Comments:
After college I moved to New Mexico, where I lived & worked on the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation. as a youth worker/tutor/coach.
After two years on the Rez, I bailed and solo hiked the Appalachain Trail from Mass--Penn. Back in Sioux City, Steve Strong and I hooked up for a summer long journey to Mexico by way of Alaska. After Steve's VW van died at a gas station, I got a job at the same gas station and saved money to buy a car, in which I drove to Mexico where I found a job in Guaymas, Mexico for the next two years. There I taught English and literacy as well as traveled extensively throughout Mexico and Guatemala.
Upon meeting a girl named Carmen, I dropped my life on the west coast of Mexico and went inland to Chihuahua--all for a girl. Bad decision. There I worked another year as a high school literature teacher while trying to get to know Carmen around her jeolous boyfriend--Francisco.
She ended up marrying Francisco, he is an wealthy Mexican yuppie. So in short she chose security over adventure and poverty.
So after three years in Mexico I returned to Sioux City and canoed & hiked the entire the Yellowstone River while trying to re-enter the U.S..
I got back from the Yellowstone journey and applied at IBP. I worked as a forklift driver / translator with the intension of writing a book about IBP and bring the beast to its knees. I realized it was all much more complicated than I had first thought.
My knee was beginning to hurt. Mortality was starting to kick in and my health care wasn't so good. I lived like a coyote for ten years without health insurance. Then one day you go for a run and you can't deny the pain in your knee and you can't do anything about it. So I went back to school at the University of Iowa. I studied Spanish and got my teaching cert and some decent health care.
Now I keep racing 1/2 marathons and triathlons and figure I'll just blow my knee out for real and trust modern tecnology to kick in. If the knee ever completely goes, I just have them amputate the leg at the knee. I guess those new prosthetic legs work pretty well. Speaking about bones and breakdown, the other day I talked to Mr. Lyle. The man still runs everyday! He's what 80 years old?
Anyway somewhere in there I got married to a Sioux City girl--back in 2001. We have one kid and returned to Sioux City where I worked at North HIgh as a Spanish teacher for three years.
Now I'm at West and enjoying my job as teacher and cross country and freshman boys basketball coach. I must add it's a little jarring to have Jerry Turner's daughter in one of my classes. I can't believe that's possible.
It has been a wierd round circle these last 20 years. I had no idea it would end up where it began.
