I was a wild Child!

From my very different start things only got stranger. I can not remember when I learned to drive but it was very young. I worked for my father loading trucks with a crawler loader as an 8 year old. We had a shale pit on the property and sold a lot of the stuff. How many boys growing up get to play with dynamite? I did. We would drill a hole in the floor of the pit , set a charge in the hole, wire up the caps, and I would park my crawler with a track on the hole. Then my job would be to touch the blast off on the battery of the machine. When it blew the machine would lift up and we had a nice batch of fresh stone to use. My mother thought that just maybe this may be wrong, but I enjoyed it and my dad got a kick out of it.

I was fearless and to this day I seek the edge. Dad felt that children should be stimulated and he kept us in dangerous toys. We always had field cars, motor cross bikes, guns, and tools to play with. Like driving I do not remember when I learned to weld it seems like I always could. We built cars for our dirt track that were meant to be rolled over, and cars that we could emulate Joey Chitwood in. By riding two wheel off of our home made ramps. Why none of my friends or I did not die or lose body parts I have no idea. We played chicken with the cars, old 4000 pound monsters built in the 50's. At one time we had 12 cars all running at the same time, racing colliding, rolling, even catching fire. It was great fun!

Besides mechanical contrivances we had animals. All the standard farm fare cows, chickens, geese, pigs. Like driving and welding I do not remember when I learned to slaughter, gut, skin, pluck, and butcher said farm animals for the dinner table. Those are just a natural set of country boy skills that come with the territory. And we would hunt our supper, I have eaten wild animals of every ilk! We always had dogs, beagles to hunt rabbits, and pheasant, coon hounds to tree the coons, most we live caught and bagged as they were worth more live then skins were bringing. Survival at its rawest best and using what the land gave you. I still hunt, fish, forage, and grow my own, it is just better.

We also had horses. My father loved horses and so do I. Still have horses. As a ten year old I started rodeo. Went from barrel racing to bull dogging and calf roping. Then I found my thrill, bareback bronc riding and bull riding. This was the 50's no flack vests or helmets just a pair of jeans, cowboy boots and hat, a shirt with snaps, and a big buckle on your belt! The young ladies loved it and I loved them for loving it! Bruises, black and blue , a dislocation or two was all part of the game!

If it was summer we were camping out. Sometimes as many as twenty of us would set up camp. Find someone to buy us beer and find a way to pry the young ladies away from the watchful eyes of their parents. Underage beer drinkers are a strange breed, some learn the hard way. Lots of drama created by alcohol. Why are the drunkest teenage boys always the ones that must climb the tree or play with the fire? Like they need the broken or burned body part. There are a million stories I could tel but I am just giving background right now.

1966: July, not much money making opportunity at my usual venues, always a slow time in the stone and top soil business. I had brand new drivers license, a car that needed fed, and women everywhere that were catching the "Free love" fever that was one of the best ideas I ever heard of. Hippies needed cash to be on top of the game. I did what any red blooded teen age boy with a constant raging hard-on would do, I joined the carnavel for the summer. First stop I got a job setting up the tilt-a- whirl and then sold tickets for the freak show. At the end of the run I got to tear down the same ride. When I went to get paid for my weeks work selling tickets the bastard skipped. I followed the train to the next stop. When I got there I hunted the dirt bag down and took a thumping from some career carnies for my troubles.

No tail between my legs I found a job guarding Zoma the snake lady! And I clocked the dirt bag that screwed me. He was an easy mark. Very routine scum bag. After the show shut down every night he drank a pint of booze and a six pack of beer then passed out in the semi trailer that carried the freak show from town to town. I clocked what he did with the cash. He put it in a lock box under his cot that was bolted down to the floor of the trailer. This being a ten day State Fair I also discovered he was skimming from the receipts, lots of them!

On the second day of the show Zoma a really nice 60 year old lady had an epileptic seizure. She was out for the count. They were frantic and needed a new Zoma. I inquired about the fiscal arrangements and saw this as an opportunity. The trick was get people to throw cash in your tip jar by entertaining them with the snakes and other reptiles in the pit. I was good, very good at it.For the run I made over $3000.00 and met a lot of young ladies who were not fooled by my gender bending. I did look good in my fake leopard skin suit and fright wig.

All the time I continued to stalk Wesley the dirt bag. The show ended on a Sunday. On Saturday the original Zoma was well enough to get back at it. So I squared up with my boss and left the new kid who took over security stay on the job and I hatched my plan! Free to move about and no thoughts of staying for the tear down. My car was at home 250 miles away waiting for me. I stashed all my money from the week in a gym bag and took a taxi down town to the bus station. Stowed my clothes and money bag in a locker and went back to the fair with a fifth of 100 proof rot gut. This I placed on dirtbag's chair out behind his freak show venue. I wanted him drunk!

While down town I stopped and bought a sturdy two handled bag with a hard bottom and some tools. A small socket set and a cheap bolt cutter. Wesley did not disappoint me he went after his whiskey wind fall and at approximately 1:30 in the morning he staggered into his semi. With in minutes he passed out, snoring like a buzz saw.

The rest was too easy. I unbolted his lock box. How stupid was that he used carriage bolts and left the heads outside! I went in and could barely lift the damn thing. But crime always gave me super strength. Wesley was gone, blotto, dead drunk. He was sleeping on an old army cot with the hole on the side where the frame folds. Remember Chinese fingers? Where you stick a finger from each hand in and you could not pull them out, made from woven reeds. His one hand was in the hole in the cot the other hanging down, I put him in a Chinese finger locked to the cot. The whole trailer smelled like piss.

The lock box bolted to the floor by a moron. I decided to cut the lock right there instead of trying to lug the box. When I went to cut it I discovered it was not locked. I cleaned out all entire contents of the box including a watch and over $6000.00. Walked off, caught a taxi back to town, had the cab drive drop me off at a hotel 8 blocks from the bus station. I pretended to go in and when he pulled away I make my way back to the station, cleaned my locker, and got a ticket home! Wesley should have paid me the $100.00 he owed me .

There is more........