Ooh, Shiney

About the Author

After becoming an author on the Colorado Melons site John asked me to write an “about the author” piece. I have been procrastinating because I wasn’t sure how to proceed. I didn’t want to bore people with an obituary/autobiography piece but on the other hand coming across, as pride full or arrogant didn’t work either. So I will list the expected historical data with various philosophical musings. Hopefully this piece will be entertaining and informative, that is not a total waste of time. I have purposefully left out most of the “car stuff”. The philosophy, experience and etc. about vehicles will be covered on the postings. I am a Colorado native, which I understand is an endangered species. I was born in Las Animas Colorado, an event that I have no recollection of and so qualifies as hearsay. My earliest dated memory is telling my mother that “that guy” is on all three(!) TV stations, again. Much to my annoyance my parents and grandparents wanted to watch “that guy” and had no interest in my afternoon cartoons. “That guy” was President Kennedy announcing the naval blockade of Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis. That was in October 1962 and I was seven years old. If you are interested in my age you will just have to do the math. I attended school from kindergarten through high school in Canon City Colorado. I find it amazing that I managed not only to graduate but that all of my primary schooling was in the same school district. My kids wound up going to schools all over the country. I still don’t know for sure how many school districts that they were in. My wife and I have discussed many times which situation is best and have come to no firm conclusion. “It depends” seems to be the best that we have come up with. My hobbies during my school years were reading books, especially what these days would be considered technical books. I enjoyed just paging through the old World Book encyclopedia set that my family had. I also built scale model airplanes, my particular area of interest were 1:72 scale world war II aircraft. Before I stopped building them I had over 100. I knew of no one else who was into model planes so my inspiration was from books and magazine articles. Years later while looking at model planes at a museum I discovered that I had been building contest worthy models. In my senior year of high school I took an auto shop class. I had never worked on cars before then and really had very little interest in them. In that class I discovered that I actually enjoyed working on machinery and had some little talent. I also discovered that getting into a fistfight with the biggest guy in the class can be painful, but I digress. After the high school paroled me (I think that they were glad to get rid of me) I joined the Navy. Joining the Navy was the only thing that I could think of to do, as I had no money for collage, rather poor grades and no real interest. Just because one has a high school diploma doesn’t mean that they are all grown up and reasonable. My parents were thrilled. My dad was happy because he was an old Navy man, my Mom because I would be out of her hair for at least six years. I scored very well on the Navy entrance exam; well enough that they made me take it over a couple of times to make sure that I wasn’t cheating. This is where I discovered that I actually had some level of intelligence, something I had never before suspected. I signed up for the Navel Nuclear Power program. It is probably a good thing that I didn’t know what I was getting into. After finishing Electricians Mate school I went to the Navy’s nuclear power school. Intense is the closest that I can come to describing it. There were 65 people in my section when we started and 15 made it all the way through the school. The second half of the training was at a prototype reactor station in Idaho. This was the “hands on” portion of the training. There we learned about 16 hour days. If you were good and stayed out of trouble you could be rewarded with 12 hour days. The best thing about prototype training was the days off because then I could drive to Utah to visit my sister. At least on the first days off. After that it was to visit my sister’s roommate. She is now my roommate and has been for 35 years or so. So life changes, where I had very little in the way of responsibility or direction I now had plenty of each. Becky claims that I volunteered for the Navy but that she was drafted. We (everything from here on is “we”) were stationed in Virginia for the new construction of a guided missile cruiser. It was interesting hard work. There was also a lot of military BS and very little money. We learned how to squeeze a nickel until it squeaked. We also started our family, our oldest daughters were born in Virginia and don’t seem to be adversely affected by the geography of their births. While there we bought our first house. This is an event that I still have a hard time believing. We had no money and no prospects of getting any and yet were able to get a house. It was a wonderful blessing that I am still grateful for. We got out of the Navy in 1979. Staying in was not an option because we had separation anxiety when I was at sea and the credit card balance was going up. The only way that we could afford to live was to put living expenses on the credit card. I suppose that if we had stayed in long enough we would have gone bankrupt. Thus began the continent wide sojourn. I got a job at a power plant that was under construction in Wyoming. More interesting and hard work. And two more children. What we learned in Wyoming was that the Navy doesn’t have a monopoly on BS. Our original intent was to raise our family in one place, like we had been. Sigh. Life is what happens while you are planning something else. While we were living in Wyoming my family and I managed to get ourselves together enough that we were able to attend the LDS temple in Provo and be sealed for time and all eternity. It was a great day. It became clear that the people at the plant where I was working had no interest in my family life; families were a hindrance to them, apparently. So the adventure continued. We moved to Kansas to do the startup on a new nuclear power plant