Author: PretendPrint

This one is WAY back, like in the early 70’s. The wife and I had split once, then gotten back together for some reason I still have no answer for. Maybe because of her body, andmy being young and overly virile.

We knew this couple, Gordon and Liz that were close friends. My wife Shari was tiny, 4’8″ although she claimed to be 4’9″. Liz was about 5’8″, tall for a woman, yet Shari and Liz were as close as two women can get. Talk about appearing as night and day, Shari dark hair, Liz was blonde. I was six feet and 200 pounds at the time, Hair overly long, Gordon was around 180, shorter and blockier, he wore glasses and was balding with a widow’s peak. Gordon and I did quite a bit of the “buds” stuff, like fishing, bowling, hunting. We often took the girls out dancing and drinking, but it was always just friends. Perfectly normal for years, except for that one incident, my fault. Read more »

Earlier I wrote about my brief marriage to that Trophy girl I met after winning my big drag race. That marriage was a mistake, I got drafted anyway and sent off to a war, then about a year later I was back home with two holes in me. Finding the things that went on with the wife while I was gone were way too much, divorce followed. I went back to living with my Grandma and finished my last semester at the junior college. Now the plan was to go on to regular college, which takes money.

I needed a job.

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My Uncle Mel and Aunt Gloria lived in Reno, a short hop over from Vallejo. He was a bell captain at a major hotel and casino there. He got me a job as a bellboy for four days, I parked cars for one day. It was free rent in their now vacant spare bedroom, my cousin Barry was off to college also. That meant I could save up almost every cent I made. Read more »

OK, I have to admit I am not real proud of this portion of my early life, but it happened. Men thought a lot different back then than they do in today’s world, at least, we pretend to anyway. Let’s just say that wives were supposed to be good girls and stay at home with their legs together, we men, being men? If something happened, it was no big deal.

I was in my 20’s and knew.. well, real close to nothing.

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I was doing pretty good, had a gas station job, girl friend named Sherry, she was the trophy girl at my big drag race that I won. (They would not let me run in stock class any more after that, instead put me in D/Modified sports class and I couldn’t catch those guys)

Bunch of damned cheaters in that class, so I quit going.

Anyway, I dropped out of Junior college, the idea was to work more and save up some cash, go to regular college, just one semester left for my Associate’s degree in business. Get the cash ready, then finish the last semester, off to regular college, all set. Things were hot and heavy with Sherry, it was like every day, and about everywhere that we could find any privacy and a few times not so private. Read more »

More back in college stuff, this is the 60’s and the world was changing real fast. Wife is gone, I am bored and it’s raining, so I am jotting down memories.

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I had bought this 1956 Chevy 4 door used in about 1961, it came with a little 265″ engine, 2 barrel, kind of sickly so I had to do something about that. My Dad had found a 1958 Chevy Nomad that had been wrecked, he was going to make a work rig out of it but never got around to it, so he gave me the engine. I took it apart, in town was a shop that had a boring bar, so we opened the 283″ up to 292″, and the guy sold me a set of 12.5 to one compression pistons for $25, left over from another job stuff. A 4 barrel carb and a neat cam grind and 56 the chevy was peppy.

Fast forward a year or two later. The world had become flower children, someone invented a pill for women, there were protests over some war somewhere and I was learning stuff. There was one hell of a lot more of the world out there than the Oregon coast I was used to and the paper mill to work in. Read more »

Neat story I read here today brought up a memory. Wife is in Boston, I am in Oregon and we have some kind of an impasse. So, I am jotting a few things down as I remember them, keeps me out of the bars. I am 76, (really, in 5 days anyway) and have lots and LOTS of memories, some of which I haven’t even remembered yet.

Back in college in California, between jobs, I delivered pizza and other foods for a few months. The place sold rolls, drinks, french fries, hamburgers, and a few pizzas. There really weren’t very many places that even did that and delivered, the outfit I worked for was trying something that was a new idea at the time. Nothing much ever happened, pay was good and with tips and paying me for the gas was almost $6 an hour.

It was a strange setup, since the deal was I used my 1956 Chevy hot rod instead of a company rig, I added up the miles and they also paid me for the gas. Probably not that great of a deal now that I think about it but I was young. Probably it cost more to run my own car than the 5-6 gallons they paid me for every day. Read more »

Back in my 20’s I managed to wrench my back. Pain pills helped but interfered with my work, one day a friend suggested a massage therapist. I gave that a try, she was an older woman named Lynn, no nonsense, unlicensed, I was just a body to her. Her job was to try and heal it, and that is what she did. To give an idea of how long ago, she charged $13 per hour, I tipped $2 which was a lot in the early 70’s.

Yep, with happy ending… just sometimes though, if that makes sense. If “it” got in the way, she got rid of the problem. First she would put one hand on my forehead and one on my stomach, most of the time that made things go down and I am not sure why. If that didn’t work, she would just take hold and drain the thing, like I said, no nonsense. She never bothered to ask, nor did I. As time went on, the hand job became more normal than not. But, being at least 30 years older than me, a few years of every Saturday mornings and she quit working. I found out much later why, as she had sadly passed. Read more »