I was a young Marine, just shy of my first deployment overseas, went to the Costa Mesa Mall ( California ), and watched this movie with the Mother of my children.
I'll never watch anything with John Travolta in it again. Those Scientologists are bat shit crazy. I really respect Leah Remini for exposing a lot of the truth about that cult.
I was 12....... And watched Travolta in Welcome Back Kotter as a kid.
40 years ago this month I was in Quantico, VA in junior increment of OCS with the Marine Corps. Just finished my first year of college and remember thinking I could have been partying with my college buddies if I had not signed up for this. LOL, good times really.
Probably cruising around town every Friday and Saturday night, waving and yelling at girls, trying to convince them how cool I was. Or, partying at the lake.
One more Year until H.S. Graduation...I couldn't wait!
Hmmmm.....June of '78. I think I had just graduated from high school. I went to work full time at a vending machine company. Had no purpose in life....just meandering. Douglas C. Neidermeyer asked the right question later on....."What do you want to do with your life?"
I was still working in the Finance Company and just transferred again to another problem office. At least this time I didn't have to move. Three years latter I came down with MS but after 37 years I'm still walking and talking so life is good.
Riding my bike, swimming in the lake, hunting everything that moved with my BB gun, roaming a river bottom with a cheapo recurve and fiberglass arrows. My family had moved to Colorado (which was a fantastic place in '78) a year earlier and my folks divorced right after. Sister was gone to college, brother was 17 and doing his own thing most of the time so my Dad and I spent a lot of time fishing and shooting. Poor as heck but I never gave it much thought.
I was in West Texas a few miles outside of San Angelo. Mom worked in town and Dad was usually working out of town during the week and came home on weekends.
Mom had a couple acres of garden that my brother and I had to keep weeded and watered and we had some haying and cattle to take care of but a lot of free time. Usuall the weekends were for the bigger projects like fence building, working cattle or haying.
Whenever I could sneak away, I was running for miles up and down the Concho River fishing and hunting. Had a 10-speed bike that I set up with a rack for my gear that allowed me to get to places up to 15 miles or more from the house. Usually had a bow or slingshot in my hand for any varmints or rattlesnakes as my folks wouldn’t let me take a rifle at that age.
Hard to believe how normal that was for an 11 year old boy to be turned loose with no supervision back in those days.
Was on a 15 day summer camp in Gila Bend AZ. Had just been assigned as a crewchief /door gunner on a Huey gunship. Flew 55 hours in that 2 week period and probably another 55 hours maintaining the bird between flights. My butt was sore, but it was the 2nd most fun job I had in the Army National Guard.
Married a couple years and planning/packing for a move to Hawaii after a cousin there offered me a job...... wanted to build a sailboat and sail around the world.... didn't know diddly about boats or sailing.... perfect. Hawaii would be the prefect place to learn and build.....
LOL....... cousin sold his business three weeks after the move and he went back to the mainland..... I found out I hated sailing.... boring to make two dozen zigzags and all day to get from here to there... but truly love the ocean, motor boats and big game fishing. Ohhhhh.... screaming, smoking, burn your hands and legs on the reel fishing..... next to bowhunting, maybe the best....
Funny how things change and how they work out. Forty years ago...... lived here by far for most of my life now. But about done with the infringing population..... was 20,000 or so folks here 40 years ago. Couldn't buy gas after 8 or 9pm. Now there's some 200,000 plus.
Kinda looking for that old laid back pace again. Have some plans to find it. This world is flippin' nuts......
Enjoying driving around in my first brand new vehicle. I was just back to work a couple months after a brief layoff, but the work outlook was good and the overtime was plentiful.
My first 4WD was older basic Scout, and I fell in love with a new bright red V8 four-speed version. Working mostly seven-day weeks and ten-hour days at a sklilled trades job, the $4650 price tag didn't seem scary at all. Good old days.
Enjoying driving around in my first brand new vehicle. I was just back to work a couple months after a brief layoff, but the work outlook was good and the overtime was plentiful.
My first 4WD was older basic Scout, and I fell in love with a new bright red V8 four-speed version. Working mostly seven-day weeks and ten-hour days at a sklilled trades job, the $4650 price tag didn't seem scary at all. Good old days.
I'll be the odd-man out. 1978--my parents were celebrating their one year anniversary, and I was 3 years from being born. My mom would have been pregnant with my older brother though. . . .
Hell I can't remember where I was last month, much less 40 years ago...8^)
40 years ago would have been around the time I was getting my first real job in computer programming. Worked for a small insurance company for about 6 months and then moved on to a software development company. Then I started traveling...a lot...all over the world...and the rest is history...
One of the first movies I went to see ( Star Wars & Smoky and the Bandit too). I was 12. Riding my bike to fishing holes, puberty and girls, geekyness, Mom had MS so was growing up quick. Exploring the woods with friends. First interest in archery and hunting. Seems everything memorable happened at 12.
"My first 4WD was older basic Scout, and I fell in love with a new bright red V8 four-speed version. Working mostly seven-day weeks and ten-hour days at a sklilled trades job, the $4650 price tag didn't seem scary at all. Good old days. "
Russ..... my daily driver is a 76 Scout..... my first brand new car was a 75 Scout.... I'm slowly moving up in the world..... =D
But this scout is a bit more tricked out..... hoping to make it all one color in the next year or so.....
Running around southern California with either my 22 or my pellet gun, and probably doing some fishing up at the lake with some of my friends. I was 10 years old, things were so much different back then!
Was 28, had my military behind me,working in a plastic factory,bow hunted a bunch,had good health.married,a son.now divorced,retired,grown son and senior grandson.several health issues.but life goes on.had several international scouts,a 1979 Chevy luv 4 WD pickup,now got a 2009 jeep Cherokee wagon.probly my last vehicle.I'm 68 this year.
Summer between Junior & Senior year of HS. Drove '71 Chevy Monte Carlo. Summer job with FWS riding around in an airboat with a crazy old coot setting charges to blow new potholes for waterfowl or trapping & banding wood ducks and geese. Ran a setline most nights during the week for catfish....can't remember getting a lot of sleep....
Between my Junior and Senior year in high school. Got to go spend a week in Washington DC with a few hundred other kids courtesy of the Rural Electric Association. Talked to senators, congressman, shook Pres Carter's hand.
Back home I got a job at less than minimum wage (somehow that was legal) doing maintenance at a hotel in Branson MO. It was owned by the local veterinarian and I thought I'd get to work in his office. Instead I took care of the motel grounds and even had to clean rooms. Pretty disheartening to a teenage boy to knock on a door and say "maid!" before going in. ;) But, they paid better than my folks could although I still had plenty of work on the farm I had to do after working the "real job".
I was in my mom's belly in Burnsville, MN. Just about to break 5 of my mom's ribs kicking because I was on my way to being over 2 feet long. My dad was wheeling my mom into church in a wheelchair because of it - a month later he'd bring her in on a dolly with a piece of plywood because she couldn't bend at the waist for the last 2 months.
I was 6.5 at the time, probably at my Gramps cabin raising hell and blood pressure, great place to be and a great guy to be with. Had my pick of poplar sapling to fling sticks with.
Hate to admit I liked that movie the first hundred times I saw it. My daughters still watch it once in a while.
