A TON OF COFFEE AND A GALLON OF GAS

I remember the “energy crisis” of 1973.
I had already graduated from college with my degree in English (and my minor in Education).
I had gotten a teaching job right out of college, but I resigned after the first semester.
It was a situation where the “whites” were fighting the “browns”.
It was the time of Chicano power.
Parents came to school with guns.
The school was patrolled by policemen. Classrooms were locked.
I didn’t understand what all of the fighting was about, so I left. I wanted to be a teacher, not a referee.
That was 1971.
I “slipped into” a quiet one-room cottage in the mountains.
A creek was right behind my cottage.
It was winter.
I burned incense, listened to Cat Stevens and read a lot. My only companion was a black and white cat named Sam.
I waited for the spring to arrive and melt the frozen creek.
I lived on my final check from the school where I had taught.
But when winter was finished so was my money.
I got a job as a garbage collector.
The gig was hard, but the hours were short.
I started around 5:30 A.M. and finished at 1:00 P.M.
The driver (Don) was a soft-spoken guy in his early twenties. My co-worker on the back of the diesel-puffing garbage truck was a jolly Mexican in his late forties. He liked to point out the houses where he sometimes saw ladies wearing their nightgowns; but I never saw any ladies in such garb.
One cold and drizzly morning a man came out of his house and poured each of us a shot of whiskey. That hit the spot. My numb fingers inside my holy gloves became a little warmer.
I worked on the garbage truck until it got so cold that I couldn’t take it anymore, and I headed for Florida.
After I got tired of Florida I hitched back to Colorado.
I “landed” in Red River, New Mexico after a kid in a blue Karma Ghia picked me up in Amarillo, Texas.
It was a guitar that I was holding that got me the ride. I couldn’t even play it. I paid a $100 for it thinking that I might learn to play someday. I even gave it a name: April. I forget why. Maybe it was because of a woman that I had met with that name.
Anyway, Jim and I rented a small cabin and began looking for work in Red River the next day.
We became painters.
As I painted I listened to the ongoing Nixon impeachment hearings. They went on and on and on.
That was 1973.
I really didn’t feel affected by the “energy-oil” crisis because I didn’t drive, and I was living at a very low subsistence level.
I didn’t earn much money and I spent even less.
I remember one time I bumped into a friend at a local bar. I paid him with a poem I had written to buy me a beer. It was a good poem, but the beer was better.
Those were romantic days for me. I didn’t have responsibilities or attachments...I was just “afoot and lighthearted”.
I met some interesting people.
Then I moved on.
Geopolitics and I were as far apart as the moon and the stars.
I loved those days…Those good, old days.

IT'S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES!