1956

I Had a great car in 1956........The natural gas pipeline provided some great paying work for the construction workers...wow 1.30 an hour for laborers. We worked at least 10 hour days and 7 days a week....it took about week of waiting in a labour pool of men that would turn up every morning and with pleading eyes hope that a forman would need a hand.....yep...they looked us over and said you ,you and you ...that's it, lets go........finally one morning I was picked and ended up on a crew that put pipe through road crossings and creeks etc.....I was lucky ....that tie in crew was a great bunch to work with....in a while I was a welders helper and made 1.50 per hour......with all the hours piling on (sometimes 12- 4 hours a day ......I was earning some pretty good coin.......what's the first thing an 18 year old might get....yup a car.....Dad had just bought this 47 Plymouth....He was a mechanic and serviced this car regularly for the nurses at a Federal Hospital (Coqualitza)...it was a beaut.....Good old pop sold it to me for 500 bucks......what he paid for it........it was like new...it had been cared for so well....I proudly drove the car for 4 months and then unfortunatley it was stolen from a Dance 4 of us were attending at the Legion Hall....It was found the next day piled up...totaled ....yipes.... I had insurance ...got full price .....but lost a honey of a car......Shortley afer that episode I found a place to invest my new wealth and joined my pals and went to New Zealand.