My money-making was primarily hauling hay until I was 15. 1¢ for 1 bale from the field to the barn. I recall once making $22 in one day. That's a bunch of hay.

In the summer of my 15th year we entered a hayfield of damp alfalfa bales. It was about 100º (maybe a bit over) and the humidity was horrible. Those bales must have weighed 130 to 150 lbs each. I walked out of that field and back to town, never to haul another bale as a means of making money. My talent at pool and snooker was put to use as an "alternate" means of making money and I soon found out that type of"work" was much easier and more rewarding. We were poor as dirt and every penny I could muster was needed.

I did well in school and got a full scholarship to the University of Missouri at Rolla. After having been there for 6 days of class, I decided that college just wasn't for me. This was late 1968, Vietnam was raging and I still had a 2S deferment. I decided to hunt that fall, then pick a branch of service and join up. In March of 69, I joined the US Navy submarine/nuclear program. I volunteered for PBR duty in Vietnam but was told I was too valuable in my designated rate to be put at that much risk. I guess. By late September of that year I started a brief visit to Vietnam and spent 3 months at Yankee Station on the USS Constellation. I found the whole experience interesting, but not at all funny. The remainder of my nearly 8.5 years in the Navy was spent as a nuke submariner (several patrols on an FBM submarine), a recruiter, and finally in a maintenance support facility prior to separation.

After discharge, I went to work at Paul Mueller's in Springfield, MO. After a grand 8 day career there as a journeyman electrician, I decided they were going to kill me if I stayed. Three near-death experiences in 8 days was just too much. OSHA later busted them pretty good for theirmiserable safety practices. I had only taken that job because I wanted to stay in the area of my roots and it did pay well for that time. Meanwhile, I was given definite job offers at Arkansas Nuclear One and at HB Robinson nuclear plant near Hartsville, SC. Since my wife was from SC, that's the job I took.

I did well there but after a little over 3 years and becoming a reactor operator, the nagging lure to come back to Missouri got the better of me. I took a job for Union Electric at their Callaway plant in Missouri. Union Electric absolutely SUCKED as a company and the union employees were just as bad. The rivalry between management and union was something I couldn't tolerate. I was on both sides of that divide while there, but didn't like either. So I called up the folks at my job at Robinson and got my old position back - along with a substantial pay raise. Going back to SC was a good move and again I did very well, becoming a Senior Reactor Operator in very little time.

Once certain elements of my life proved I was never going to get ahead working for a utility, the lure of big money caught up with me. I had turned down job after job offered by head hunters (this was post TMI and demand was incredible for people with my skills). The Robinson plant was operated by Carolina Power and Light - a company with a non-union work force and a great working environment, but that environment had begun todeteriorate with administrative changes that created tension and unfair treatment. When a very reliable, intelligent friend of mine was punished for doing something we had always been expected to do and did routinely - I had decided that was just too much. So I took a contract job in Illinois and did about 5 years of that type work. The last two years was extremely difficult - let me just say that unknowingly the people at Commonwealth Edision had given me near total control of a 6-billion dollar nuclear project.

I'm leaving out a good deal of my personal life because it was mostly a nightmare. My wife then was a holy terror and I later learned had a substantial drug habit which she kept well hidden. That part of my story could go on and on, but suffice it to say that I could never get ahead financially and spent very few happy hours at home. She did things totally beyond belief and later, after she had disappeared in the night with my son and the divorce was final, she had a man murdered in SC. She was released from prison in 2008 - and I think the world is now at greater risk. She was, for a time, Susan Smith's cell mate and best buddy. The woman is a demon if one walks the earth.

I suffered three very serious breakdowns at almost 1 year intervals after her disappearance and further shenanigans. She had taken 153,000 in cash with her when she took off but the only thing that concerned me was my son.

Without the support of the lady that has been my wife for the past 16 years, I would have been lost to insanity or dead. Nita has been my rock. I thank whatever powers that be for her. But my working career is over and has been for some time. My son is now 33, has a wife and two kids, and they come to see us fairly often even though he still lives in SC. He has NOTHING to do with his natural mother.

I do work on computers to raise a few extra bucks, a self-taught wacko but I get calls from folks all over. People seem to think I do an excellent job for them.