Chapter 9

After my tour in Doha, I came back to the states and lived in mom and dads house that they bought in Tucson. They had been renting it out and the renters had left recently. I agreed to stay and look after the place. During this time, I got work at a plumbing supply company called Winnelson. I was a truck driver / delivery guy. It was good work but I was becoming tired of warehousing duties.
One day during a delivery run. I happened to come across ITT Technical Institute. They offered electronic training in several areas, and Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) was one of the courses. I had also seen their commercials on TV.
The next day, I went in to see the place. Before to long, I had signed up for the course in CAD. The school offered a 2 year Associates degree in one year at the cost of $10,000 dollars. I got the school loan and started. I stayed at Winnelson working the day shift and went to school at night.
It was pretty cool. I started by learning the basics of drafting and doing hand drafting on the board. We moved up to learning how to design printed circuit boards, theory, design, Etc. By the time I had gotten to the 4th quarter of school, I found a job at Southwest Circuits making P.C. boards. Now I was getting somewhere. It was 1986 and I was 26.
I worked my way through every phase of P.C. board manufacturing and soon I was approached about starting a design room in house for the company. This meant more money so I jumped on the idea. $8.00 an hour wasn’t to bad for Tucson. I was glad I had free rent at mom and dads house.
It was during this time that my life changed for the better.



















Tanya when I first met her in school

There I was minding my own business in school. During class breaks, I would get a soda and walk the halls or stand outside and talk with friends. There was on group of girls that took these opportunities to walk around the school building for exercise.
One girl that would joke around with the guys was Donna. She and I would talk a during breaks. She had a friend that I personally thought had to be stuck up and looked to have money because of the way she dressed. Always classy. Somehow, this girl, Donna, and I started talking more and more during breaks. This other girls name I found out was Tanya…Debbie…Tanya…Debbie…something. I found out that she was recently divorced or separated and was going through the process of having her name changed from Debbie to Tanya. She always hated the name Debbie. Her mom named her that even though her Grandmother had wanted Tanya. So…
One day, Tanya…Debbie…Tanya and I were talking when she asked if I would like to get a drink sometime. That was good for me. We met at the Circle K up on Orange Grove and ended up going out to the Black Angus for dinner, drinks, and a movie. She showed up in a skirt, belt and a black satin top that was…OOOOHHHHHH BABY!. I of course was dressed as always in my classy jeans and a plain shirt…I was out classed. She was beautiful. I don’t mean to brag, but during my time I’ve known some pretty girls, but this woman was Gorgeous.
Anyway, to say the least, I had a great time…I don’t know about her. Was I suave? Debonair? Handsome? A stooge? She talked to me the next week at school so I guess I did ok. In fact, I did so good that we started dating. I was 27 and actually dating.
I was just about to graduate school. Tanya was one quarter behind me in a different class. After I graduated, we would see each other after work and school every night.
She lived on the South East side of town in a house with her two boys J.P. and Grant. J.P. is short for Justin Peter.














Grant-left, and J.P.-right, when I met them

We won’t get into specifics about their dad Ray except that Tanya and Him were divorced. As a side note, throughout the years, Ray, Tanya, and I have gotten along very well and in fact Ray has gotten married again and has a daughter named Grace that Morgan likes to think of as her sister. They visit quite a lot and we all have a good time.
Anyhow…Tanya’s graduation finally came and we celebrated. Now what? There wasn’t anything holding either of us in Tucson. Tanya wanted to sell the house and see other places. Mom was back in town and looking for another renter so that left me free to go. We discussed and hem hawed around and decided that we would go to Reno Nevada. Why? I don’t know…it was there.



















Tanya and I at her graduation

By the way, this was a big step for both of us. We hadn’t known each other for more than 6 month’s and we were going to move to Nevada together with her boys. We didn’t have jobs or a place to stay either. We just planned on getting an apartment when we got there and then look for a job.
It took nine weeks before a got a job. It wasn’t a big job either. I had sent out hundreds of resumes around the area. Finally a company called and wanted me to help design an annunciator panel for a casino in town. It was easy enough and it paid a lump sum at the end of the project. While I was working on it, the owner happened to come by to see how I was doing. He was impressed at the work and offered me a full time job for more money as a CAD Drafter. Of course I took it.
I was at the company for a month or two when the word went out that they were looking for another drafter. I immediately told them about Tanya and she was also hired on. Things were looking up. It was while we were in our apartment that we started up “Dumpster Diving”.
Dumpster diving is just that. You go around to different apartment complexes or industrial complexes, find a dumpster that looks inviting, make sure there is no people around to see you (embarrass you), take a strategic stance, run over, climb up, and jump in…IF its not to full of regular garbage gross stuff. You would be very surprised at what people in apartments throw out. Think about it. When you have to move for whatever reason, you have to move. People in apartments seem to have disposable property like beds, couches, toys, clothes, Etc. For whatever reason, the easy thing to do when you’re in a rush is to make use of the readily accessible big dumpsters that the apartment complex provides. We furnished our first apartment with Dumpster dive goodies. We would find chairs, kitchen tables, sofas, bed frames, dishes, and once we even found clothes with the price tags still on them. What you couldn’t use, you could garage sale and make money. We were living the high life for sure.
Grant and J.P. did the daycare at this time. Grant was different from the day I met him. The one big thing he did was when he got mad, he of course would scream like little kids do, but he would also grunt and growl, push you away when you tried to get him…In fact he still acts like that…he’s just taller now. Tanya would have to grab him, sit down, and hold him down with her legs, arms and body while he wiggled around growling and grunting and tried getting away. What a pain in the butt! He always wanted his way. Tanya would be all calm and talk real soft while he did his thing. Soon he would give up and just lay there like a wet towel…all done.
J.P. liked to have dreams and sleep walk. He did this until…maybe he still does that? Anyway, he would come into our room and start talking (2:00am). He would talk about the dinosaur by the bed or the little men running around and then would get scared and start shaking. We would talk to him and ask him about what he saw and what he was doing, and basically laugh our butts off. Then we would get a real cold washcloth and put it on his face. Pretty soon he would stop talking. When he figured out that he was awake and in our room, he’d go back to bed.
Well, the job we had didn’t last long. One day the secretary came in at 15 minutes before closing time and told us that we were laid off. Thanks for the notice. We were out looking again in no time. This time Tanya landed the interview with a company called Bruce Industries just outside Carson City, which was about 50 miles away. When she went for her interview, I tagged along as the driver. When they called her in, I walked upstairs with her and started doing the small talk along the way to the boss. By the time we arrived at the conference room, they wanted to talk to both of us. We were hired that day. Tanya got more money an hour since she was the initial contact, which didn’t bother me at all. This was our first real good paying job at $14.00 an hour.
We started as hand drafters on the board doing a very large military contract called JSIPS.
This stood for Joint Services Imaging Processing Systems and consisted of 6 pieces of equipment. When we saw the scope and magnitude of the job, we instantly suggested using AutoCAD. Only a couple of people used it at the time but we insisted on getting more stations to speed up work. They agreed and Tanya and I were off and running. Unfortunately, all but one of the original engineers on the project quit within the next month. This left Ron Harvey, Tanya, and myself. Not a problem. We snagged some of the other draftsmen that weren’t busy, hired a few more, and got busy. Tanya was the head bean in engineering, Ron was the engineer, and I ran back and forth between manufacturing, and us. We did everything from designing each part, to painting the camo paint on the finished product. The whole project took us 3 years to complete.
During this time, we purchased our first house together. It was a nice place (kinda small) on the north side of town in a place called Stead.
Stead consisted of a few neighborhoods, a quick mart, a gas station, a school, and an industrial area. Our house was located on a circle in one of these neighborhoods. It had a large backyard with tiers on the back fence and was big enough for a garden area and dogs. The front yard was small but perfect. The house needed some fixing up but we got a good deal on the price and were eager to start doing some work on it.
I never really saw the neighbor to the left of us. They had weird hours. The people to the right looked like he was a mechanic of sorts and had vehicles everywhere. She was a schoolteacher and in fact ended up teaching the guys at one point in time. We slowly started to get to know each other and through the years, ended up being best friends.
One night while watching the news, A story came on about a rescue that had taken place. Washoe County Search and Rescue was the team that was doing the rescue. It looked interesting so the next day I called about information on it. After a few calls, I was put in touch with the main guy. He told me the requirements for joining. I went to several meetings and in few months, I was voted into the team.
When you were on the team, you were issued a pager and a radio. This meant being on call 24 hours a day. Most of the calls came in the early morning hours or late at night. It seems like I was running all the time. The team averaged approximately 30 rescues or searches a month.
After a year or so on the team, I brought my vehicle in to the unit. To have a vehicle, it had to be 4-wheel drive and pass the teams inspection. You then had to pass a driving test and go on a few rescues as a driver to be evaluated. Once you passed, you had to paint your vehicle white if it wasn’t already. Then you received the emblems to put on the vehicle. Every one wanted to have a vehicle and be a driver. I had a Suzuki Samurai at the time and with my neighbor’s help (the mechanic) I had it lifted and ready to go. Everyone on the team would give me a hard time about it being a “Rice Rocket” or being a tipping hazard. They did until they saw what it could do. Because of the small wheelbase and power, it went a lot of places the big trucks and jeeps wouldn’t fit. While other people were breaking things on their jeeps, I went on my way.












My vehicle on the Rubicon Run in Nevada up by Tahoe and my badge



















Soon, My neighbor (his name is Gene by the way) joined the team. We were attached at the hip. Since we lived next door to each other, we always went on searches together. He drove a CJ7 that blew everyone out of the water…it was huge and went everywhere.
OK, glad you asked...rescue stories...hmmm.
In general, most of the calls were for missing hikers up in the mountains or retrieving "Popsicles" during snow season. By the way, when we would find a "victim" or deceased person, we would call command post and tell them that we had come across a Badger. This way if the family was near, they didn't know that we meant "the deceased guy". Popsicle was the same but it refered to the "frozen" dead guy.
We were called out for an extrication one day up at Tahoe at a plane crash. A pilot from California had gone missing 3 days previous when someone from the lake had called in to report a possible crash. I was volunteered to go in and secure the scene. The trip up entailed the use of the 4 wheel drives, switching to quads, and then a 2 mile hike in. The terrain was 50 degree pluss by the time I reached the site. It was a small single engine Cesna that hit straight on and did the accordian routine. I reached the site around 5:00 so I camped out that night. Because of the dense forest and bad angle, I did a cold camp and ate M.R.E's. I dug out a hollow at the high side of a tree and and rolled out the bed using the tree to keep me from rolling of the cliff down below. Between you, me, the 2 wolves and baby bear cub, I didn't sleep to much.
The next day the rest of the team came up...probably 20 guys. The rest of the day was spent unfolding the plane and doing the extrication. Not a fun job.
We were once called out in the middle of the night to search for "mysterious lights" that people had seen over the mountains to the South of town. Most of the department figured it was drug runners in the hills. The team joined up during the search about an hour in and were closing in on the "lights". As we came to the ridge of a hill, we were met by military, fully armed, and ready to kick some rescue be-hind if neccesary. After much ta-doo, we were told to leave the area under escort. DANGIT!...another couple hundred yards and we would have been able to see what we had been chasing. No mention of "lights" in the next days paper either although it was seen by tons of people.
We had one helicopter crash that we had to go back into because the Coroner found that after the initial findings in the lab, the pilots drivers license said he weighed 182 and we had brought out only 150lbs of body...oops.
One year, during a large forst fire, we had been out for 3 days straight doing rescues, evacuations, searches, Etc. We were tired, beat up, just draggin' butt, and a reporter comes up on the street and asks me why we volunteer to do this type of thing and not get paid for it. OK...maybe I was tired but it was a stupid question in my eyes. I told her that I was the highest paid person there that night. I explain, When you bring somebody in after missing in the fire area (especially kids) or any search and rescue mission for that matter, and you see the families faces when you show up at comand post, the thanks and hugs you get from eveyone are worth more than money. You feel like your walkin' on air and that pumps you up to go out and do another 36 hours straight. I'd do it for free forever if I could.
Anyway, enough of that. Just a coincidence, my old neighbor (Gene) is coming in from Las Vegas soon for the 4th of July weekend so I need to finish this chapter up. Sorry this is short but until next time...

