Altmodish Star

        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 Squires was the

boyfriend and played the drums.  Brett Graham was the lead guitarist who was really good.  Dean Bynum was the Bass guitarist, and Steve Reinhart 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 Graham / Upper Right – Dean Bynum

Lower Left – Greg Squires / Lower Right – Steve Reinhart

1978

 Me and my guitar mom and dad got me for my 16^th birthday

Notice the ugly T-shirt and I still have the 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 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?

HotStuff

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 Julie 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 Tracy Ullman accent and 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 Julie’s 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 Smith and his brother Terry Smith 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 Lee 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 Hinkle 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, Julie 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.

Me (Dasterdly Dan), my sister Julie (Penelope), Eric (Dudly Dooright)

Buffalo Chips Productions

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 Regal. 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.

Durango

        During my eighth grade year, dad got a job working for a company in Durango Colorado called Roseberry Plumbing & Heating.  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 Julie 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.

        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.  Here are a few photos of the surrounding areas...really.

 

The Move

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.

        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.