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Between High School and Army
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This picture was taken at the Great Saltpeter Cave in Rockcastle County Kentucky. Imogene is on the left. Barbara Sparks sister next. Me, Barbara Sparks, My best friend Fred Mason, and my sister Stella. |
My days between graduating from High School and
joining the U.S. Army in February 1964 did not seem simple but somehow I
seemed simple at that time. I seemed to want what everyone else
wanted. A good job, a car, a girlfriend.
I worked for a month or so in Richmond Indiana as soon as I reached 18. I shared an apartment with my brother James and Dickie Sexton. We all worked at Warfield car wash. It was like the getting a job a McDonalds in the 1990's. I moved back to Kentucky and decided to help Dad farm for awhile. He still had the farm at Climax and also sharecropped on the property that I was born on. There was just not enough money even though I also worked as a farm laborer for other farmers at that time. I joined the Army for economic reasons. I still had the patriotism but making a living for myself was the important reason.
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In a performance art piece called the "Pied Piper" that I did in Columbus Ohio, in 1993 I gave each audience member a dollar attached to a piece of paper that said "I am giving you this dollar. You may spend it as you wish. By accepting it you enslave yourself to my economic system. You are now my economic slave. You must follow where I lead or you know what will happen. You must someday repay the Piper. Your payment in full is your life. Either you work your life away until you are too old or you can die a glorious soldiers death in your youth. The Piper will choose."
I feel these were my only two choices and I think it is the choices of all young adults. It is the capitalist way.
to be continued.......