Chapter 8

My memory and time frames start giving out at this point in time. I do remember that I had called Suzie (from College) to see how she was doing. She was now working for an airline in Chico California in reservations for Pacific Express airlines.
Somehow she talked me into coming out to Chico and attending the airline school to become a reservations person also. It cost $5,000 and 3 months. I took the opportunity and headed out to Chico.
Chico is on the Northern half of California by the way. My Pontiac was a faithful piece of metal until the last 100 miles of the trip…it’s all uphill. The clutch was going out and the blown head gasket was too much for it to stand. I pulled into the airline school parking lot and it gave up the ghost. As a side note…it stayed there 4 years after I had left in the same spot until some one finally called it in as abandoned. They’re quick in Chico. Anyway, I had to borrow her bicycle to get back and forth to school. After 3 month’s of school, I passed with flying colors. School was pretty intense so I didn’t get a job while in school. I was slowly running out of money. Can you tell that things had been on a downward spiral since the Air force?
After graduating, everyone goes into reservations to start their “career”. After a few years in this position, you can move up to ticket counter agent and work at the local airport in Chico. Actually it was more of an airstrip than airport…it was small. That year however, the company was short agents. They picked 4 people out of our class to be ticket agents. Why they picked the new people I don’t know. I know it made a lot of people mad. This position meant more money and prestige and I was one of the people picked. I thought…cool!, more money, and I’m right by the airport…OK! Unfortunately, it wasn’t this airport I would be working at.
Los Angeles International Airport was the choice. The airline had gotten set up there right across the isle from Pan Am. Of course this meant moving to L.A. And we had to pay our own expenses. Remember now, I have little to no money and no car for transportation. Just when things are looking up…
A friend of mine drove me down to L.A. I had enough money to stay a couple of nights in a hotel just off the main drag by the airport. Payday was just around the corner in 2 weeks and I figured I would get something before to long so I wasn’t worried about it.
Two weeks is a long time. Have you ever been on standby or delayed in an airport? You know the chairs in the waiting areas at the gates? Not the plastic ones…the cushy ones with the coffee stains…yep, those. If you pick the ones in the corner with the armrests that fold up, they make a pretty good bed. Who would know…lots of people in LAX sleep in chairs at all hours of the day. I blended in great. I also lucked out when I found that one of the main janitor closets was no more than 20 feet from the counter. This baby had it all. It had hooks for hanging things and it had a shower basin for ringing out mops and a hand held showerhead. Heaven I tell you…heaven. It was so good that I never bothered getting an apartment…not that I could afford one or get back and forth to work.
I would still be living in hog heaven today if the company had filed bankruptcy 3 months after I started. One day you’re living high…the next morning, you’re on the streets of LA.
This was in ’82 / ‘83 I think…don’t ask. I took a bus home and I don’t remember chain of events. At some point, I went to a town of Goodyear where my folks had gone after completing their tour in Venezuela. They were working as apartment managers there.
I went and stayed there with them and helped out and also took a job in a circle k store on the corner up the street. I did the 3:00p to 11:00p shift. This left me all day to run and work out. I had started to run in Israel and the service and kept it going. I ran 5 miles a day and lifted weight at the local gym. I didn’t have any friends to speak of. I knew one gal who worked as a dancer who came in the store a lot and that was it.
We were here until dad again answered an ad and found himself and me in Tucson at a company called Exportran. They were hiring for a project in Doha Qatar…the Persian Gulf area. Mom stayed in Goodyear until dad sent for her.
Ah yes…Doha. Land of desert. This place was flat, flat, flat. It was however, close to the ocean…the Persian Gulf to be exact.
Once again, dad was there first for some reason and I came next. Where to begin…I packed, I flew; I landed…no problem. I walked in the terminal doors and up to the “Work Visa” counter…problem.
After looking at my visa certificates and documents, the nice Arabic guy behind the counter said…”You no old enough to do job”. Got that? “You no big”. OK, I’m game, what did he say? Long story short, My visa said that I was to be the Purchase Administrator for the Emir. My age listed was 24 (hey, this must have been in 1984). In his mind I guess a 24-year-old can’t do this job. Sure, that makes perfect sense.
I was then shuffled into a small room with a military guard. Third world countries like military guards by the way. For 4 hours, I sat in this room. While sitting there I noticed a door with a small window on the opposite wall. This door looked out into the parking lot of the airport. While I was looking out of it, lo and behold, my dad walks by on the sidewalk. He’s been walking around looking for me. After saying our howdy do’s, he talks to the project manager who in turn talks to the main guys assistant who in turns calls someone on his phone. 10 minutes later, the guard picks up the phone, sweats a little, gets the sergeant who picks up the phone, sweats a lot, says a lot, whines a lot, and then yells at me and tells me to get out.
I guess this Emir guy carries a lot of weight in his country. He was the one on the other end of the phone. His full name by the way was Sheik Nassar Bin-Ackmed Bin-Ali Al-Thani.
Well, I finally get out and into the real world and into the heat. The average temperature in this area is 120 degrees and the horizon and sky had that familiar gray line dividing them. Although Israel had its flat spots, it was nothing like this place. There were no mountains, hills, valleys, or color.
The trip to the compound was a short 20-minute drive. It was located approximately 10 miles outside the town of Doha on the South side. During the drive, it seemed as though every car we passed including taxis, were Mercedes, with gold trim. The intersections were made from “round-a-bouts” instead of standard square intersections with lights. People here drove crazy. On a two-lane road, you have a center solid stripe that is supposed to denote two different lanes…two sides of the road. In Doha, the center stripe was used to drive the car directly down the center of the road. It was like a yellow magnet that sucked the vehicle directly over it when you drove. When on-coming traffic cam, you veered over to your side again to avoid hitting head on. Don’t get me started on the round-abouts.
After 20 minutes of “Death Race”, we arrived. The compound sat off the main road about 50 yards. It was made up of five small trailers. Each trailer had two 10’ x 10’ rooms at each end and a bathroom in between. When you opened the door, you could go left, right, or straight to the bathroom. These converted job site trailers were again called “Hooches”. The trailers were put into a horseshoe configuration and vehicles were parked in the middle.
We were part of a larger compound as well. The entire compound was as large as a football field. The rest of the compound was designated for Philippine contractor and employees…Eresca was the contractor’s name. We were the only 10 Americans on the compound and on the site out of over 300 Philippine workers. We were the brains; they were the brawn…we were out numbered. I settled in and made myself at home. The room came with a twin bed, dresser, small refrigerator, and an air conditioner. There were several small holes in the floor that looked like someone had taken a hammer to it with the claw portion and hacked away. I would have to plug those sometime I guessed. Dad introduced me to the rest of the guys including Dave who threw me a beer. I was pretty sure this was a “dry” country and alcohol was not permitted. It was explained that since there was British companies here, you could go to the cable and wireless and spend up to $400 dollars a month on booze. Dave spent every dime obviously. It was getting late and tomorrow was Friday so I hit the sack early. Work started at 4:00am.
The project consisted of 300 villas that Al-Thani’s Air force families would live in. They spared no expense. You would be hard pressed to find as nice of a home stateside. There were 4 different models and each one had the best of everything including gold plated faucets, marble floors, Jacuzzi tubes, and sound systems.















The project. The warehouse is shown in the lower left with the yard around it. The well and pumping station are in the upper right.
Dad was the engineer on the project over plumbing / pipefitting. Eresca had started early on the project before dad arrived and had screwed things up. When dad asked to see the test results of the underground main water lines, they didn't’ have any results. That’s because they didn’t do any tests before they covered up and paved the streets on phase 1. Wait…It gets better.
There was no water on site. All water for construction purposes had been coming in on water trucks. Here is the deal. The plans called for a well to be dug and a pumping station to be installed…pretty elaborate stuff. You see there was no such thing as pressurized water systems in this country. Even the projects that the British companies were working on, all used gravity feed systems. All water was on shipped on trucks and in turn was poured into big holding tanks, which were mounted on rooftops. When you turned a faucet handle, it came out through gravity flow only. Unfortunately, Eresca’s project engineer didn’t know any better either and so he proceeded to build per his known standard and not per print. Gravity feed doesn’t have too much pressure so the piping can be substandard. Clamps? We don’t need no stinking clamps.
When dad showed them the plans for the new well and fire protection (fire hydrants in the street), disbelief abounded and rumors of Voodoo circulated. This was unheard of. I suppose this would be a rather big step for the locals and a little unbelievable…who knew. 3 months later, The well, pumping station, and other equipment were finally completed. Dad had run the station through its tests and it held a nice 300 pounds per square inch just like it should. Phase 2 paving had also been completed. After much discussion, yelling, and finger pointing, dad christened the station and put the water to the project. Our little group was happy when the water started pumping and the pressure started building and filling the main lines. Things were starting to look up and it looked like we were going to have water on site and in a few homes.
We got water all right. When the pressure filled the main to ¾ capacity, we had lots of water. It wasn’t controlled but it was water all the same. You should have seen the looks on Eresca’s faces when the streets in phase 1 and phase 2 blew up. Dad warned them and showed them how to install and test but to no avail…OOPS. It worked out ok because to tell the truth, the streets were not all that good to begin with. They looked more like roller coaster trails than flat streets…but that’s another story. My guys loved the geysers of water shooting skyward and were running around like kids in a sprinkler.













Did I mention my guys? My guys consisted of (from left to right) Me on the far upper right, 1 Philippine labor (Talin) 1 Philippine foreman (Armando), 1 Pakistani labor (Mannan), 1 India labor (Pog),
1 India labor (Luntz), 1 India labor (Zubair), 1 Philippine labor (Roger). Badsha is not shown
We all worked over in the warehouse and yard, which was off to the West of the project. This is where I spent 2 years working away in 120-degree weather, 6 days a week, 16 hours a day. Fortunately, being close to the gulf, it was more of a humid heat than dry heat, and the ground was covered with a fine white silt that clung to you after 5 minutes in the heat so you always looked albino. I call it “Poof dirt” because it went “poof” and sent up a cloud of smoke when you walk in it.
We American white boys always wore shorts and muscle shirts to help keep cool so we were against the norm once again. Everyone else wore pants, work shirts, or traditional garb and headdress. I don’t understand how they lived like that.
My best employee was Mannan, a 17-year-old Pakistani kid. Mannan lived in the lower part of town with 15 other guys. No, they weren’t “hinkey” or anything…they just had to share a place in order to afford the rent. When Mannan told me about the place, I naturally thought that it would be of a good size and kind of look like an apartment back home. It’s natural…come on. One day he mentioned that his place had no “Condition” and it was pretty hot inside. I figured out the “condition” word as being an air conditioner. The warehouse happened to have several small window a/c units that had been bent or damaged in route and I could not put them in a new house like that. I told Mannan that a friend and I would bring a unit over to his place and plug it in for him. You would have thought I was a God. Man was he happy.



















This is the first of many doorways, twists, and alleyways we took to get to Mannans "House"

Upon arriving at the building complex / slum / shanty Ville / dump, Mannan led us through several narrow alleys about 3 foot wide and entirely covered with bright cloths, scarves, sheets, and turban wraps. On each side were hand made room like adobe structures with openings cut in the walls for doors. There were no doors but carpets and rugs hung in their place.
We finally came to a small opening, which Mannan said was his place. Inside, we found a 10ft x 10ft dirt room complete with corrugated metal roof and dirt floor, and 15 men crammed inside. Ah, home at last. Needless to say, it was very hot (what with the roof and all) and it smelled.
We were shuffled inside with our “condition” while several other men shuffled outside to make room. A new hole had been carved out of the alley sidewall and an extension cord hung inside. The other end lead down an alley, around a corner, down another alley, and into oblivion. We had attracted quite the crowd now, which was gathering and growing outside the room. Someone had even pulled back a section of the roof covering to get a good look at what was going on inside.
My friend and I cut a bit more from the hole and eased the a/c into its place. A sturdy 2 x 4 was propped underneath to secure it from falling…I’m being sarcastic here. I instructed Mannan on how to operate the unit. He was now the controller of the “condition”.
I asked if the cord was plugged in…it was. I turned it on and it sprang to life. It made its familiar sound of the compressor kicking on and the fan turning. Familiar to me anyway. When it kicked on, so many people gasped all at once that I swear it sucked all the air out of the room and two more rooms next to it. The kid on the roof fell off because he lurched back so quickly. The men that took up so much space in the small room stood back in such amazement that they all fit into the opposite corner with lots of room to spare. All we could see was white eyeballs and open mouths. After the initial surprise wore off though, people started filing in one at a time to feel the cold air. You would have thought we were God’s. Alpha Shukran means “One thousand thank you’s” in Arabic. How do I know?…We heard it over and over and over for the next half-hour.
We were then asked to stay and celebrate the victory and cold air by staying for dinner and a party in honor of the ”condition”. We agreed. The details and things that took place at that party will remain a secret. I could go into details but I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't do it justice...you had to be there. Indiana Jones has nothing on me. I will say that the whole “Shanty Ville” turned out in full garb.
Mannan taught me a lesson on customs while I was in Doha too. He had gone to the dentist to have a tooth pulled. The next day, he came to work as usual ready to work. I met everyone else at the door but Mannan would not come in. In fact he wouldn’t even look at me when I called him. I kind of blew it off and got everyone else lined out for the day. I told Badsha to get with Mannan and show him what to do.
This worked out pretty good and things were moving along. At lunch, I came over to eat with the guys and Mannan literally ran off into the warehouse. Ok…enough is enough. I ask Badsha what was going on. He informed me that Mannan’s tooth had been pulled and was not hurting until he came to work and saw me. Supposedly, Because I was in charge of him during work, and I was wearing some gold jewelry showing wealth and power over him…this was bad. I guess I had made his poor demon mad.
So what was I supposed to do? Badsha called Mannan over. This took most of the lunch hour to do so and the guys had to physically drag Mannan over to me kicking and screaming and holding his mouth…kinda funny actually.
Badsha told me that I had to then take off my gold ring, hide it in my pocket, and then work up a good saliva, and spit on him. Say What?!!! No way I said. “It’s the only thing that will drive off the demon away” Badsha tells me. Well this was stupid but Mannan was rolling around like a dog who just got hit by a truck, so I spit a good one on him…right on the head. Instantly, Mannan gets up, says his “Alpha Shukran”, smiles, and sits down and eats lunch…pain gone…hello. Wouldn’t an Aspirin done just as good?
Anyway…as I said earlier, we started work a 4:00am and worked until around 8:00pm. We were afforded a 3 hour lunch most days which was nice. Until we got water on site, we would shoot down to the beach and dip our tootsies in the water and relax. We would watch the people walk by or just nap. I still couldn’t get over the fact that everyone was dressed in full clothing. It had to be hot. If one of the locals would want to jump in the water, he just left his little nighty on and dove in.



















