Roads To Success 4.3

Blind Date

After eight years in Chicago, Wayne’s mother moved him and his younger brother, Scott, back to Florida so they could be closer to their father.  Wayne, Sr. always took care of his family, but there was still a dramatic difference in living with his mother and the life Wayne, Jr. experienced visiting his father.

Wayne, Jr. described it this way.  “There was a disparity between how I lived with my mother, which was clean and comfortable and more than adequate, and what a visit with Wayne, Sr. was like.  I’d go to visit Wayne, Sr. and it was over the top.  He had a 90-foot motor yacht at the time, a number of cars, and jet planes with the corporation, so it was different.”

Wayne, Sr. would eventually build Waste Management, Inc. into the largest waste disposal company in the world.  Wayne, Jr. observed the process as it unfolded and as a teen-aged boy his longing to spend time with his father transformed into a strong desire to be like his father.

Realizing that attending college would be necessary if he was to someday work alongside his father in business, Wayne, Jr. set his sights on higher education.  But college was still a few years away; high school, along with the fun that often accompanied it, occupied his time.

One particular high school date would prove to be significant in Wayne, Jr.’s life, even though that significance would not be immediately obvious to him.  Wayne, Jr. had a friend whom was dating a fifteen-year-old-girl from a neighboring high school, Fonda Michelle Hix.  The friend asked Wayne, Jr. to accompany him and Fonda, and Fonda’s girlfriend, on a blind date.  Wayne, Jr. agreed.

“We spent the day water skiing behind our 13-foot Whaler and had a fabulous time,” Wayne, Jr. recalled.  “That night we all decided to go roller skating and my mother drove me to the roller skating rink.  Much to my surprise I had no date.”

“I flat out told my girlfriend who was supposed to be along with us at the roller rink, in no uncertain terms, that she would not be going with us that evening,” Fonda said, taking up the story.

Of course, Fonda made certain that her date [Wayne, Jr.’s friend], did not show up as well.  “That was pretty shameful, too,” Fonda confessed.  “I just dumped him.”

Wayne, Jr. didn’t know it at the time but this roller skating date with Fonda Michelle Hix would eventually change his life in a major way.

“We had your typical South Florida, teenage kid romance,” Fonda explained.

Fonda was completely unaware of Wayne, Jr.’s family background or what his father’s business success, a lack of awareness that was simultaneously charming and frustrating to her summer love.  “She never believed our family had a yacht or flew on a private jet to go fishing in Mexico,” Wayne, Jr. said.

“Dad has this or dad has that down in Fort Lauderdale,” Fonda remembered Wayne, Jr. telling her.  “My standard response was, yeah right.”

Wayne and Fonda’s summer romance turned out to be just that.

“For some reason the phone calls kind of tapered off,” Fonda recalled.  “I began to realize that it was a summer fling.”

“I was a young man and I was looking for a bad girl, and Fonda was a good girl,” Wayne, Jr. admitted.  “So I said goodbye to her but we kept in touch over the years.  Her mother worked in the principal’s office at my school.  She kept tabs on me since I visited the principal’s office numerous times throughout my high school career.

It would be 13 years before Wayne and Fonda were truly together again.

© 2012 Philip Kassel