there. More interesting work it was not as hard, though. And we managed to have our youngest two children in Kansas. That makes six for those of you who are counting. Kansas was interesting because of the people there. The town near the power plant was filled with hard-core jerks. As a result most of the power plant workers lived 40-50 miles away and commuted. The people in the town that we lived were about the “realist” people that we have met. Our oldest kids started school in Kansas and the school was a mixed bag as far as education went. The problem with start up jobs is at some point they are finished. Seeing no possibility of getting on with the utility in Kansas we moved on. The next power plant was in Utah. As time went by the jobs seemed to be shorter and the moves longer. The schools in Utah were “interesting” for want of a better word. Then a series of short term jobs in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I am thankful that I was able to stay gainfully employed although the travel and separation was unpleasant. Eventually I was able to get a job with a small plant in Wisconsin. It was to be the last place; you know the one that you retire from. We bought an old farmhouse in the woods; there are a lot of woods in Wisconsin. The rest of the kids started school and we were on our way at last. Then the plant was sold. We ended up in Minneapolis Minnesota. I am not a large town sort of person and Minneapolis is just like any big city except for the snow. I bounced around several jobs there trying to stay living in one place. The schools were great for kids that were on the collage track (our daughters) but not so good for kids who were like their dad and had no clue (our sons). After a few years of the Minnesota adventure we packed up and moved to California. Not unlike the Beverley Hillbillies. My wife is from California and we thought that it would be a nice change to live near some family. In California we discovered that houses were exceedingly expensive. We bought the only house that we could afford. Why buy a house you ask? Renting a house when you have kids is difficult, near impossible when you have six. Doing what you believe to be right is not always easy. That permanent job lasted three years, the details of which will not be disclosed in any public forum, suffice it to say we were on the road again, older and a lot poorer. Our early Navy training helped us to get by. We got another California job, this one nearer to Becky’s parents. It seemed like a good thing except that the schools were horrible and our income did not match our outgo. The schools were bad enough that Becky had to home school the younger kids. The older ones were able to get along in high school. Our oldest daughter by that time was in collage, an adventure story all on it’s own that will not be related here. My dad then sent a job listing that he had found in the local paper in Colorado. The result of which was the garage sale and rental truck thing once again. So after being out of Colorado for 23 years we moved to Fountain to work at the local power plant. Our kids finished school there, left home and started their own lives. Some have since moved back due to circumstances beyond our control. Life is not to be taken seriously or it will surely get you down. The current score is 13 grand children and counting. After thirteen years at the Fountain power plant I accepted an offer to retire. Notice that I said retire, not stop working. I am currently employed for the city of Aurora’s water department. Much less complex than a power plant. For entertainment(?) I am a volunteer Chaplain at the County jail. This is a job that will give a person real perspective on what is right in their life. While working in Fountain I met John Melon. I was talking to some people about my plans to chop the top on my truck and John mentioned that he had chopped tops before. Please understand that I have talked to a lot of people that have done whatever it is that you are talking about so this revelation was met with some skepticism. So John brought in some pictures of his truck and introduced me to his web site. This got me motivated to actually cut and weld metal, there is a time to stop planning and start working. “To every thing there is a season and a time for every purpose.” Here are some random thoughts on what I believe and what motivates me: I believe in God the Eternal Father and in his son Jesus Christ. I believe that we are on this earth for a reason; most people don’t know what the reason is or even where to look. Families are important. I believe that if you understand even a little about what motivates a person it is much easier to get along with them. I believe that whatever a person does is not wasted; the fact that the experience took place is enough. The corollary to that is that the second law of thermodynamics is in effect for all physical things. To work is a good thing. There is humor in most things. I enjoy a good giggle; wordplay and puns are fun. Becky claims that a crisis plus time equals humor. I don’t mind being the object of a joke, especially if I deserve it. I believe that people are complex beings, that what we actually know about a person is a very small part of that person. Unfortunately most people use what little knowledge that they have to put other people in a “box” and never let them out. I believe that we should help where we can and get out of the way if we can’t. I like to build things out of nothing. The result of this is that I have tools and machinery that are not normally found in a home shop. Becky says that the amount of time I spend making things keeps me off the streets. I think that she may be on to something there. I am not fond of arrogance. I prefer to know the “why” of things. Then if I need to change or fix it I have a base to work from. I appreciate the work that some one put into old things. However, I also believe that things are meant to be used, not put on a shelf to be looked at. This results in my willingness to “cut up a classic.” It has been my experience that when talking to most people they will attempt to tell you what they think you want to hear. If you talk to them long enough they will tell you what they really believe.