Originally posted by Airhead
Damn, sounds like me when I'm between wives.
LOL! That could have been me, but I lived with a couple women before I committed, good thing or I'd have been divorced a couple times over by now...
After a nasty divorce with my dad, my mother basically moved from beneath me (the week after graduation) and I was left with living with my Dad and the Evil Stepmother for 6 months. A high school pal (1 of the 13 in our "gang" as I mentioned in another thread) hit trouble with the law, he stole some guns from a residence, and these guns went over state lines after he sold them on the black market, and one of these killed a man. Detectives caught the killer, but kevins prints were all over the stolen guns, and traced back to his juvenille finger print records. He was a "Wanted" man. Kevin decided he needed to leave Minn. and I was ready to spread my wings and help him out in search of a better life, we both carried baggage, his Juvenille criminal past, my divorced family past of ugliness that screwed my head up as a teenager.
We tried to join the Airforce, they would take me, but not him as he had a juvenille record...I chose to help my buddy out through some tough times he had coming up rather then go into the military alone.
During the record cold month of January and having been laid off as a Roofer from the summer/fall season, we worked as temporary workers ($20 a day) at the Toro Factory in Minneapolis(As "Chain saw testers" believe it or not) and saved up enuff money for spending money and (2 weeks pay) to pay for a train ticket each, it was $110 to travel one way on Amtrak to Seattle...we picked Seattle to search for work because I knew Boeing was out here and it was a dream job to me.
Feb.22nd, after an interesting 3 days on a train (Delayed 1.5 days due to a train derailment of a freight train ahead of ours, and an avalance that we had to wait for another train to come up from the other end of the track to clear it ou) we ended up on the streets of Seattle, each with about $70 each. Kevin met this guy that was a landlord of a slum shelter, a hotel where Alaskan fishermen, dock workers, Hooker and there pimps lived, I mention this latter for the fact I had to share a bathroom in a hallway with 3 of them! I never took a bath there, it was bad...the one room studio we rented for $50 a month had a double mattress on the floor, pieces of brick near it, to toss at the broken window frame at night if a bum decided to sneak in from the alley. It was shelter from the elements, we took it as it was.
After two days of looking for work at the local work pool, Kevin found out from his mom that his offense that detectives wanted him for was federal, not limited to the state arrest. His mom convinced him to return, turn himself in (which I'd been trying to tell him to do, but 18 yr. olds don't listen to other 18 yr.olds as well as they do their mother) Kevin got money wired to him for a return trip, while I decided to stay and make a living for myself in this green new world (It was 60 and sunny on Feb. 24th,1979 in Seattle, after having come from -40 below in Minn.)
Kevin gave me $30 of his $70 he had left of his money and got on the train for a return trip to Minn. leaving me with $100 to survive on (Studio was paid up for a month) 3 weeks later I scored a job with Boeing as a sheet metal apprentice and Kevin went to court.
During my first few weeks at Boeing, I was down to eating Snicker bars because of their ability to ward off hunger with the oil and nuts in it and I waited another 2 weeks for my first paycheck from Boeing (Actually 3 weeks, but a foreman noticed how I "watched" people as they ate their lunch, while I snacked on a candy bar, he loaned me $100 til payday~REAL FOOD FINALLY!) I moved out of the slum hotel and into a studio in Tacoma which was the upstairs of an old home, for $235 a month with all utilities paid and furnished, I was moving up in the world at $7.35 an hour!
And Kevins fate? He got off with probation after turning himself in to the police, landed a local job in Minnesota as a hydraulic mechanic and we've both been very successful as one could wish to be since. He's got 2 girls, and I have 2 boys, both close to the same ages (we both married late in life) We still keep in close contact monthly. The one friend from highschool I still keep in close contact with.
Layoffs, college and bartending came 2 years after my "start" as an adult but thats another chapter.
May I mention that I never felt desperate or poor during these difficult times, I always felt confident I could do "better" in every job I had from the time I was 15 working in a nursing home as a ktichen aide until now. I lived "good" and felt good whether it was $2.35 an hour, or $XX an hour. I felt I was proof that the "American Dream" that many immigrants experienced coming to our fine nation, was still alive..and feel that way today.
Well, bored ya enough, probably will regret posting this with some of the guys around here...but toejam...its only a grain of sand in the sand clock of life.
Edit, christ 6 edits for spelling,prolly more..
