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
Wilson’s Apartment with him. Bob Baker
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.
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