Typical Arabic garb worn at all times…hot date?...nighty. Shopping?...nighty. Working at the office?...nighty. Swimming?...nighty.
The sun didn’t set until around 9:30 each night so after work, we would sit around the compound area on the steps of the Hooches and talk. Sometimes we would throw bits of food out into the center in the dirt and watch the rats come out from under the Hooches and eat. These things were as big as...rats. At one point, there got to be so many that we had to get rid of them. They were starting to chew on the underneath of the Hooches and coming up through the floors. Dad made us all blowguns out of copper pipe and we went to work. It turned out to be quite the entertainment. Getting rid of them after the kill was no problem either. The Eresca crews liked to cook them like kabobs…rat-kabobs.















Some of our prize kill. Not a very good picture though. That'sy dad on the left in the brown shirt. I'm in the middle in the other brown shirt.

We had separate eating quarters in the compound and Eresca’s cook also cooked for us. We were served after the others so we had a later lunch. After all there were 300 of them, 10 of us. When we did eat, we had a choice of succulent food and beverage…Chicken, grilled cheese, and warm water. The chicken was prepared by first slamming a plucked chicken carcass on the table and hacking it to pieces with a clever in small bite size chunks…bones and all. This pile was then scooped in a bucket and dumped into a vat of boiling grease to fry. It was then scooped out with a net and placed in a bowl. Finger food. If you preferred grilled cheese, that was available. This was two pieces of bread with cheese in the middle, which was also thrown into the same vat to fry, scooped out and then stuck on a piece of bailing wire which stuck out of the wall so it could drip dry for a few minutes. The grease pots were never changed…just re-filled when they started getting empty.
I figured that this was just part of the customs that I would have to get used to. That is until I saw what Eresca was eating. A solid door that locked separated the eating quarters. The kitchen had another entrance. One day the door didn’t shut to well and we all took a peek.
Salad bar, fish, meat, fruit, deserts a veritable smorgasbord of tasty treats. What’s with that? We got the feeling that Eresca didn’t like Americans to well. I ate there for a week. After that, dad and I made our way into town to the local Souk, or market place. Here one could get just about anything to eat. Dad and I ended up trying some of everything over time but had decided that the Schwarma was the best thing around for about 50 cents or 4 Riyal.
This little beauty started as a camel that was hung upside down on a pole structure in the butcher / deli shop. Its head was turned upward and tied back so it didn’t hit the ground and people would trip on it. You would go up and point to an area that you wanted to be cut. After wiping the flies and dirt off with his shirttail, the butcher would cut off a chunk and put it on a small spit to cook. After it was cooked, the meat was then sliced up and put into a pita bread with a mixture of salad, potatoe chunks, pickle slices, and topped with Tabasco sauce and Tahina. Two of these and a warm Coke would hit the spot, and if camel meat wasn’t your thing, you could opt for goat or monkey meat as well.
The Souk offered other services as well. You could go down and rest your feet in a smoke bar and have a big round of water bong with the boys and play cards or talk. You could have any type of writing or documents translated on the corner next to the Koran seller. You could buy Koran’s in different languages. Monkeys were a favorite and cages full of them lined the streets. Gold shops showed their wares in huge glass windows and doors. Carpets and rugs were laid out in the dirt streets and alleyways for people to view and drive on. The good quality rugs held up after a lot of this abuse. Colorful plastic bowls, cups, pots, and utensils hung under every awning so low that you had to push them aside when you walked on the sidewalks. There were also Tailors from India who could whip out a perfect suit for you in any color in an hour. Homeopathic cures, herbs, and healers were a big trade as well as acupuncture. To keep the kids entertained, (and us), the local hypnotist could be found playing to basket full of Cobra’s. My favorite handy item was the “Mecca Meter”. Only one vendor sold this. If you’ve seen a compass, you’ve seen a Mecca Meter. The only difference is that almost 100 numbers are imprinted on the face of the compass instead of North, South, East, and west. A booklet that comes with the compass has these numbers along with countries and capitol names printed inside. An example would be Qatar, Doha, would be number 32 in the booklet. You find this number on the compass face and turn the compass until the magnetic needle is over 32. You then look at the painted red arrow on the compass face to find which way Mecca is…Cool. This item would come in handy later on. These things went like hotcakes. Don’t Muslims know where Mecca is?














One of the many gold shops at the Souk. THe bangles on the left were $5 a pop...18k gold

Then there was the flat bed truck that would make its BI-weekly rounds picking up dead beggars from alley’s and doorways. Beggars would always hang out in front of shop doors begging for food and money. These were great locations since people were in and out all day. Unfortunately, the whole country was poor so not much money was to be spared by the locals. Most shops here depended on tourist or non-locals who would for some reason come down from the main stream area to walk around and shop. You had 3 classes of people here. The super rich (2%), who wouldn’t be caught dead in the Souk, the poor, which was 97%of the population, and the beggars (1%).
Another place we would go was the beach or a small island that was in international waters off the coast. I don’t remember the name of the island but a lot of British people went here on the weekends so they could “let their hair down”. You could also bring alcohol here without any problems.
The island was probably as big as a football field and had low shrubs and rocks on one edge. The rest was white sands and Brit. women with no tops on. I never looked myself but I hear it was rather astonishing to view. The Arabs would run their boats and ships out and tie off a few hundred feet off shore and scope them out with their binoculars.
We would go out and do a lot of snorkeling and messing around. There was an old shipwreck on the East shore that was fun to go to. One time, a friend of mine and I were out by his boat snorkeling. We were about 50 yards out when we noticed a fin going through the water. As we dove down in about 15 feet of water, we saw the rest of the fin…a 7-foot great white. It was small but it made us a bit nervous. My friend had a “Bang Stick” with him that he used to dislodge coral from the bottom. A bang stick is a pole with a 12-gauge shotgun shell in the end that you can shoot if you apply pressure to the end.
Anyway, We were making our way back to the boat when the shark decided to get a better look at us by swimming in between us a few times. After a few sweeps, my friend gets to nervous and puts the stick into the right eye of the shark. Unfortunately for me, when he did this, the shark reacted by spinning his head left and up into my side. I was not amused.
The shark was dead and started floating down to the bottom. I went topside screaming like a banshee at my friend asking him what he thought he was doing…I think it was appropriate don’t you? We made it to the boat, took a break, and assessed the situation. When you bleed in water, it always looks like more blood than there really is. Between the shark and I, you would have thought someone had butchered a steer in the water with all the blood. I got one good cut on my side and a bunch of little cuts on my arms and hands but that’s about it. My arm and ribs hurt like a sucker though.
After pulling one tooth from my side and duct taping it closed so I wouldn't bleed, we went back down and drug the shark back to the boat. Back at the compound, we snapped a few photos and let the Eresca guys have it so they could make shark steaks out of it. I took the head and boiled the teeth out and drilled holes in them so I could put them on a chain. I still have them somewhere. We never did see anymore shark or to much other marine life for that matter after that.
































Me and my buddy the shark

Only one other minor incident that happened…we Americans couldn’t have drivers licenses in Doha. Don’t ask me why. Unfortunately, we lived 5 miles from the job site. What are you going to do? We all drove our company trucks anyway without the emblems on the doors.
Well, one day in my second year there, a patrol car came in to the compound. I was delivering concrete bags to the site and was just returning to the warehouse when I was stopped. I was on the job site and no where near a public road by the way. The two police officers had me get out come with them…in cuffs, to their car. As we were driving out of the job site, my project manager was DRIVING BY IN A TRUCK by the way, so I stuck my hands out and waved goodbye to him. I’m glad he saw me.
3 days / 2 nights I relaxed in heavenly bliss in my new lavish accommodations which were made possible by the local police. I swear from the first day I arrived, these guys didn’t like me.
I shared my lovely dirt floor cell that had no toilet or water with 3 other gentlemen of Muslim faith who argued constantly about which direction Mecca was…remember I told you my meter would come in handy. You have to understand that Muslims must pray to Allah 5 times daily facing the proper direction. They all chose a wall and prayed then argued, over and over. I however sat in silence…on the wall, which faced east. Who knew?…heh, heh, heh.
After the third day, the “toilet corner” was getting a bit ripe. Without a good shovel blade, you just couldn’t put enough dust or dirt over anything. I guess that the Emir found out that the only guy that could purchase, get, and deliver his materials to his project, was sitting in jail doing nothing. Again the phone calls started coming in and yelling commenced. I was again yelled at…(this time understanding every word) and hastened out of the front door. Man did I have to pee. (Please reference “no toilet” in the cell)
Other than this, nothing much ever really happened here. Just standard boring living stuff. We were always too busy to have much time to mess around. I’ll throw in some photos in here so you can see some of the sights or things that went on. This way this Autobiography will look bigger than it really is.




















TGI had a sand yacht race team so we would go out and race ever so often. That's me taking it for a spin.

