Hmmmmm, nobody has said "I just graduated from high school and figuring out what to do when I grow up." Instead it's a whole string of interesting occupations, but "still figuring out what to do when I grow up". Gives a body like me hope, must be a common bond for the verticle twin brand
So, I worked on farm crews baling hay for a few summers. After school landed a job in a recreation area park and promptly bought a 76 Bonneville. Spent 3 years there, registering campers, patrolling campgrounds, asking the rowdier campers to pack their bags at 2 am, doing odd & end maintenance stuff. The last year there, some kids rolled by a car I had pulled over and called me a "pig". That struck me as an odd comment, since I rode a motorcycle and had pretty long hair at the time. The badge & gun must have put them off.
Took a LE job with the National Park Service in Canyonlands and patrolled the slickrock backcountry on foot and by 4WD for three seasons. One day the neighboring ranch manager stopped in the visitor center. Being a day off, I pulled up on the British Twin. He wondered "Who's the ****** hippie?"
We became fast friends and a year later he offered me a job cowboying on the outfit. The NPS was a bit too rigid in their thinking for me, so I jumped at the offer. Riding horses all day through the slick rock canyons wasn't exactly like riding a Bonneville through the slickrock canyons, but I managed not to get bucked off too often - it was the best thing I ever did. A lot of what I learned worthwhile, I learned on that place. One day the manager said "You don't want to be a $600/month cowboy the rest of your life".
I kinda knew that already, so I ended up at Utah State University the next 4 years, learning the technical side of cattle and sheep and rangelands what I'd seen from the ground. So I spent 3 summers on top of Cedar Mountain 30 miles outside of Cedar City collecting sheep manure and 3 winters analyzing sheep manure in Logan. Which after it was all said and done, thoroughly qualified me to move to Montana and do whatever it is I've been doing since 1989.
People seem mostly happy, so I'm mostly happy and it pays better than $600 month. Slightly tongue-in-cheek, but then life has always struck me as slightly tongue-in-cheek.
And I get to ride the British twin for work throughout NW Montana during the season
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Now for what I want to do when I grow up
. Are there any grown-ups around here riding Triumph Twins??
jh
