I win ! I was here the longest.

The business where I work is closing today. Going out of Business. It is making me sad and I didn't think it would. The business has been a "dead man walking" for about two years. I have survived two previous employee cuts. Sometimes, in the last years, I have feared being let go and sometimes I would have welcomed it. The owners and the employees have not behaved as professional people should and on occasion I have been embarrassed to be associated with them. But I am not a quitter and have/had essential skills to make the business work as it should. I thought I would welcome a lay-off so I could draw unemployment benefits from Barak. Now I am torn between that and finding a different job and beginning my FOURTH life. I have been a career banker, a Business owner and a professional, certified franchised car salesman.

My present job landed in my lap at a time when I was unemployed, recovering from major surgery and broke from not working for four months. Our family income had dwindled to about six hundred dollars for a family of four. Our young son probably suffered the most, as he was a senior and had to do without a lot of things a senior boy ought to have. Both experienced the need to rely on the charity of strangers and I think they are better off for it today.

When I could finally get around after surgery, I took a temp. job delivering phonebooks to businesses. The dealership offered me this job as THE salesman at a satellite location. I sold one car the first month. The owner called me toward the end of the month (3:00 pm. on a Friday) and said "lock up the store and come downtown, I want to talk to you." When I got there he said he was closing the satellite store but would like me to work in the main store. Of course I was surprised that he wasn't telling me I got the trophy for shortest selling career in history. It has been eleven years since then. I have worked most of those years with a tyrannical sales manager, A misdirected owner who is in jail now, prima donna mechanics, pill popping, powder snorting, joint smoking owners sons, and bamboozled new partner/owners. I have enjoyed the successes of the business in its heyday, and survived three corporate ownership changes.

I have not owned a car in eleven years, paid for insurance on one, paid for maintenance, bought tires, or paid for collision damage. Until recently I always got to drive late model demonstrators with the thought of checking them out for damage. While not having a car of my own, The dealership has been a source for several cars for my wife and children. By my count our family has bought 15 decent used cars for family use. We will be in for culture shock when we have to buy cars on the open market.

There are many memorable stories and incidents I could share but they are probably only of interest to me. The business has been like a cancer victim for the past two years or so, and the end was expected, but still I'm sorry and don't know why.

THREE DAYS OF PEACE AND MUSIC !

August 15th begins the three day, 40th anniversary of an event that changed or at least marked the lives of thousands of young people. A muddy cow pasture in rural Woodstock New York hosted almost a half million kids of the "drugs, sex and rock n roll" generation.

I married my first wife in February 1969 before the "Summer of Love". We finished the spring semester at the University of Colorado in Boulder which was then a hotbed of radical thinking. In May we moved back to Colorado Springs to embark on our lives as pretend adults. I searched for and found a job in July.

Sandy, my new wife, had friends who were true hippies. Her closest friend, Terri Lee Burton invited us to join her and a friend and ride with them to Woodstock in a red VW micro mini-van named "Panama Red" It sounded like a real happening, but with a brand new job, I didn't dare ask for a week off to go to a concert on the other side of the country. They went, we stayed, and missed a chance to be wet, miserable, tired and probably stoned for three days.

A few musings about those times. Panama red was the name of the bus but it was also the name of a specific strain of reasonably good marijuana (so I am told) Others were Acapulco gold,& Maui wowie. All those names and others were secretly patented by major tobacco companies for the time that MaryJane became legal, if ever.

Sandy and I considered ourselves to be week end, or fringe Hippies. We wore tie died shirts, peasant blouses, bell bottom pants. We rode bikes with little babies in back packs, and hand made bell bottom snap trousers for him.

In my old age, and in the vein of the title of this blog, I tell people who ask, that "yes, I was at Woodstock in 1969" With a good understanding of the history of the event, I can convince most folks that even though conditions were miserable, it was worth it to see the music Icons like Hendricks, Joplin, Airplane, Country Joe, Arlo and all the others.