OK, till next chapter...ta ta

Chapter 7

Honest…I was minding my own business at a football game one night when she came up to me and introduced herself. She was cute and all and I had seen her in my “Old Testament Survey” class. I also knew that she was going out with one of my friends. She was persistent though. I was meek and shy. Poor, poor me…ok, whatever. We started seeing each other though out the year and had a pretty good relationship going. This was my first real girlfriend after all. DETAILS NOT AVAILABLE THROUGH LOCAL CHANNELS…THIS IS PAY-PER-VIEW TYPE STUFF ONLY.
Suzy was a farm girl from Idaho. Her folks owned a lot of acreage and farmed; what else; potatoes. She planned on staying at college for a couple of years and then going back to the farm to help out with the place. That was ok I guess. I planned on doing one year and then wanted to get out and see more places.
Christmas came and I flew back home for vacation. Like I said earlier, mom and dad didn’t recognize me at the airport. I waved and waved but they just kept looking for me. Mom about dropped over dead when she saw me. Needless to say, I got lots of clothes that year for presents.
After vacation, I planned on driving my car back to Houston so I could get around better. I had been bumming rides with the guys all this time back and forth to work and wanted to start doing my own thing. I had a Monza 2 + 2 which I had left parked at the house and which was now buried in 4 foot of snow. When break was over, I shoveled off the snow, packed it up, waved so long, and headed out. Now I was going in style.
The rest of the school year was standard stuff…nothing special. School was coming to an end, I was now nineteen, I had a girlfriend, and life was good. Then Suzy and I broke up. What could I do? I felt used…I felt cheap. She must have used me for my stunning personality and passionate kisses. Am I not a man? Am I not human? I am not an animal!. Acyually, I don't remember why we broke up.
It didn’t take long to regain my composure. What was I doing anyway? It would be good to get back home. It was then that I promised myself that I wouldn’t even consider getting mushy or gooey after a girl until I was at least 30 years old. (Twighlight Zone music goes here) keep reading and you will find out why. It was 1979.
In 1980, dad was running his plumbing shop out in Hermosa. I had been working for him since I had come back from college. The company was doing fairly well and we had several employees working full time. Dad would always read the morning paper at the coffee shop and would peruse the want ads and employment sections for fun.
Several times he would find ads stating that they could secure you a job overseas working in exotic places like Egypt or the Caribbean. Once you called however, the voice on the other end always wanted you to send money to “get you on the list” Blaa blaa blaa.
One day however, he called on an ad and talked to a company who was doing work on some airbases in Israel. After several call backs and an interview, he had accepted a position as a mechanical engineer. Needless to say, we had to close the shop down. Two weeks later, he was on his way.
The contract was “single status” but he could bring family over if he paid for the trip a place for the family members to live. As it was, he had free food and lodging for himself on the airbase. After several weeks and a lot of paperwork and Visa processing, dad had mom and I come over to live during his contract. Why me?…glad you asked.
At the time, I was working for dad of course and had planned to go back to Taco Johns or River rafting when dad left. After talking with him though, we decided that perhaps it would be a good idea if I tagged along and stayed with mom. This way she would not be alone in an apartment in a new country. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity so, after packing up the house and our belongings, off we went.
We arrived in Israel in June. It was hot, it was muggy, it was sandy, and the sky was the same color as the sand with a thin gray line to separate the horizon. The plane taxied to the end of the runway and was met by a bus. We walked down the flight of portable stairs and into a line of people in front of us. Here we were separated in to male and female and one by one, our bags were taken, emptied out on the pavement, and rummaged through by armed military. Man was it hot. After they rummaged, you picked it back up and stuffed it back in your bag, backpack, or purse. This little episode lasted for approximately an hour…it was getting hotter. The guy in front of me had on a big scarf type hat thingy hangy down cotton wrap on his head that would flip up and smack me in the face every so often when a gust of hot air would come up. It became my little sweat wiper friend. He never knew…heh heh heh.
Once inside, we shuffled down to the baggage area. The same good ol’ boy treatment was given here. We finally made our way to the exit doors and found dad waiting for us outside with his new foreman Elias.














Dad’s foreman…Elias

We loaded into his car and headed out. We had landed at the Tel-Aviv airport and now had to travel south to the Negev Desert airbase. I don’t remember too much of the trip since we were pretty tired but I remember that the town was a pretty good size. We passed through several smaller towns and camel caravans along the way also.
The landscape in this area was pretty barren and sandy. In the distance however, you could plainly see the rough mountain terrain, which rose up sharply. You could tell that these things would be pretty rough climb.
A couple of hours later we arrived at the main gates to the base. When I say main gate, what I mean is a double chain link gate with razor wire on top, a small guard shack, twenty military police, a tank, and more weapons than you could shake a stick at.
We stopped at the gate and let the guards on so they could check the bus. One of the guards ran to the back of the bus, grabbed a small box which was up in the luggage area, and ran back out with a woman yelling after him. Once off the bus, he ran a little ways, threw the box, and put sixty or so rounds of fully automatic shells through it. It was officially dead now I guessed…poor box. I assume that he must have thought it was a bomb or something. We then proceeded. Actually, later that month, they did find a box on the bus that blew up in the field when they shot it. Makes you wonder.
Dad’s “Hooch” was pretty small. It was a converted job site trailer basically. It was eight feet wide and twenty feet long and was attached to similar “Hooches” like a train. These sat in an area off the main building which was the commissary or eating area. Other buildings dotted the area, which was roughly the size of half a football field. There was a generator room, a small nurse’s station, and even a small…I mean small, store where you could buy milk or soda and of course the biggest item…any type of booze you wanted. In the distance you could see the actual project site with its cranes and construction vehicles running around.
Once on base, you were allowed to roam around the grounds. The grounds was desert as far as the eye could see except for the distance mountains. The base had some hills and mounds so it wasn’t too bad. During the next few days, I walked around quite a bit just looking around in hopes of finding some ancient relic or trinket. What dad or anyone failed to tell me at this point was that this area had once been the site of one of many battles between Israel and whoever. The area was covered with old landmines and unexploded bombs. Dad would even dig these up now and then during his workday and have to have them carted off to be detonated. Very funny.
Mornings on base were fun. The base had already been partially built and was operational to an extent by the time dad or we had arrived. At 4:00, an alarm siren would sound, and 3 seconds later…no kidding…a sortie of F15 jets would come straight out of the ground in the distance, go vertical and disappear in a matter of seconds.
By the time we had gotten dressed and over to the commissary…around 5:00…the pilots of these F15’s would be coming in to the room to also eat breakfast. They spoke pretty good English and would tell us about the mornings flight and how they made these guys out at the border run like ants as they came in and took target practice on their vehicles…then they would laugh and laugh. Good times.
After breakfast, we would go to the hooch just in time to see the maid that cleaned the room for us. Her name was Shuli and she’s the gal that started teaching me Hebrew. It took her about an hour to do her thing in the hooch and during that time she would test me on words and phrases. She spoke English ok but would not use it. After 2 weeks I was getting pretty good at the basics.















Shuli and I outside the “Hooch” on base

During the day while dad worked mom and I drove 50 miles North to town called Beersheva. It was a small town and boasted having one of “Jacobs’s wells”. The town had not changed in 2000 years and was still used as a major Bedouin trade route stop. On Wednesdays, you could go to the South end of town and go to the Bedouin market and purchase everything from camel rugs, dish soap, fruits and nuts, monkey’s to Hashish for smokin’.
The main entrance had the best beggar / actor in town. If you got there early enough, you could watch as this billion year old looking guy walks in and gets set up. He would find his corner by the path and roll out his dirty mat. Then he would take out a dirty towel or sheet, lay down, make a pillow out of straw, cover up to his neck, stick one bony hand out, start shaking, and start moaning…let the festivities begin.
Tourists who didn’t know better, would of course take pity on this poor old feeble geezer and give him money. He would always have an empty hand until a coin fell in it. Then as quick as a wink, he would slip his hand underneath the sheet, into a coin bag, and back out it would come for the next coin. At the end of the day, the act would stop, he’d get up real quick, roll things up and almost skip down the street…he was good. The next page has pictures of some typical Bedouin people at the market.

















































Well, mom and I ended up getting an apartment in Beersheva about a mile from the market. 8 Sokolov was the address or shomonie Sokolov. It was a nice 2-bedroom place with marble floors and columns on the second floor above an acupuncturist. It had a nice balcony with a nice view of the parking lot and Dumpster. The back windows overlooked a small courtyard and the back windows of other apartments in the complex. Everything in this place was tile or marble now that I think about it. The beds were nothing more than a fold down piece of wood on a wall with a mat placed on top. The bathroom was small but the shower was huge…like a converted walk in closet. The bathroom also had a bidet. Mom made a planter out of it. It sure was easy to water the plant.
There was a small market down on the corner where we would buy our foodstuff. We could get everything we needed except for milk. The milk eluded me for a month. I had cereal in the house but no milk. I needed milk…show me the milk. One day during our market trip, I decided to get an ice cream if they had some. I looked around the store and found one of those horizontal solid lid freezers with ice cream pictures stuck to the top. Ah Ha!!…Ice cream. I opened the lid and sitting on the right was the ice cream. On the left however were several bags of unmarked white liquid. The sign above however was marked as “MILK”. The sweet nectar had been found! I think I actually screamed like a schoolgirl. The word milk had a picture of a goat below it but what the heck huh.
Mom and I made our way around town and eventually got to riding the local bus. Ah yes…the local bus. 10 Shekels will get you where you wanna go. 50 Sheckel would get you to Jerusalem. We did the local area quite a bit and we went to Jerusalem only when dad could go on the weekends. We drove the car though.
I soon started making a few friends over at the Canadian compound, which was a couple of miles away. Mom and dad could never understand why anyone would want to travel all the way to another country so they could live with people of their own nationality again. Anyway, I made friends with some kids who knew kids who knew kids. One of the kids (Vern) introduced me to an Israeli kid named Shimon. He became my best friend. His family would invite me over quite a bit for dinner or just messing around. I kept learning the language and became better at it. When you live in the country and no one speaks English, it’s easier to learn his or her language…you have to in order to get around.
Shimon, his sister Rohama, and I spent our days in the city of Jerusalem. They had a lot of friends there and we would grab the bus to and from almost everyday. They would pass the tourist trap areas and take me deep inside the old city where the locals lived. Old Jerusalem hasn’t changed since whenever, and the deeper you go, the older it gets.









































This is Rohama and Shimon.

















My aunt Anna Mae and I with our fresh bagels…huge

They showed me around a lot of interesting areas to. This is the first place that I went to a movie and had to read the sub titles at the bottom of a screen. I was introduced to the local cuisine, drinks, and entertainment as well. The funnest times are when we would start at Jaffa gate, climb to the top of the wall, and walk the entire perimeter of the city. There are 7 gates so we had to go down at these areas but it was fun. Jaffa gate had the best bagels in town. Check the picture of the standard sizes you could get. They aren’t your basic lenders bagels pal. 1 Shekel per bagel and they also gave you a black and red spice rolled up in a small newspaper to sprinkle on top when you eat em.
On our way home, we would sometimes stop off in Nazareth to mess around or take a detour over to Bethlehem.
During the 50 mile trip back to Beersheva, The system is set up that if a soldier sits next to you on the bus, it is the persons duty to take that soldiers gear such as rifle, grenade belt, pack, Etc., and hold it for him, or at least store it under your seat so they could nap on the way. Shimon liked American goodies and I in turn liked Israeli goodies. When a soldier would sit next to Shimon, he would snag the insignias from the soldier’s hat or shirt and give them to me. I would get insignias from home for him later on. Ah yes…we were dorks.
Anyway…the weeks went by and my aunt Anna Mae came over for a visit. She was pretty fun to mess around with. We took her all over the place and also headed up North to stay at a Kibbutz by the Sea of Galilee. A Kibbutz is like a small hotel that does farming as well. You can sign up for a free stay if you go and work in the fields for awhile to earn your keep. We stayed a couple of days and had a good time.
















I got up early the first morning and walked out a ways by the dock and snapped this photo of the sea complete with fishing boat.

The Northern half of Israel is totally different than the South. The North is a more lush and tropical setting with banana trees and citrus groves everywhere. One area by the Dead Sea called En-Gedi even warns hikers to beware of Jaguars and hungry monkeys.
As you make your way mid way down, you come across a place called Masada. There is a movie about this place that is more interesting than I can tell so rent it. This is however where I found a coin from the Byzantine era at the base area of Masada. When on top of Masada, you can look over to the Dead Sea. This is supposed to be the lowest place on earth…13ft below sea level…something like that. After that, the place starts getting back to the desert terrain again.
I could go on and on about Israel but who cares. Go there yourself if you can or look at the pictures in my photo album. I will try to put some of the better ones in this paper.
OK. I was in Israel for close to 2 years. Unfortunately, before coming over, while working with dad, I had signed up for delayed enlistment in the Air Force. I was to be in boot camp, Lackland Air force base, San Antonio Texas July 10th. Did I forget this part?
This won’t take long. I signed up to be an air traffic controller. During this time, there was a need for controllers in America so I thought I would make my millions doing this.
I went through boot, and due to my position, I was required to take 4 more physicals than the other people during the course of boot and tech school. I was in 2 month’s and 15 days when I took the last of my physicals. On the last one, I was told that my left ear had missed a tone on that hearing test do-hickey and I had failed the exam…no problem, give me a different job…something good. They gave me grass cutting…GRASS CUTTING!!!!!!!4 years of grass cutting! Either that, or an honorable discharge with medical. I told them that I would take the honorable but not with a medical reason. This might hurt me in the end. The guy in charge told me that he would take care of it…and then I was out. That’s it…my military career.
Well, when I came home to Colorado, it was the middle of September. September is cold and snowy in Durango…at least it was that year.
Julie picked me up at the airport in Durango. I was kind of hoping to stay with her and her family for a little bit. Unfortunately, Jeff, her husband, had a big case of “something up his butt” and said I couldn’t stay. Julie and I talked him in to letting me stay one night though. The next day I ran around town with Julie looking for a car. I ended up buying a $1,500 Pontiac Astra station wagon for transportation after I borrowed the money from the folk’s long distance. (At this time, mom and dad had completed the Israel job and had moved right into another position in Venezuela).
For the next few months’, I lived in my car in the middle of winter, parked along the side streets in town during the nights and working a Taco John’s during the day. I worked a lot of shifts so I could stay indoors where it was warm too. During my spare time, I would run over to Julie’s house while Jeff was at work and take showers.















