Wednesday April 27 1977...

   Not a particularly well known day in history but a few events did occur (obviously). Elvis Presley performed a poorly reviewed concert in Milwaukee, Led Zeppelin played a gig at the Richfield Coliseum in Cleveland Ohio, The Grateful Dead performed at The Capitol Theatre in New Jersey. 28 people were killed in the Guatemala City air disaster and there were bloody riots in Soweto South Africa. French runner Khalid Zoubaa was born as well as actors Ron Dugans, Jerry Trainor and  Sandra Van Der Wal (all classics). Actor Stanley Adams died and in Slovenia it's the Day of Uprising Against Occupation... and oh yeah, I forgot to mention, Dan Johnson flew the coup.

   I wasn't really doing much at the time. I had a job at Sears warehouse where I had to call in the morning to see if there was work for the day. On the nice days when I had something to do there was always work and on the crappy days when I had nothing to do there was no work (life lesson 101). I think I was making around $3.25 an hour at the time when I received call from my uncle who was living in Penticton. He had a friend who said I could get a job working in a mobile home factory for $5.17 an hour... jackpot! Money and I could get the hell out of Dodge.

   I remember it was an unusually hot April day when I loaded my first car (and probably still my favorite) 1963 Nova Super Sport with all of my belongings, which wasn't much. Some clothes, a Sears home stereo with a handful of albums, a carton of Number 7 cigarettes (I usually smoked Players Light or Export 'A' but I always like to mix it up) and two cans of motor oil (just in case). It was the olden days, oil only came in cans, so I had to buy one of those oil can pour spout opener thingys. I think all cars either leaked or burned oil then...

        The car. I don't remember any tearful goodbyes with my folks but I found out later that it was upsetting for them, I can only recall saying goodbye and pulling out of the driveway... I was barely seventeen... 

     My Aunt and Uncle in their house on 2631 Paris St. They saved my bacon by giving me my first real opportunity in life... a job and a place to stay away from the nest... the rest is history. I have plenty of awesome (even with the thesaurus, I couldn't find a better word) memories of my time in Penticton but those are stories for another blog. The trip took about five hours, it was hot but uneventful... all I can really remember of it was stopping once to top up the oil and this incredible sense of adventure, which it unquestionably was. 

 

   In reference to blog 100 about pitbulls, John H. brought me back down to earth a little by reminding me of Petey the pitbull from Little Rascals...