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 Larry Bell 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 Wilson. 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 Bob Baker, 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.
We used to cause hate and discontent whenever we could. Sometimes on the weekends after we closed around 1:00a, we would take one of the empty 7 yard dumpsters in the parking lot, put it in the street, one of us would get in, one would get the car, and push the dumpster down the street to see how far it would go. Taco Johns was on a hill so it didn't take much. If you were inside the dumpster, your feet hurt like hell cuz of the vibration, your ears hurt cuz of the noise. Man that was fun. My feet still hurt.
By the way, speaking of toilet seats....a good thing to do would be to go into the girls bathroom, during class of course when their empty, take a jar of Vaseline and spread a nice THIN coat all over the seat. Not to much cuz it's shiny. Then hang around outside during class break and listen for the tell tale BAM or an nice CRACK as an unwitting subject sat down only to find herself flying forward and downward at amazing speeds to then slam into the floor, under the door and perhaps even a clunk on the head. Good times...Good times.

ANYWAY.....
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...17^th birthday...in a band...cool car...groupies...you know?

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 (his first name is Ted by the way) 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.