Me in Durango in 1981 after service

Chapter 6

Where was I?
Anyway, I was taking a ceramics class during my junior year in Mr. Cooper’s class. Mr. Cooper was cool and was a great potter. We did clay turning and goodies like that so it was a pretty easy class. During that time, he asked if I would like to work with him loading hay bails on his farm on the weekends. That sounded pretty cool so I accepted.
That weekend I showed up at his place. There were probably 10 other kids as well waiting to go. Mr. Cooper’s son was in my class so he knew the ropes around the place. We got the quick lesson and were shown to our machines. Basically, we had two groups of guys, four hay wagons and two tractors. The idea was to start in a field that already had the hay baled up lying in the field in rows, have one guy drive the tractor next to the bales, one guy walks along to make sure the bales line up in the chute, and the other three guys load the wagon.
This was pretty efficient and work went along quick. We only tipped a full wagon over once. Mr. Cooper was pretty impressed as well. There was a high turn over rate on kids since it was pretty physical work and we worked until dark. The entire project took 2 month’s.
After the hay was completed, Mr. Cooper asked if I wanted to work more for him doing something different. Summer was again coming and he had started up a river rafting company in town for the coming tourist season. A White Water Guide is what he wanted me to be. Cool again. $15 for a short trip (3 a day) $25 for half day trips (2 a day) or $60 for the full day. I was in. I worked this job for two years on weekends. We did a lot of trips and even took a “Guide Only” trip down the Dolores river. The river was going to be dammed up at the bottom and then part of the valley in that area was going to be flooded. We were to be the last river trip to go in. The trip lasted a week and went through some great scenic areas. There were places where we traveled through sandstone caves that the river had carved it’s way through which had tons of Indian writings all over the ceilings and caves, and places in the river that were so calm that you could see huge fish lying on the river bottom, and sites for camping everywhere. The only way to get to this place was by raft and now it was going to be flooded. We took most of the time we had and trained on river rescue and whitewater rescue, exploring, swimming, and just messing around.













Yep, That’s me and the Dolores River

When summer came around (my junior year was now over), I decided to go and get a job at the biggest resort on Durango.
Tamarron was located 15 miles North of Hermosa and ¼ mile from Purgatory ski resort. A few of my friends were going to be working there as maids and housemen. A houseman is the guy who goes around and stocks the maid’s carts and helps them out with any heavy lifting.
It was during this time that I met another guy named Wade. Wade and I became good friends and ended up driving up together to go to work and were put on the same team. It was good work and it kept us busy. The resort had normal rooms like any hotel but then it had suites and penthouses also. Don’t get me wrong here, even the normal rooms were top dollar if you wanted to stay. At that time, I think the rooms went for $115 a night and the penthouses went for $400 a night. All the big wigs and movie stars stayed here when they were in town. The cool thing about working here was when guests would leave; they would always leave things behind. Not just trash and junk but things like scratched up skis, full bottles of wine, clothes, etc. We always made good hauls with the penthouses.
I remember one day when Wade and I were over at the condo units cleaning. The condo units were separate from the main building and were rented for family condos. Wade and I came to one of the units and knocked like we were supposed to. You have to knock in case the guest is still there of course.
The guy inside said come in so we did. Now I don’t know about other people but if I’m in close quarters with another person I don’t know, I try to make a little small talk between us so It’s not so awkward walking around. Since we were cleaning the guy’s place, doing dishes, making beds and all, I thought I would at least say hi. Well I did. The gentleman in the unit was sitting at the dinning table in front of an old typewriter tapping away. When I said hi, he came back with the same hi and asked how our day was going. Well one sentence turned into another and soon all three of us were talking away and working. When Wade and I were done and were leaving to go, I said goodbye. The guy looks up from the typewriter and asks if we would like to stay for breakfast.
Hey, Wade and I had been working hard and it was break time anyway so what the heck, a free breakfast. We sat down and the guy goes to work in the kitchen whipping up eggs, bacon, pancakes, etc. I’m impressed, and talking. While I’m talking, Wade pulls out a paperback book from his back pocket that he had been reading for weeks...a Louis L'Amour western.
As we are eating, I ask the stupid question...”So are you a writer”? “Yep” he says. “So, what kind of things do you write”? “Lots of things, mostly western novels, books and stuff”. “I come to Durango cuz I have family here and I get some good ideas from the place and people...got any ideas”? Do I have any ideas he asks? “So what are you working on now”? I ask. “It’s a book called The Iron Marshall,” he says. Then he introduces himself. “Hi I’m Louis L’Amour”. Wade falls over backwards in his chair literally. OK, I’m feeling stupid...Louis L’Amour! only the most famous western writer of the day and I’m having breakfast with him!. The book Wade is reading even has a picture of the guy on the back cover and Wade didn’t notice. Nobody was going to believe this. Wade of course had to have him sign his book. I didn’t have anything right off hand so Mr. L’Amour took one of the guest paper pads off the desk and signs it for me. It had to be the best breakfast I’ve ever had. I kept that autograph in my wallet so long that the ink started bleeding through. Now, it’s cool enough to meet one famous person in your life let alone have breakfast with them, but later on in my life, Mr. L’Amour comes back again.
It was when I was in college at Fort Lewis. At the time, I was 20 years old. I was taking a literature class and had gotten to know the girl sitting next to me. After time, we started going out once in awhile just to mess around, go to movies, etc.
One night I took her to a restaurant downtown (it was a Mexican food place and I can’t remember the name). Anyway, when we walked in, the place was obviously packed and there wasn’t any tables left. As we were leaving, we heard some people shouting to us. My date turned around and said that she knew the people and that we should go on over and join them...so we did.
As we came up to the table, there he was Mr. L’Amour. My date walked over to him and gave him a big hug and said, “Hi Uncle L’Amour, How are you?” What’s even weirder is the fact that he still remembered me from Tamarron. He got a big chuckle when I pulled out the autograph from my wallet that I was still carrying around. Needless to say, dinner was on him. I don’t even know who all of the other people were but I hate to guess. How many other famous people were sitting there that I was too stupid to recognize?












Louis L’Amour’s Autograph from 1977

OK, I’ve skipped around here, let me get back on track.
Well, The summer went by and school started yet again. My senior year 1978.
My class load was really light...I mean really light. I came to school at 8:15 in the morning and took one class. This class was 3 hours long. It was Woodshop / Cabinetmaking. I had taken woodshop since my freshman year and was getting pretty good at it. Mr. Clark was the best. He reminded me of a bald Santa Claus and was always a nice guy. The one thing that has always stuck out in my mind that I learned from him was to always return tools to the owner or cabinet in as good as shape as you found them or better. I still do that today.
After class, I would make my way over to Taco John’s where I was again working. It was nicer now since I had a vehicle to get around. At this time, I had also started sharing Bob's Apartment with him. The other Bob had moved out and Bob needed a roommate. This was cool. The apartment was down on 22nd street so traveling was short. It was better than going all the way out to the valley. This was officially my first apartment...man I was cool. Unfortunately, Neither Bob nor I were much at partying. We worked too much to have much free time. Besides, when we were at Taco John’s, everybody we knew would end up over there anyway. Taco John’s was always the hangout for people.
If Bob and I did have time at the apartment, we would make tapes on his reel to reel. We came up with “The Bob and Jim show” and played tapes at the annual Christmas party. I used to have a couple of pictures of the show but I can’t find them right now.
The show actually played on live air in Durango one Christmas season. A friend of Bob’s was a DJ there so he gave us some plugs. We did the same things as “The Bob and Tom Show” does nowadays but a lot tamer. Well, that was just to pass the time.
One Saturday morning after both Bob and I had worked late and closed Taco John’s, Bob had gone out with some friends and actually drank a little too much. Needless to say, when he came in at 4:00 that morning, he was in no mood for anything but sleeping.
At 7:00a, the doorbell rang. I had my room door shut as usual and wasn’t going to get up for any reason. I figured if I ignored it, they would go away. A second ring goes by. Then a knock. Then another knock. About this time Bob starts yelling for them to go away. Another doorbell ring. That was it. All I could do is hear the commotion going on as Bob whips his door open from across the hall and starts stomping into the living room. As he came around the corner though, he slammed his little toe into the corner of the wall and ripped off the toenail.
He’s screaming and cussing and hopping around mad as a scorched piglet. I’m up now and I’ve opened my door to see what’s going on. He finally makes it to the door, whips it open and yells, “What the hell do you want?” Standing at the door is a skinny little dork with a black book in his hands. He says, and I quote, “Hello, we are Jehovah Witnesses going from door to door in the neighborhood letting people know that they will find peace and happiness in their lives today”...Unquote. Bob stands there on one foot while holding the other foot bleeding and dripping, hung over, pissed, in his underwear, stunned. Like any good neighbor, he grabs the door and slams it on the guy’s face without saying a word and falls to the floor. I covered him up with a blanket about an hour later.
I’ve never been drunk. However at one time I did have the occasion to drink 29 Strawberry Daiquiris. I’m glad you asked why.
I was in a band you know. Remember Steve, the keyboard player? Well, he also had a job at night playing the piano in a place called “The Quiet Lady”. This was a lounge area that set off from the main dinning area of the Strator Hotel in town. The Strator was built way back in the 1800’s and had been refurbished into its original state. The place was beautiful. It’s been in several movies. Anyway, While you wait for your dinner table to be ready, you can come in and have a drink and relax. At the piano playing the lounge type music was Steve. He was good.
One Halloween, Bob, and myself were visiting Steve and Paula. Paula was another friend of mine who worked there as a bartender. She was two years older than us and was a blast to be around. I think she had a thing for me. Anyway, it was the weekend and the place was packed as usual. We were sitting in our usual place up front by the piano. Steve started playing a Dan Folgleberg Tune called “Ghosts”. It was appropriate for the season. After playing the tune to a silent audience, One person started clapping. You don’t usually clap in the lounge. The guy comes up to our table and sits down, then shakes Steve’s hand and says, “Perfect. You played that exactly how I wrote it and wanted it to be played”.
“Oh! Well hello Mr. Folgleberg”, Steve spits out. (I told you there were lots of celebrities in this town). The guy says, “My friends call me Dan”. This was cool. I had all of this guys tapes. Well after that, we saw Dan almost every weekend at the lounge. He was always entertaining or being entertained by someone. Most of the time he would come in and take Steve’s place and play a few tunes. He liked playing there because not too many people knew he was there and he could practice his new songs on us without being interrupted.
OK, the Daiquiri parts. One night after Dan came in, Him and I started talking trash about who could drink more. I told him the worst I could do was Daiquiris or Amaretto Sours. We did the Daiquiris. The deal was, whoever drank the most of course won and the loser had to pay. No problem. Dan had all night to kill and so did I. Paula was at the bar serving so she was getting into it too. We started at 7:30.
At 1:30, the place was doing last call. 2:00 was closing time. I’ve never gone to bathroom so much in my life. Those things go right through you. Dan and I were fighting to get in the bathroom first it was so bad. In the end, I handled 29 of those puppies. Dan however had 32. Let’s see 61 drinks at $2.50 a piece equals...Way too much! I was surprised at the fact that I wasn’t to affected by the amount that I had just drunk. I think Paula started watering them down somewhere around 15. If I could add up the total in my head, I was doing well. Dan ended up paying for the drinks though. He said he was going to all along and that he hadn’t had this much fun just being himself without the crowds and hassle in a long time. We kept in touch for some time afterwards. He lived over in Pagosa Springs about an hour away. Every once in awhile when we saw him, he would throw some passes at me and tell me to come see him play...we would go drinking afterwards. I never did get a chance to go.

