I was there, Sitting in the lobby waiting to go to work, being called a scab and all sorts of other stuff. PATCO was pushing the strike go-ahead and all I wanted was to keep my job! Best Job I had ever had.

Aug 3rd, 1981. 11,500 Air traffic controllers walked off the job and go fired for violating and oath.

I was living high on the hog in Odessa, Texas having been promoted to drilling manager for a large land drilling company. Six months later the oil boom ended, and reality started setting in. Odessa was basically for sale, or owned by the FDIC.

Within four years I was trying to find a way out. In eight I was working offshore, overseas, and never looked back. Thirty-five years ago was a turning point for me.

I was six years old, my Dad was the under-sheriff in Wyoming and we had a lot of horses. I had a springer spaniel dog named Pebbles that I got for Easter the year before.

All my family was still alive except my paternal grandfather.

We lived in Riverton, Wyoming and my mother ran a greenhouse. We either owned or had a 100 year lease on the property where the Indian Casino is now. A couple years later there was a big flood and we lost our house to the river.

If we were poor or rich I have no idea. There was food, and toys and livestock so I don't think times were bad even if they weren't really great.

I had recently changed jobs & was sweating out whether the insurance on my new job was going to pay for our soon to be second son being born.
11 days later my daddy died. I sure do miss him.

Working at St. Mary Iron Works in Franklin LA., learning a trade.

That was a tough year. Reagan assassination attempt, Pope John Paul assassination attempt, the before mentioned strike, and locally, an elderly distant relative was murdered by my 15 year old cousin. He is still in Angola and will die there. A terrible waste of two lives.

I was starting my last year of law school.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeBurke:
I working at St. Mary Iron Works in Franklin LA., learning a trade.

That was a tough year. Reagan assassination attempt, Pope John Paul assassination attempt, the before mentioned strike, and locally an elderly distant relative was murdered by my 15 year old cousin. He is still in Angola and will die there. A terrible waste of two lives.

Angolan jail? That has got to be a fun place.

Building up a fledgling dental practice from scratch, paying a lot of interest, raising three kids, and living the Anerican dream.

I was nine years old getting ready for the fifth grade and had no idea that only 3 weeks later both of my parents would be shot and killed by my dad's older brother. Turned my life upside down and sideways for a long time after that.

Two sad stories - very sorry for that fellas.

I was a brand new New Mexican about to start at a new elementary school. On that particular day I was probably catching lizards and snakes out back, fishing in the San Juan river, or trying to kill myself on a bicycle. Ah, the well spent summers of youth...

I was working as a deputy sheriff generaly enjoying life.

BWW, Angola is in Louisiana, not Angola. Neither place is on my bucket list.

Angola is the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

It is located near the Mississippi River, North of Baton Rouge.

It is also not on my bucket list.

Understood, as a Westerner I don't know much about prisons outside my own area. Honestly, I don't know much about prisons where I live.

I put the roof on the Montana State Prison as a high school kid between summers in the early 1990s. Eye opening experience for a 17-18 year old kid. Never wanted to be on the wrong side of the law in my life after that.

Worked law enforcement a couple of times growing up and that wasn't for me either, and ended up retiring from the military.

Thank God for those in Uniform who work to protect us from those that would undue this place.

I graduated from high school in June and I was camping in the mountains of my native CO until after elk season when I left for Navy Boot Camp. Not sure exactly where I was on any given day but it would have been in the northwest part of the state, maybe around Steamboat Springs?

We were in Rockland, Me and Sadie and I were gearing up for our move to Alaska in '82.

I was making a pretty penny working the slime lines on Kodiak Island.


.

I was running a sheet metal shop for another fellow before going into business for myself + thinking what a grand fellow Reagan was for the way he handled the strike.

I was a few months shy of 5 years old. I was just being a snot nosed kid, I guess.

August 1981 I was in Ithaca, New York, accumulating debt halfway through the Master of Regional Planning curriculum at the School of Art, Architecture and Planning at Cornell University. Drove a Yamaha SR500, no car (which was sometimes a little dicey in upstate New York's winters).

I was the manager of a grain exporting elevator in Portland Oregon The labor there was union, very union. They sure were not happy about Reagans actions.

In Houston doing a rotation with DeBakey and Cooley, etc-
In general getting my a#$ kicked

seems not that long ago somehow

Throwing 10,000 bales of hay from the wagon into one of the 3 barns on the family farm. Didn't return to college for another 3 weeks.

Just moved with my family out of North West Territories into Kamloops, BC. No money, no prospects.

I was in Montana and between forester jobs. Keeping the wolf off the porch, I worked as a timber faller to keep myself and young family fed.

I was 26 years old & single,with a USPS HCR contract also working @ a ford dealership during the day.Got a call from an outfitter in the Yukon who had just bought the area to come hunt for 14 days for $ 2500.I was on my way to an adventure of a life time.I've lived many life times now !

Basic training. Fort McClellan Alabama, military police school.

I had just departed Fort Devens, MA and the 10th Special Forces Group and was on my way to Germany by way of the Officers Advanced Course.

I had finished grade 9 in high school and was playing in a bantam level baseball league.I had all the free time in the world and had many friends.Lots of small game hunting with my father.Spent two whole months on my grandparents farm in Greece the summer before and after.Those three or four summers were the best ones in my life.It was a very exciting time in the world too.Lots of great music,people going out a lot,etc...

Contemplating the start of my senior year in high school.

Working in a uranium mine in New Mexico. Kerr-McGee Nuclear is slowly killing all of us.
But what the hell; I didn't get smashed by a cave in or bad gassed.
AT nineteen you are bullet proof!

I was in the Grants / Gallup area myself around 1974, servicing the rigs that were drilling big diameter air holes for you. Never got down into the mines myself. Had no interest in having my legs broken at knee level.

Editor of a weekly newspaper in a small town in Southern Oregon. Wrote the stories, laid out the pages, wrote the headlines, shot and processed the black and white photos in a real darkroom. Even swept up ...

35 years ago I was just finishing up taking advantage of the GI Bill (college) after having spent some time in the U. S. Navy.

Guiding Tulane Gordon
[URL=http://s834.photobucket.com/user/tilly358/media/img076_ for Goat in Kings Bay in Prince Williams Sound.zpsmzu2n842.jpg.html] [/URL]

Working in SE PA as test lab supervisor for A/C & Refrigeration Co. Paying 8.25% mortgage rate and thinking it was a bargain.

Enjoying life as a kid in Bombay, India and trying to get my hands of every gun magazine.

now I need to buy my dream guns as a kid

HK P7
HK 770
TC 83

Mike

I don't know, it was just another day. Hell, I'd have to think twice about where I was yesterday.

I would have been milking dairy cows to pay off the loan on them , and thinking this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Took me a few more years to see the grave error of my ways though ;-)

Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela... as a "company man"...at age 21.... stayed there off and on for 18 months...