The Beginning of My Senior Year

This was the first day of school my senior year of 1970. I was still not too cool to smile at the camera. And I am amazed how trim I was in this picture. I was a starting interior lineman on our team, and although Malad was small, our coach quoted others by saying that our team had the best offensive line in all of Southeastern Idaho.

The shirt I wore in this picture was blue, and it was my favorite. I can not believe I actually had notebooks in my hand.

During my sophomore year, I had a pair of Tony Lama boots made of Water Buffalo hide. They were really comfortable, and I enjoyed them, but the extended time it took me with a cast after knee surgery that year, meant that the pair would never look like boots that went together as a set. The left one looked new, which makes sense when you consider that was the leg that I had surgically repaired.

The boots I am wearing in this picture were the Texas tan calfskin boots I wore for the next two years, including my first year in college. At a time when shoes were inexpensive, my dad let me have a pair of boots that were over $100, and the fringed, hippy coat was even more at $125. He let me know that if I started to act like a long-haired freak, I would lose the coat.

He never took the coat. I never could have grown my hair out like that, because I would have looked more like Shirley Temple than David Crosby. The nature of my hair is why I always wore it short, and I still do. Kids teased me about it. But I did the freaky music, and I still love the music from that time. It was a great year.

I was a jock. I was a musician. I found my soulmate. And I was a little bit of a hippy freak too.