Dan Folgleberg at the time I knew him in Durango 1978

Well, time went by, winter came and went and before I knew it, I was graduating. I actually made it. I was glad too because back in my freshman year, I had bought my high school ring with the date 1978 on it. I still have that around somewhere in a box I’m sure. Graduation was no big thing. We had it outdoors at the fairgrounds in the afternoon. Afterwards, a lot of people were going to various parties and such. Wade and I decided that packing up some steaks and beer, hiking up the mountain, and having an overnight campout would be more fun. Gary and Carl joined in also. So much for graduation festivities.
I never was much of a party person either. Nobody ever understood that too much since I was in the band. There were always big parties afterwards when we played. I just packed up my gear and went home or went to a movie.
I don’t remember specifics about the summer that year. It was work as usual at the river-rafting job. I also acquired a job on the train like I stated earlier. I took quite a few trips on this bad boy that year. If you ever get a chance to ride, you need to. The train makes a few stops along the route to Silverton. Once for water before going up the grade, and two more times to let people off or pick people up from different camps in the canyon. The one I remember most was called “Ah Wilderness”. It’s tucked in the canyon and the only way to get there is either by hiking in or taking the train. The train is quicker by far. I’ve always wanted to work there as a hand doing something or maybe being the caretaker in the winter. Dad and I took the 45.5-mile hike to Silverton one year. It took 4 days to do so. You don’t have much choice but to follow the river the entire way. There’s not a lot of area to wander off to. There’s good fishing on the way and lots of waterfalls. We didn’t bring to much food since we were going to eat fish that we caught at night. Unfortunately, dad got tick fever along the way. We made it all the way into Silverton just in time to catch the train back home. Someday, I would like to take that trip again without the ticks.
At this point in my life, I had never really given much thought to my future and what I was going to do with myself. That’s right, I was stupid. I did know however that I should at least make the attempt at college for a year.
My Uncle Tom happened to be attending a college in Houston Texas at the time. The college was called Gulf Coast Bible College. This of course made mom real happy since she thought this would be good for me. I had grown up in the Baptist church realm. Church to me was always more of a social outing more than anything. I did the Sunday school routine as a little kid and then went on to do the teen thing and youth group routine. I would also attend the actual church services as well. All I remember about them is the pastor way up in the front doing his speech and pounding on the pulpit once in awhile. I know there was messages in there but I couldn’t hold interest long enough to find out what it was. Let’s face it, It was boring! Very formal and stuffy also.
Anyway, I didn’t see the harm in attending one year out of my life and it would be fun to get out of the state and go somewhere I hadn’t been before. Mom and dad took time out from work and the three of us drove on down. I took the bare essentials on this trip. I figured I could get what I needed when I got there.
I had never been to a big city before. Colorado Springs was big but spread out over a large area and didn’t have honest to gosh skyscrapers or clover leaf freeways. This was totally different. It creeped me out basically. Luckily, the college was on the Northeast side of the central city in a less crowded area. Unfortunately, The area the college was in was called “The Heights”. In short, The Heights was the ghetto.
The college grounds took up approximately 2 blocks. All around the nicely landscaped campus were neighborhoods consisting of run down HUD homes and shanty’s. The girl’s dorm was tucked in between two of the campus buildings in the center of campus. The boy’s dorm was located at the furthest corner of the two blocks. The dorm had once been a two-story apartment building and had been converted into a 15-room dorm. Each room held 2 guys. Across the street were homes in which the residents would hang out doing drug deals and showing off the wonderful guns tucked into their waistline. On several occasions, gunfire was heard during the nights to come. Most of the cars in the small parking lot facing the street were broken into at some point in time. We would have to do our clothes in the laundry room at the end of the dorms in shifts also. If you left things unattended, you would find them being worn by the people on the other side of the street, and they let you know they had them by parading around. We were told by the campus faculty to let it go. After all, we were a Christian bible college and we need to act like it. I was pretty sure that being trampled on and not doing anything or being a doormat wasn’t in the bible anywhere.
The college was part of the “Church of God”. This was a bit different than I was used to. I realize now that I grew up in a “Conservative” Baptist church...very mellow. This place was a very UN-conservative type organization. People here would be falling on the floor waving their hands around shouting “Praise the Lord” and “Hallelujah” during services. Crying aloud and moaning was also acceptable. The director and pastor of the college was a good fire and brimstone type guy when he got up and talked. He yelled and beat the crap out of that pulpit better than anybody. It drove me crazy.
None of the faculty liked me too much. I came to school to learn what I could and I didn’t think I had to wear a full 3 piece suit and tie everyday in the muggy heat to do so. I didn’t dress bad either. I wore nice jeans, a button up shirt, and tennis shoes. What’s wrong with that? I got a lot of the “you’re a disgrace” looks from teachers and students when I would walk by. Mr. Trick who was my “Old Testament Survey” teacher told me to leave the class one day after a dress code discussion in class. I asked him “If Jesus walked in the class right now in his one-piece dirty cloth robe, dirty feet, and sandals, long hair, beard and moustache, would you kick him out of class for dress code violation”. He wasn’t amused. I thought it was a good question. Soon though, I had made a few friends who started dressing my way (normal) and we hung out together.
Three of us found jobs with Pinkerton Security. I was in need of money and it seemed like a good way to get some. We went to school from 8:00a to 3:00p. After school we would take one of the guy’s car to work and be there by 4:00.
The job was pretty cool. We all three worked in a building complex called the Americana Buildings. There were three of them. The Ling Tower was a 17-story tower. The Riviana Tower, which I worked in, was also a 17-story building. The tallest building was the American General Tower at 25-stories.
All I had to do was sit at the guard desk in the main lobby when I arrived and do PR work with the people who worked there or who would be coming in and out. I would check people in, or make calls to people Etc. At 5:30, the Towers were 99% empty of people. At that time, I would go around and lock all of the exit doors, turn off all lights in the building, and do my “rounds” every hour. After this, I had until midnight to do homework and mess around.
One weekend that I remember, two of us were doing double shifts. We came in at our usual 4:00 on Friday afternoon, but instead of leaving at midnight, we kept working until 8:00a on Saturday morning. At around 5:00a on Saturday morning, I got a call on the radio from Gary at the Ling Tower. He told me to come outside and meet him at the front of the buildings.
The front of the buildings faced a large grass park that had a large 4-tier fountain, benches, and a walking trail. The fountain was huge. You would have to climb the tiers if you wanted to reach the top and the bottom bowl was probably 2 feet deep and 30 feet in diameter. It also had several ground effect lights of different colors that lit it up at night.
When I met Gary in the front of the buildings, I found out why he wanted to see me. During the night, someone had taken ten or so large boxes of laundry soap and a big bottle of blue food coloring and put them in the fountain. The soap, color, and the falling water had made the largest, prettiest bubble masses I’ve ever seen. There were so many large blue tinted clumps, that they had escaped the confines of the fountain and were blowing gently along the grass. These things were as big as Volkswagens. If the vandals were hoping to get a reaction from us, they got their wish. Watching the beautiful blue tinted clods of bubbles as the sun was coming up, lighting up the sky with an orange hue, and the ground effect lights making the bubbles sparkle, almost brought a tear to my eye. We were amazed. All we could do is clap. I felt like singing "God Bless America”. We picked up the empty boxes and bottle and went in.
I managed to save up a good chunk of money during this time and I also seemed to loose other things like weight. During the first nine weeks of school, I somehow managed to loose 60 pounds and 10 inches from my waist. At one point, I literally had to hold my pants up when I walked to keep them from falling down. Don’t ask me how I did it. I guess puberty set in late or something. When I went home for Christmas, mom and dad didn’t recognize me at the airport. Until now, my social life had been non-existent. My work schedule in High school left no room for “love-life”. In college however, I did happen to meet a girl named Susan.

Chapter Five

School started in the fall and the new High School was open for business. It was a great school. It was located toward the north side of town right across from a Taco John’s place. Taco John’s is like a Taco Bell but better if you want my opinion. Anyway, compared to Smiley Junior High, this place was awesome. It was all one huge building and big. Everything inside was state of the art at that time. It only took a week for the different groups of kids like the stoners or cowboys to find their favorite areas on campus to hang out. In case you’re wondering, I didn’t fit in with either group. I just hung by myself as usual.
I rode the bus to school along with Carl and started making more friends. Carl hung around with Gary. Gary was the perfect picture of a tall skinny backwoods kid. He had to be at least six and a half feet tall. I believe he wore the same clothes over and over but covered them up with a Jean jacket or just got greasier to make the clothes look different. He was trying to grow a beard but it was not working. His diet consisted of only one thing, Red Man or Big Leaf chewing tobacco. This topped off his look with the wonderful yellow black crooked teeth that he had. Gary was a nice guy though.
The bus had a single seat in the very back that stretched across the entire width of the sitting area and could hold up to five people. We were always the first ones on so of course we grabbed it first. I always took a window seat. Gary and Carl were always chewing on the bus so they had to have a place to spit. They ended up using an old Folgers coffee can. During the 45-minute trip to school, they would pull the can out, take off the plastic lid and spit away. Upon arriving at school, they would put the lid on and put the can behind the grill, which was under the seat. Once the can was full, somebody would empty it out. The bus driver never even knew it was there...until one day.
There was an art to chewing on the bus. You had to be inconspicuous. Gary sat in the middle of the seat so his legs would fit down the center walkway. Carl sat next to him. On the other side of Gary was another kid I can’t remember then me next to the other window. Carl would grab the can from underneath and put it at his feet. The can was then passed by foot to each of the guys in turn. This looked pretty easy until the can started getting full. Am I grossing you out yet? This system worked pretty well until one day when the spitting was furious. The can was already full and things were moving right along. For some reason, Carl was hogging the can. Gary needed the can in the worst way and proceeded to let Gary know by punching him. You can’t talk when your chewing you see. Well, Carl pushed the can to Gary and in his excitement, caught the can on the corner of the rubber mat that runs down the center aisle. It tipped in slow motion.
Chew has an odor all of its own. It’s bad enough when contained, but when it’s on the move, watch out. What could the guys do? The damage had begun. I took advantage of the situation and before you could say Big Leaf, I had jumped up and ran to the nearest open seat...like any good friend. Carl followed suit and bolted over Gary to an empty spot. In minutes, Gary was sitting alone in the center of the seat looking straight down the rubber-matted aisle at the steady flow of 2 pounds of goo. As it traveled past other kids, the chuckles, gasps for air, and comments could be heard. Unfortunately, the rubber mat was a good vehicle for the goo to travel on and it made its way to the front. Each time the bus would come to a stop, the goo shot forward a little more. It became worse when the goo jumped the rubber mat and started flowing under occupied seats. By the time we reached school, the bus driver was also seeing and smelling the concoction moving up to the base of the stick shift lever.
The ride home that day after school was very pleasant. The bus was clean, comfortable, and smelled great. Of course this wasn't our usual bus. Our bus could be seen at the end of the school parking lot, by the fairgrounds. A green garden hose was sticking through one of the side windows and water was running out of the front exit door. You could see Gary ever so often, as his head came up for air while scrubbing the floors. The principle and the bus driver were standing outside having a cup of coffee. Ah yes, memories.
It was also in this year, my sophomore year that I decided to do something out of the ordinary and try out for a musical play. I was taking fine arts for one of my classes anyway and Mrs. V told me I should try out (Mrs. Vandergrift). In order to try out for a musical, you had to sing a song in front of Mrs. V and some students on the student council. I ended up playing “Lady” by John Denver and got the part as “Christmas Morgan” who was the bartender in the story. The play by the way was “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”.
After my audition was done, one of the girls came up to me and asked my name. Unfortunately I can’t remember her name anymore but I know that all the guys in school called her “Packed Tuna”. Why you ask? well for one thing she was a “hottie” with rather developed upper body areas. The only way we figured she could fit into the tight clothes she wore was to not drink water all day and night to dehydrate, then in the morning put her clothes on and drink a big glass of water to make her body swell into the clothes...they were tight!
Anyway, she told me that her boyfriend at the time was a drummer who was starting a rock band up but needed a lead singer. She liked the way I sounded and wanted to know if I wanted the part. Dumb question! That night I went over and met the rest of the guys. Greg was the
boyfriend and played the drums. Brett was the lead guitarist who was really good. Dean was the Bass guitarist, and Steve was on keyboards.
The idea was to get something going for the Christmas contest that year. We ended up doing “Freebird”. Greg’s mom was cool about the whole practice thing and even made dinners for the guys when we practiced. I think she was in to it more than we were. She even made flyers later on for when we played different places and T-shirts for us to wear. Our name however was not that good. Greg’s mom liked it though. “Altmodish Star” was the name. I guess it means Old Fashioned Star in German. Uh huh, OK. If I find a picture of us I will put it in here. If you don’t see one I didn’t find one...Duh





















Upper Left – Brett / Upper Right – Dean
Lower Left – Greg / Lower Right – Steve
1978





















Me and my guitar mom and dad got me for my 16th birthday. Notice the ugly T-shirt. I still have the guitar...a 1975 Ibanez...sweet sounding guitar. This is in 1978 – senior year – 18 years old.


