Hauling hay. Walked behind the truck throwing bales, stepping on rattlesnakes and then taking it all to the barn to unload and stack it. On the same day I started that I got a job writing sports and a weekly personality profile for the hometown newspaper. I was barely 16 and my career of never having fewer than two jobs began.
65 mustang. Drove a few of dad's terrible clunkers (68 falcon, 71 LTD, 74 olds) before I bought my own car with my own money. The mush pony. I drove it like a mad bastard. Invented drifting while Vin Diesel was still in diapers. Loved that car. Would never have sold it. Was stolen in 1987. Never saw it again.
Beth. Oh my. I was a non-descript junior. Played baseball and made good grades. She was a senior and everything. Majorette, dated the starting QB from the class ahead of her. Rich. Drove a brand new white Z28. Unlikely pair. But we had chemistry together. And there was some. We talked for hours on the phone. Started meeting at her cabin at the lake. There's a great story I don't have time to tell now. It involves nunchucks and seven fights with the QB and our expanding gangs. But I lost her. So did he. That was 35 years ago. If she called me tomorrow? I'd go where ever she was.