So on the fifteenth of this month, find some mud to squirm around in, wear the same clothes for three days, carry a cooler full of beer for two or three miles, and think of your parents who are about to receive their first social security checks. Also try to think of an entertainment event in recent times that will be remembered as significant forty years from now.

Germany, the land of 10,000 breweries

We rode to Germany in our private tour coach on our way to Heidelberg. The trip took us past Mannheim Germany where my oldest was stationed before deployment in the FIRST Gulf War. At least then, we knew to quit while we were ahead. I had intended to collect hat pins and buy an Alpine hat to put them on, so by now I had pins from London , Amsterdam and Bacharach Germany, but no hat. We stopped for lunch at the home of the worlds LARGEST Coo Coo clock with life sized characters on it. The proprietor was waiting for us with a tray of wine glasses somewhat larger than communion cups. He was saying "Come to me for your fresh wine sample" in pretty good English. The shop was jammed with clocks and wooden statues that the proprietor carved himself. He preferred you not take pictures of his clocks but I got a few of his work in progress before he told me that. He had for sale the exact green Loden (wool) caps I wanted. You get the hat, then a serious pin for what you consider your home and a feather tassel or boars hair brush to start out your hat. Then you start adding the pins of places you have visited. By now I have about 20 to 25 pins including a couple I still had from 1968. The folks on the bus always wanted to see what new pins I had added from day to day. When you walk with your tour guide he holds up an umbrella or something we can spot to keep track of where we are supposed to be. From then on the Guide said watch for Mr. Doren's hat. I had to be careful not to wander off and get the whole tour group lost. The Coo Coo clock store was right in the middle of the Black Forrest which is the historic home of the Coo Coo clock Industry. I have one that my mother sent me in about 1969. In seeing the current prices for clocks I discovered that "I"M RICH!!!!!! I only wish I hadn't let the cats knock all the Humel figures off the mantel and break. So onward to Heidelberg, the H'berg castle and the Lion statue.

Amsterdam aint for sissies.....

Ok, since my son mentioned the windmills of Holland and Amsterdam, I will mention a few experiences we had in Amsterdam. They have canal tour boats that have been constructed to hold the most people while still fitting through and under the tiny bridges over the canals. An engineer stood by the canal and said the "boot" can only be 3.6 meters wide and 2.9 meters tall with a draft of only 0.6 meters while holding 30 fat American tourists. More important, while my son was out tilting windmills, My first wife and I (together) took a walking tour of the red light district after dark on a Saturday night. Things were really hoppin. The bistros are allowed by law to sell (without a prescription) two ounces of marijuana to any of their patrons. You could hit 5 of six pubs on a pub crawl weekend and wind up with a pretty decent stash. You can smell the aroma wafting out of the pubs as you walk by. Other stores sell any variety of MaryJane seeds for the Mr. Greenjeans crowd. One of which was advertising "help wanted" My wife was tempted but no one was there to take her application. I bet you have to be bi or tri-lingual. Bi-lingual that is. Down the side streets where the girls work, they each stand in a floor to ceiling window advertising what they have to offer. (I was always was a visual learner) If a potential client showed some interest, she would open a door and commence negotiations. They try to look like statues until they spot some interest. I was able to get a couple of them to smile. You MUST not take their picture even though it is very tempting. We felt pretty safe with a tour group of 20 or so people. In the morning, as we left on the bus, I asked the driver if we could stop down the street because there was a girl I wanted to say good bye to. After about a one, two, three beat everyone of the bus ROARED!!!! I believe Sandy was embarrassed. So On to Germany....

THE MONEYCHANGER IS BaaaackkkKKKK!

I and my first wife just got back from the Grand Tour of Continental Europe and the United Kingdom. It was in celebration of our 40th anniversary and coincidentally her birthday. We toasted her birthday at a sidewalk cafe in London, followed by a walk along the River Thames to the allegedly SMALLEST pub in London called the Dove. (look it up). Not long after, we encountered a very LARGE friendly dog. While petting the dog, the owner came looking for her. In talking with the owner, he finally said "Are you on Holiday?" "We don't see many tourists around here." At that point I thought to myself, We are SURELY lost!. I suppose our Midwest USA English accent gave us away. George Patton once said "England and the United States are two countries separated by a common language."