Well, We ended up winning the talent contest and brought the house down. We only had so much time left since the contest was held at the last hour of school. The principle told everyone that when 3:30 came, the contest was over. Well, 3:30 came and Brett decided to lengthen his solo riff on the guitar. Everyone in school knew the song by heart so when he broke out into this new riff and everybody exploded. The crowd went nuts. The principle was helpless. Ah that 15 minutes of fame bit. Nobody cared if we went on for another 5 minutes. After that, we ended up practicing a large quantity of songs and started playing gigs in town and even in Cortez about 30 miles away.
You have to understand though, although we thought we were good, and might have been, Durango was a small town and it didn’t take much to be known. I mean, what did we have to compare it with?
I was now 16 years old and although it was fun playing with the band, I needed to get serious and get a real job during the school year. Summer was pretty good working with dad but I needed more money. Pretty soon I would need a car.
Across the street from High school was Taco Johns. Everyday most of the kids from school would go there and eat. It was good and fast. I slowly got to know the owner and started giving him a hard time about hiring me so I could eat for free since I ate there everyday. Strangely enough, one day he asked if I wanted a job. Of course I jumped at the chance. This was a perfect location. I could ride my bike to school in the morning, walk to work after school, then ride home. No muss no fuss. I also knew one of the employees already that I had met during the play named Bob. He managed the place.
Bob and I hit it off right away and became good friends. Bob’s parents lived in Farmington New Mexico about 50 miles away so they helped Bob with apartment rent in town. This was cool. His own place. Actually he shared it with another Bob, another friend of mine. Bob’s dad knew the apartment owner so they were able to make out a deal. Bob wanted to finish high school in Durango so...
I ended up working for Larry off and on and had some good times there. One time, Bob and I had just about enough of one particular girl that worked there, taking close to an hour everyday getting ready for work. She would come in, lock the bathroom door and primp, primp, primp. No problem. One day, Bob and I went in and removed the mirror and the toilet seat. Then we waited. When she came in, it didn’t take long before we heard the scream. Boy was she pissed. She actually had to stay out in the kitchen and work instead of disappearing all the time. Unfortunately, we forgot to put the seat back on that night and when Larry’s wife came in the next morning all hell broke loose.
When we came in after school, we kind of got a reaming. We promised Larry’s wife that we would never again take the toilet seat. That night was Friday. We worked the next morning. We took the entire toilet from the room and put the toilet seat on top of the hole. We of course had to get there early the next morning to watch the festivities. Larry just about died from laughing. I think they liked us.
When I got my driver’s license, dad let me buy his old Chevy Luv pickup from him for $300 dollars. This baby was cool. It was a small pickup, white, with blue interior. True it had served as a plumbing truck and was beat up but it ran. I was living high now.
It actually lasted my quite awhile until 2 of the 4 cylinders stopped operating and it overheated. We tried to fix it but it wasn’t worth the effort.
Mom and dad decided to take it to Farmington and trade it in on something else. What they came back with later that day was a 1975 white Chevy Monza 2+2. Heaven with four wheels attached. It basically looked like a Trans-am but smaller. At least that’s what I thought. The guys in the band thought it was awesomely knarly (70’s talk). That car lasted me through high school, college, and then some. In fact (I’m skipping around here,) in that car, is where, you know...it happened. Need I explain more...17th birthday...in a band...cool car...groupies...you know?

Chapter 4

OK, Last line before I interrupted...
During the day, dad would work while I checked out the town.
Durango was a small town nestled down in a valley at 6,512 feet above sea level. It has tons of mountains, trees, and cool stuff. Heres a photo of some Aspen trees in the surrounding areas...really.









Anyway, needless to say, I spent alot of time checking out the area during the day and just walking around the town.
Durango is most well known for the train that runs between town and Silverton, which is 45.5 miles North. The train has been around since 1880 and was used as a freight train and personnel train for the miners back then. Now it takes tourists through some great country on a 3-hour tour (one way). You can ride it to Silverton and back or just one way and then drive a car back if you set it up with a friend before hand.
At this time, Durango had about 30,000 people living in or around town. Expansion had to take place to the North or South of town because of the terrain. To the South was open field where a sheep farmer owned all the land, which had been in the family for who knows how long. He had just sold a portion off and it was starting to be developed into a commercial area. To the North was Hermosa Valley, which consisted of horse properties and fruit tree farms.
At the very North end of the valley was Hermosa Mountain and just below that was a new Manufactured Housing Community called Golden West. This is where we were going to live. My folks had already arranged the moving of the house from the springs to here as soon as mom and my sister had finished the packing. It was a pretty nice place and being so new, there were lots of open lots to pick from. Dad had already picked a large corner lot right at the entrance. The community was almost exactly 12 miles from the town limit sign, which was in front of Pizza Hut as you came into town. The main area of Durango or the commercial section where the tourist shops and train station were at was on the South end of town
Besides the community, the only other things out there were a small gas station called Al’s. Guess who owned it?...Al. Al, his wife and son (who was probably 30) were Jewish. Al was 50ish, fat, and had a huge nose that was all pot marked. He always had a cigar hanging and slapped me on the back when I came in. His son was the guy who took care of the mechanic work and pumped gas. Now use your imagination to picture what he looked like. That’s right, A good old farmer boy, overalls, grease, grubby beard, etc. Al’s wife however, looked and played the part of a typical Jewish wife right down to the blazing red hair.
This woman wore more gold jewelry than the local jewelry store and talked loud and obnoxious. She was nice though, and didn’t take any guff from Al or the son. She wore the dresses good but we al knew she really wore the pants in the family if you know what I mean.
Other than this, the rest of the valley was wide open. The Animas River ran through the valley and was great for tubing. There were some rough areas but mostly it was calm and great for fishing. The full name of the river is El Rio De Las Animas Perdidas or “River of Lost Souls”. Word is that when the Spaniards came through, it was a bad time of year and the river was flooding. Alot of guys disappeared in the rapids along the way along with supplies and gold. In the years to come, we would see just how much flooding the river could do.
Well, the time had come for everyone else to meet up in Durango and get the house moved and set up in the community. It was probably mid-summer at this time. Dad and I went back to the springs and dad made the final preparations for the move. Everything was going pretty smooth. The first half of the house arrived on time and was put in place on the lot. This half had the living room, the master bedroom, my bedroom and half of my sisters room. The other half was to arrive the next day. The next day came and went with no sign of the other half. I was a little paranoid since my room was just hanging out in public for all to see. Long story short, the driver of the other half decided that he was going to quit and wanted his money before he delivered the house. The company refused so he basically stole the house and went into hiding somewhere in New Mexico. Police were called, dogs were called out, swat team members were “hut, hut, huttin’, helicopters were hovering, and the president was on standby. After 2 weeks, our other half came rolling in. After another day, we were ready to move back in.
It didn’t take too long to make friends once we were set up. There were a few kids my age that were going to be in my school so the rest of the summer was spent “Networking” the area. I can’t remember all of the kids I meat but I do remember a few.
Carl and his brother Terry were what I consider small town kids. They grew up in Durango and as far as I know, Carl may be there yet today. I say Carl only because during my first year in school, Terry was accidentally killed when he was electrocuted. He was older by a couple of years so I didn’t really know him to well. Carl and I hung around alot though. He was a big guy, about 250lbs, 6 ft. And quiet. We lifted weight alot during lunch hour and any free time that we had. We found that this was a good way to keep away from the older kids so we wouldn’t get “Initiated” as a freshman. In case you don’t know what “Initiated” is, that’s when the older kids, who are no longer in their freshman year, go around and do mean things to the freshman kids. Things like throwing you down and covering you in shaving cream or de-pant you during lunch, or just beat you up. We were lucky and never had any problems.
The school was originally built in 1919. It was in good shape with marble staircases and rails; old wooden room doors, tiles floors, etc and consisted of three different buildings. It was located in the historic section of town up on Third Ave. where the older homes were. The town was in the final process of getting a brand new high school built at this time and word was, my class would be the first sophomore class to be in the new place. That was cool.
During this year, I joined the marching band as part of the percussion section. I played the snare, the chimes, the Tim-Toms, but was really good at the bass drum. I know it sounds stupid but I really liked to get the beat going. I never followed the sheet music and I don’t think the teacher cared too much. Only at certain key places. The rest of the time, I did my thing. The drum had white faces on it, which to me was boring. We were known as the Durango Demons but didn’t have a good mascot or logo.
Well, I just happened to have a white jacket that in good shape so I took the opportunity give my artistic side a chance. OK, so I’m not artistic but I can trace pretty well. I liked to read the comic book “HotStuff” at the time and thought that one of the cover pictures would look pretty cool on the back of the jacket. It was a picture of HotStuff flying with his pitchfork in hand and flames flying around. I traced it on and used some of moms colored fabric pens to paint it. A few weeks later, one of the cheerleaders in my class who was on the school board noticed it. Karen was her name. She thought it would look cool on the bass drum faces so when we marched, everyone would see it. The band teacher thought so to...and there you have it. Just like that, Durango had a new mascot. Of course the one I drew was cool looking. The next page shows a cartoon of Hot Stuff. This is the only picture I could find on the Internet of the guy.


I gave that jacket to Karen later on in school when I was a sophomore, and I never did get any credit for coming up with the school mascot.
Oh well, that year came and went. It was 1975 and I was 15. Needless to say, I rode my bike alot out in the valley. There were lots of places to explore and see. I hung around with Carl a bit but usually stayed by myself. Dad had got to know a hardware store owner that was closing his business down and was in the process of buying all of the plumbing supplies down to the display racks. Dad wanted to start up his own business again so off he went.
I remember helping to load all of the supplies into trucks and bringing it out to a small office that attached to Al’s gas station. Al had been using it for a storage room but let dad rent it out for the business. Dad named it “Hermosa Plumbing & Heating” and it took off like wildfire. The location was perfect. People were moving into the North valley area and here he was. I started working in the office doing estimating and material handling. Mom was once again the office gal...for free. I made $7.00 per hour. Dad also ended up buying two Datsun pickups with the king cab. They were small pickups with four bangers in them and were painted bright lemon yellow. Dad always liked yellow. In fact, one of my jobs was to paint everything in the shop yellow. It was pretty gross.
Near the end of that summer, Eric came out for a couple of weeks for a visit. We both knew that this was to be our last “free” summer before we had to get real jobs and grow up. At that time, 16 years old was old enough to get a job almost anywhere.
We ended up making a movie (which I still have somewhere) called “Penelope’s Peril”. I played the villain, my sister was the damsel in distress, and Eric was Dudley Dooright. It was a Cineplex masterpiece. We even played it at a small restaurant that had started up in the valley called “The Wooden Apple”. We charged a quarter admission and had free popcorn and drinks. Lots of people even showed up. By the way, the camera we used was an 8mm with no sound. We added the words with text on cards just like the old movies. It worked pretty well. I have recorded it on to VHS so if you have it, watch it. I haven’t seen Eric since the he left that summer.

