Halvorsen Saga

 I'm not sure if the year is right, this could have been between my junior and senior year, that is 1970 instead of 1969. I found a job with Asphalt Paving & Gravel. They were putting gravel on a large electrical switching station at  44° 7'58.24"N,  99°26'11.58"W just north of Ft Thompson, SD. I was a gopher, I was hired to be the odd job guy to rake the gravel into the tight places, pull the dump truck cords, get the drinks, etc. The interesting point was that although it wasn't too far away from Huron by today's standards, back then, it was forever away...an hour and a half. So four of us would get into one of our cars and drive to Lee's Corner every Monday and come home Friday night. Lee's Corner was a tiny store out in the middle of nowhere and they used to have a trailer with four beds...perfect. The job was to haul gravel from near the river in Ft Thompson to the station, spread it out about 6" deep and ensure it was level throughou...

 I had just graduated from high school, the draft was on, the Bird Dogs had scattered, and minimum wage was $1.40/hour. I was registered for college in the fall so had a draft deferment but needed dollars. My dad finally relented, thanks to Joe Stahl, and allowed me to work at Armour's where the starting salary was almost $4.00/hr.  I think they wanted to test me, I was given the job of scraping fat off of the ceiling of the kill floor. For two weeks I laid on my back, nose just a foot away from a filthy ceiling, and scraped the goo off of the ceiling with a wire brush. I had to wear a mask and goggles and it was hot. Really, really hot. After two hours I could take a break, after two hours more I could eat lunch then another two hours another break and then finally home. For two miserable weeks I did that.  The plant had six floors, I think but am not sure that this is how they were laid out. The top floor was the kill floor. One side of the floor was for cattle, the oth...

I truthfully don't remember exactly the timing...I think during the summer between my junior and senior years. I went to a two week ROTC summer camp in Topeka, Kansas, that year and a week summer class at U of Minn so it wasn't a full work summer. I will digress... My best friend in college during my sophomore, junior and senior years was a wild Irishman from Minnesota named Patrick Condon. We did everything together but were not roommates, his roommate, Vince, was also Irish from the same hometown as Patrick. They were insane together, I was the calm one. Patrick joined SAE with me and we were both in USAF ROTC.  The summer of 1970, Patrick drove to Brookings where I picked him up and off we went to summer camp at Forbes AFB, KS (now closed). We were both just 21 and had both taken a liking to Singapore Slings. Summer camp was a two week very mild boot camp. We were allowed to leave the base on the weekend so Patrick and I rented a hotel room and filled our cooler with Singapo...