Anyway, to the heart of this theme, I once posted of my experience in Japan of exchanging money for profit. After exchanging dollars for pounds and pounds for Euros, I am wondering if a guy could hang around airports and find arriving and departing passengers that needed a quick exchange to tip local cab drivers or sluff off unwanted foreign currency.. Except that there are franchised cash exchange kiosks in the airport that would take a dim view of independent entrepreneurs, there is no reason it wouldn't work. More about other legs of the journey later. COMING SOON TO A BLOG NEAR YOU---Amsterdam's free enterprise system in the primary commodities of Marijuana, Mary Jane seeds, and Mary Jane the legal unionized Prostitute. TTFN and Cheerio!

The Highway didn't kill me.........

When I was five years old, my family bought a motel in Idaho Springs Colorado. We ran it as an extended family that included my Aunt and uncle, Granny Doris and Uncle Harry and, of course my mom and dad. Idaho Springs was a transient town for traveling tourists. A stop over about an hour west of Denver before the interstate system was invented. The motel business boomed in the summer and was nearly dead in the winter. Instead of motels they were called cabin camps or motor courts. The ski industry had not taken hold and the only two ski areas were Loveland Basin and Berthod pass. US highway 6 and Highway 40 came together through Idaho Springs and then split again west of town going eventually to S.F Ca. and LA Ca.

My adventures in independent living probably began here. I was allowed to cross the 6 and 40 highway by myself, being sure to look both ways for cars and Semi trucks. There were two businesses across the street I liked to spend time at. A curio shop and a used trike and bike business that Ole Roy owned. The Curio store had rock candy that i bought sometimes to fool people with. I got money selling shiny rocks to tourists in our own curio store.

The rocks I sold came from the mill tailings of an abandoned gold mill across the creek from our motel. The water was too swift to wade across but there was a bridge up river . One could find hunks of lead , fools gold, mica and other sparkly rocks that tourists would buy and I would get the money. I was allowed to go there by myself and never once fell down a mine shaft. http://www.historicargotours.com/


I wasn't allowed to walk up town by myself but bigger kids took me to the town theater on Saturdays. Once I had a steel ball bearing someone gave me and I had it in my mouth at the theater. I swallowed it and it scared me so I called granny Doris at home. She said not to worry about it if I was breathing ok and to go back and finish the movie. When I got home, Granny said to sit on my sister's baby potty until the marble came out, which it eventually did in a day or two, so I got my marble back.

In 1949-50 you got deposit money back for soda and beer bottles. My Great Uncle Harry taught me how to go around behind bars and stores to find the bottles and where to take them to get the two or three cents for their return. I thought he was just doing me a favor by going along, but he insisted on his half of the take each time we went.

One winter I was down playing by the river that had iced over a little. I had on a snow suit like the one in "the Christmas Story" and I was out standing on the ice when I broke through into the water. Fortunately I was able to crawl out and the lady from the trailer right near took me in and got the wet clothes off and blistered my butt real good, saying she would tell my mother if I did it again.

In 1950 My dad got recalled into the Army to go to Korea so we sold the motel and moved back to South Dakota when he went overseas. Shortly there after the Interstate system was born and the bypass above Idaho Springs all but killed the motel business there. The guy that bought our Motel eventually had two separate propane gas explosions that leveled most of the motel. Oddly both occurred when the units were empty.

learning the value of money in my youth

I mentioned in a previous post that I had flown to Japan and back. I grew up as an army brat and lived in Japan in 1952 or so. Second grade, 7 or 8 years old I suppose. I was not overly supervised as a seven year old and ran with kids from my age to 11 or 12 years old. The Military community used a form of currency called script instead of American dollars. The script was all paper money including nickels dimes and quarters. The Japanese economy used Yen as they do today except, then the exchange rate was 360 yen to one dollar. The military ran free shuttle buses from the neighborhoods down to what would be called a mini-mall today, and then down to the Japanese business district and back. The point being, we kids could get just about anywhere for free. My first introduction to banking and money changing was based on free transportation and the exchange rate. The following process worked best right at the end of the month when the GI's and Sailors just got paid.