Chapter 3

I was in a play once. Sixth grade and the play was “The Hobbit”.
If you have ever read the book or seen the movie, you will of course remember the three trolls that capture Bilbo Baggins (the Hobbit) at some point in his journey. I was one of the trolls.
I will have to get the book again and find out all of the names of the trolls but I do remember that I was Bert. Lance played the other guy troll and Vickie played the girl troll. Ohhh Vickie, Vickie, Vickie. Another bump girl. Eric played the hobbit.
During one scene, us trolls get in a fight about how were going to eat ol’ Bilbo. While we were doing our masterful choreography of punches, rolls, and ducks, Lance’s part had him falling to the floor on his back. Myself and bumps girl grab Lance like were going to hit him and then with all three of us in sort of awkward lunging, standing, positions, we freeze so the lights can fade to black and the curtain closes.
This was all going perfectly to schedule until the light fade. You know how the stages in elementary schools are usually made out of really nice hardwood flooring? At least they used to be. In addition, you know how the stage was usually hollow underneath for storage of the foursquare balls, parachutes, chairs, and other cool stuff?. The problem with the hollowness and the flooring is that it echoes and reverberates when you walk on it.
OK, so here we are acting our best, we fall, we lunge, we freeze, and then we go silent with fade. Problem is, about that time when the audience and the auditorium is silent...Lance farts.
Do you know what a fart sound like when your butt is being pressed on by two people and you’re against that hollow wooden stage floor? Thunder...loud, reverberating, echoing, last for an eternity thunder. Could the lights have faded any slower? Add to that the muffled snorting and gagging of three sixth graders and there you have it. Our big debue with Lances fart being heard by at least twenty bazillion parents.
It was during the play and working with Lance that I learned that he played the guitar. Mom put my sister and me into guitar lessons for several years before this but all I had learned was the parts of the guitar and some finger positions...no real cool stuff. We took the lessons at “Johnny Smith’s Guitar Centre” and my teacher was Mel Bay. At the time, I didn’t know who that was except that he was the guy who taught guitar. Look him up if you don’t know who he is.
Anyway, mom and dad had bought the guitars for the class and mine was now sitting in the closet at home...so was my sisters...both Gibson's...1960 editions. After watching Lance play actual chords on his guitar one day, I decided that I would give that a try.
I pulled out one of the old guitar lesson books and found some chord charts in the back. After a few weeks, I was getting pretty good if I do say so myself. Lance and I starting hangin’ together at school with the guitars and we learned to play “House of the Rising Sun”...COOL!.
Well, Mrs. Waterson (my English teacher) found out that we could play. Somehow, we were picked to play the guitar for the schools Thanksgiving show at school. This was...how you say...Awesome!. While everyone else had to stand on the stage in rows, Lance and I got to sit in chairs down in front of the stage and play the songs. ANOTHER FIRST!. I was a star (in my own mind). Just a note, About the time I was seventeen we had a garage sale and I sold both of those guitars for ten dollars each and an eight track stereo for the car...can you say Dork!.
At one point in the school year, each class got to go on a weeklong trip to “High Trails”. This was a camp up in the mountains a few hours away. This was a big deal because for one thing, you got to get out of school for a week. You did however have to do school things at camp. Since our class was so big, we had to split into two groups. Group 1 left for a week while group two stayed behind. Then we switched. I got to go on the second week.
I am certain that this trip to High Trails was the beginning of realizing that I loved the mountains and had to live in the mountains. This was the perfect place to be. There were cabins that held twenty kids and a counselor, horses, a mess hall for eating, a teepee with the “Council ring” in front, trees, rivers, and the best part was a fifty-five gallon drum that was converted into a fireplace that sat right in the middle of each cabin that you used for heating the place. No fire hazard here!
At night, the counselor would get that baby cookin’ to where that thing glowed. If you put your tennis shoes against it, you could write your name on it in melted rubber. The best thing though was when you put pennies on top of the drum and they would melt after time...so cool.
Ah yes, and who could forget the nightly raids on other cabins. The chief bean of the camp told us all these scary stories about running around at night outside with bears and Indian ghosts Etc. It worked for most kids, but not us. You know how dark it is in the mountains at night. It’s hard to see anything when you look out of the window of the cabin. There were lots of windows to, and all about top bunk height. We would run around quiet like to the next cabin with our cameras and flashbulbs. After scratching oh so scary like on the building and windows, someone would just have to look out a window to see what that spooky noise was. That’s when you blast em’ with a flash from the bulb! Not only would the kid inside be instantly blinded for life and more, but you would be to if you were dumb enough not to shut yours eyes to before firing. You cannot see. I’m sorry but your blind...hello? The kid inside might be blind but he’s safe inside! I’m out there with the Indian ghosts and bears trying to find my way back to safety. I can stub my toe on hair lint too let alone rocks, twigs, corners of cabins, porches of cabins, doors of cabins, and beds in the cabins. Man that was living.
I could have stayed there forever until I got a letter from a girl in school. She was in the first group that went. She wrote me about how wonderful her time was but that it could have been better if I had been there with her...Hello! I received a letter a day filled with her desires for my hot bod and her longing for me to come back now that the trip had opened her eyes to her feelings for me...another Hello! She said that she would meet me at the bus when we came in on Friday and that she would be wearing the blue dress. Oh baby I had to get back.
All week I thought about who this girl could be. I had to burn the steamy letters in the bonfires at night they were so good.
Finally, the day had come...Friday. I almost wanted to hurl I was so tensed up when we pulled up in the school parking lot. I played it cool and waited until almost last to get off the bus. When I stepped out, I other kids, Eric, Kurt, Etc. However, no blue dress. I looked and looked, but nothing. Eric and Kurt came over and asked if I was lost cuz I was looking so hard. I of course couldn’t tell them what was going on. I was looking for the girl of my dreams after all.
Pretty soon though, their laughing was getting a bit too loud to handle so I asked them what was so funny. They asked me if I had gotten any “letters” in camp from anybody while I was there.
Can you say LOSER...I bet you can
During the sixth grade, things took a turn for the worse with dad’s business. Long story short, dad’s shop was the biggest in Colorado Springs...some Mafia boys moved in and got tired of losing all the jobs to dad...they said give us some jobs or your going to go away...dad lets them...gas moratorium goes into affect, Colorado Springs construction goes down the tubes, dad files bankruptcy, sells business and we have a huge garage sale and move.
That move took us out of the house I basically grew up in for six years and put us in a Manufactured Housing Community on the other side of Sinton Road about six miles away.
The community and the house were pretty nice actually. There was a pool and clubhouse, all brand new, and a huge green fairway right behind the house. Unfortunately, because of school zoning, this meant that I would be going to a different school than my friends when seventh grade came around. In the mean time, the elementary school let me finish the last half of school there. This meant that I had to ride my trusty Stingray six miles to school and back...no kidding, and going to school was actually up hill all the way. It was a nifty ride though. I found alot of cool places to play. The best place was an open dirt area up under the freeway underpass. You could walk all the way up the concrete side to the top and then step down into the dugout area right there by the concrete freeway. It was really cool when the semis would go by because the whole place shook and the noise was awesome.
Another place was out in the field by the community. There was a large drainpipe (about six feet in diameter) that started in a ditch by Sinton Road. I would take a flashlight and walk the entire length of the pipe until it came out the other end that overlooked the river down by the railroad tracks. There was always water in the pipe and mice just loved it here. This pipe obviously took all of the rainwater and drained it by the river. Along with the water, it took garbage, sticks, rocks, Etc. A person could potentially find some cool things if you dug around in the muck. When you got to the river end of the pipe, you had to crawl up and around the pipe, swing over to a tree, and then jump to the bank so you wouldn’t fall in the water. Once you made it to the bank, the entire world was yours. Nobody ever came down here except the homeless or the bums. At that time though, you have to realize that we didn’t have the same view of homeless or bums as we do now. Nobody was afraid of them or thought alot about them. They were just there and they never seemed to bother anybody.
Anyway, Eric and I always ended up down here most of our spare time. The thing to do was to put the proverbial penny on the track and let the freight trains run them over. We would put the coins on the track and then run for cover. The running was funnier than the penny squishing. Later when I ended up going to Junior High in town, these freight trains came in handy, as you will see.
Eric and I spent as much time as we could together. Six miles wasn’t that far away with bikes. We would ride all over the neighborhood or adventure out to the K-Mart store or the Red Barn convenient store on the other side of the world...so it seemed. Actually it was down on “Garden Of The Gods” road about six miles away.
That last summer before Junior High, Eric stayed over the house for the night and we “camped out” on the fairway by the house. As we were lying there talking, we both started to see what we thought were falling stars or a Meteor shower (cuz there were so many of them). The thing is, is that these “falling stars” were all different colors. Colors like blue, red, green, orange, yellow, and a little slower than your average falling star. Oh well, that was cool we thought and went on yapping. The next morning though, the paper had reported the same lights over Colorado Springs. Tons of people had seen them but nobody knew what they were. UFOs? Nobody ever did find out and of course, the military denied everything. Perhaps this was my first honest to gosh UFO sighting...who knows.
Well, summer came, went, and school started. All of my long time friends were going to West Junior High just around the corner. I however had to go to North Junior High, which was a good fifteen miles from home and located in what you would call “the Barrio” or “the hood” nowadays. I hated that school. You want minority? I was it. I think they taught English as a second language.
The biggest thing I remember about that school was Mr. Kordula, my shop teacher. He reminded me alot of Jimmy Perry’s dad but with hair.
We had a choice in shop on which section we wanted to take first. You had metal craft, automotive, or drafting. I took drafting.
My first project was to draw the gothic letter “l” just like Mr. Kordula’s. I drew the perfect duplicate of his work and was very proud of it. Upon showing it to him though, he finally looked up and told me that “it sucked”. He then told me that I deserved a “swat”. A swat if you are unfamiliar with the term, is what all kids in school back then received when they were disruptive, mean, irritating, noisy, stupid, tall, short, black, white, yellow, or wore “stupid clothes”. Just about anything got you a swat.
The swat was done with a lovely piece of hand crafted oak in the shape of a bat, but flat. It had a handle, which widened out into the swat zone. The flat swat zone was then drilled full of precisely placed holes about one inch in diameter. After taking up position in the front of the class (facing them) you would bend over and grab you ankles. Then, depending on the nature of the crime, the teacher would then beat the crap or “spank” you rather hard as many times as they felt necessary.
Thus was my punishment for doing a lousy drafted “l”. I went to metal shop after that. I heard that Mr. Kordula was fired some years afterward after student’s parents sued the school for this type of punishment. The whole “swatting” thing disappeared not long after. I will admit though, we didn’t see the kinds of behavior or trouble in schools as we do today. Kids had respect for authority at least.
Two years I went to that school. During that time, I rode the bus to and from everyday. One unusually bad winter, the busses were running behind schedule due to snow. Our bus had finally loaded everyone up and the sun was already starting to go down. About three-quarters of the way home, the driver took a bad turn and ended up off the road at a really cool angle..About 45 degrees tilt. There was nothing we could do. It was now dark and white out conditions were the norm. Girls all over the bus started crying. The guys wanted to go out and throw snowballs. I, being wonderful and all started telling jokes to the driver and the captive audience to keep things lite. Man I was good. Before you know it, a truck drove up and pulled us out. We were on our way.
I remember a good joke I told...
Yea, I’m sure that my mom is all worried and all and she’s probably got some chili and hot chocolate waiting for me...heh, heh, heh. Yea I’ll walk in all cold and I bet I get cold ham sandwich!. TA DA!...Oh man I was Good...(yea I know it was stupid)
After that, I rode the bus to school in the nicer weather but on several occasions, I hopped a freight train that made the rounds in town back home. It came right behind the school and its route took me right to the drainpipe on the river. How convenient!. I was only about a half-hour later than the bus too. Another thing mom doesn’t know. I have alot of those.
During my eighth grade year, dad got a job working for a company in Durango Colorado called He would travel the six hours to Durango on Sunday and stay all week and work, get in the car on Friday night, and drive back home for the weekend.
When summer came, I went with him to check out the place. Dad had found a place that we could move the home to just north of Durango Called Hermosa.
Mom and my sister stayed in the springs getting things ready to move while I went to Durango.
The drive to Durango had us going through some of the most beautiful scenery in the state. One section of highway is called Wolf Creek Pass. It was on this narrow winding section that I learned how to drive. Dad would let me take the controls on the upsides of the pass and let me go. They have widened the road alot since then but it’s still curvy in areas and lots of cliff.
Well, dad did not want to spend money on lodging so we stayed down on the river (Los Animas) just south of town. There were pull over areas and day areas along that section of river and nobody cared if we pitched a tent. We ate what we caught along with canned tuna fish and potted meat with crackers.
During the day, dad would work while I checked out the town.

I have to interject here a second. It’s Friday November 2, 2001. I just came back from lunch at the big McDonalds. I have been riding my motorcycle to work lately (a Suzuki LS 650 with drag pipes to make it sound like a Harley...Yellow) and I’m a good driver I think. However, I’m also stupid because I like to ride my hog wanna be without a helmet. I’m not crazy on the bike but I worry about the people driving the cars around me. I’ve had a few narrow escapes already. So anyway, I’m eating my 99-cent Big Mac when an older couple...much older couple sits down at a table across from me. The husband has to be at least late 90’s and the wife early 90’s. She carries the tray of food to the table slowly. He follows at the small shuffle feet walk with his aluminum cane dangling from two fingers. She helps him over to the table cuz he’s looking lost. She helps him sit down...a feat that takes about 3 minutes. He sits, hunched over a little and stares. She gets his Happy Meal for him, opens it, sits it out, gets his drink, puts in the straw, he mumbles something and she yells something back so he can hear. They sit in silence and she helps him get the food to his mouth and so on. When they are finished, he insists on taking the empty tray to the trash. She helps him up. Three minutes to do so again, and hands him the tray. He carries it at the angle of 60 degrees almost spilling everything on it. Once at the trash, he attempts to open the swinging door to empty the trash but can barely do so. She helps him. After this, they both small step shuffle to the exit where he attempts to open the door. She helps him. Once outside, it is a 5-minute walk of 20 feet to the car. She again helps him into the car. This tasks takes a bit longer...6 minutes and he’s in...THE DRIVERS SIDE OF A SUBURBAN!!!!!!! Where did he go! I cannot see he’s head over the dashboard! I can however see his two feeble hands grasping the steering wheel. Another few minutes to find where the key goes and muster up the strength to turn the doohickey on and VROOOOOOM. Off they go.
Yes, I have to be crazy to even step outside this McDonalds let alone drive my motorcycle with or without a helmet with people like that at the wheel.