. I was excited, nervous, and very happy. It was a cool surprise. Debby had an easy pregnancy, and we had our two, beautiful, twin girls on January 8th, 1982 on Elvis Presley’s birthday. We named them Adrian and Adriana Lampton. I remember that day very clearly. It was an awesome day! Debby labored most of the day with the girls, but it was amazing to finally see them. They were my little girls, my special little girls. I was so overwhelmed with them. I couldn’t believe it! They were so little! It was an amazing feeling! I just couldn’t believe how small they were! How two little beings, that were a part of me, could be that small!?! They were mine! My little girls…part of my body…my blood. I wanted to be there every minute for them. I was their daddy…their protector!