We would round up what script money we could get from our parents or find in our dads pants pockets and ride the bus down to the Japanese business district. We would approach a GI or sailor and hold out our script and say we needed yen to shop for toys because the local merchants couldn't accept script. An odd amount of money was best because it made the conversion more difficult even for well educated sailors. They would do their best to make it right but always gave more value than was accurate. We knew the right amount and would never let them short us.

Now we have a little more in yen than we had in script so we would ride the bus back to the PX (military WalMart) and find another GI to trade yen for script to spent in the PX because they would not accept Yen. The exchange woulld ALWAYS be in our favor and sometimes the GI's didn't even want our money, so we would haave both the Yen and script.

We would do this all day long but as we got more and more value we would only offer small amounts for trade because we wanted to look needy and cute instead of rich and manipulative. On a good payday weekend we could convert 50 or sixty cents into 5 0r ten dollars. It should be noted that we never cheated the troops. If they asked "how much is 50 cents worth in Yen?" we would tell them 180 and pro'ly get 200 anyway. Did I mention that I grew up to be a Banker?

When I was twelve Elvis, Buddy Holly and hula hoops were invented and became popular. By the fall of that year, everyone knew about them but me. I spent the summer on the farm in South Dakota with my Cousin Carol Rae. My granny said "don't go, those farm kids will pro'ly try to drown you in a stock pond."
It was the summer that they closed off the Oahe Dam and started collecting water. My Uncle owned a great deal of condemned bottom land with crops and livestock still on it. As the water rose over the next several days and weeks, we spent time digging potatoes, herding sheep, cutting and stacking hay, and swimming in the new "lake" . I should say, the men did those things. My cousin and I mostly played in the water.
We drove the 57 Plymouth Station wagen down to where the potatoes were planted and began digging them before the water got there. When we saved all we could and went back to the car, the water had risen over the floorboards and drowned all my firecrackers and my first basemans ball glove.
We waited for the hay stacks to float free from the rising water. The men wrapped cables around them and to a couple of motor boats to tow them to dry ground. Carol and I were swimming around the stacks noticing a great number of small rodents in the hay. I picked up a mole by the tail because I had never seen one before. It wheeled around and bit me on the index finger and wouldn't let go. I flung it across the water with a hunk of my skin in its mouth and still have the scar. I never told anyone because I was afraid I would have to get rabies shots.
We (the men) were herding sheep off of a peninsula that had become an island and I discovered a little pink baby pig and captured him. What a squealer! We took him home to the farm, bottle fed him with the bum lambs and made him my pet for the summer. I went back to the farm a couple years later and my pig had become as big as a house. The next time I went...the pig was gone.
There are other single memories of the summer on the farm and I may tell some later. When I returned home, by airplane, A Western airlines twin engine DC 3 Gooney bird, the stewardess asked if it was my first airplane ride and I told her, "No, I have flown to Japan and back." I don't know if she believed me or not but she didn't give me special attention anymore. I wasn't very smart about women at that age.

Oh, look, see Spot run.

Well, here is an inaugural entry to my blog. I will try to be grammatically correct in my presentation, and will use the spell checker often, knowing that homonyms used incorrectly escape the spell checker.

I am going to tell stories of my ageing process as I remember them. I may tell stories on my children, but not to embarrass them. They will be stories that stick in my mind as significant in their life or significant in my memory of them growing up.

If some of the facts of these stories are not exactly accurate or right,....They ought to be. As one ages, certain stories have more impact on the memory process than others. That explains why some folks, (my Dad) tell the same stories over and over. In an effort not to offend my dad, I would listen to the stories as if it was a first reading. It was a small price to pay.

So, for you, my daughter Nancy, I will tell some stories and archive them here in this blog. If you want to help me with the appearance, please do.