And in the beginning…

It was the first week of July in 1978.  I was fresh out of high school and my dad had painfully pointed out that sitting at home waiting for that Bank Manager job to call for me wasn’t going to put gas in my car.

The ad was in the Help Wanted section of the Salt Lake Tribune; “Driver wanted for pizza delivery”.  Hey, I liked driving, been looking forward to it since I was 4.  And I liked pizza.  Whatta deal.

I got dressed in my best t-shirt and nicest Levi’s, put on my shoes with the least number of holes in them and drove down 939 E. 2100 South.  A dusty little store in the corner of a car dealership-turned-auto parts store.

The first thing I remember seeing was a 4 foot-nothing 20-something lady standing on a stool putting a pizza in an oven that was way too high up for her.  I think her name was Jo.  I told her I was there to apply for the driver job, she handed me a menu, flipped it over and told me to write my name, phone number and some other info I can’t remember now.

A few days later, it was a Friday night (July 7^th the records told me later), I got a call sometime around 3 in the afternoon.  It was Mike, from Free Wheeler and he wanted to offer me the delivery job.  Yeah, ok, haven’t heard from the bank yet, so why not.

“Can you be here at 5?” 

Tonight?  What?  Are you kidding.  I figured I’d still have a week of slacking before the interview and paperwork were all completed.

“No problem, I’ll be there.”

A career was born.

Eat your vegetables (or other plant foods).

So I was going to be really funny and do a “used vegetables” post for this theme.  I went up to our property this weekend and planned on getting a bunch of pictures of the evidence all the animals leave around.

I got evidence, but it was leftovers, not post-use.  Well, except for the last picture which I decided to include anyways.

Ok, so technically, it’s not a veggie.  It’s more of a cone or leaf or something like that.  But it’s still a plant that mammals (albeit rodents) eat, so I’m going for it.  This little one had dinner right on the steps to our shed.

This was some sort of nut cluster that yet another rodent ate, sitting on top of a rock overlooking the whole valley.  I thought it was really cool how he or she popped it open and left it relatively intact.

And here is the “post consumption” photo.  We rarely see any animals on the property, they do a good job of staying away.  But you can’t walk more than a couple yards without seeing evidence that they were there.  From deer to squirrels, they don’t bother to flush the toilet.

Hmmm, just a little bit better.

I just figured out the gas mileage for Lil’ Blue on the trip out to the Salt Flats and back.  Compared to what I was driving before, I’ll be saving a smidge of money.

See what I mean.  Probably wasn’t worth the trouble.

Someone gets it.