Rambler section 2
With my Uncle Jim’s help (generosity) I was able to acquire a motorcycle that provided my transportation from Valley Forge into town to work. It was another risk. I never carried insurance of any type, I never even thought of it. I was able to get a job at a service station and made plans to enter college in the fall. In the fall the motorcycle was my transportation to Milligan College. I thought I was on my way in my climb up the economic ladder–not quite.
On my first day on campus at Milligan I had the feeling I might belong, that I might fit in. I met some girls I had known from church in Elizabethton and the reception was positive- I thought. But as time wore on and the social life of the college developed outside the parameters of my schedule with a full-time job and no car, I was in the role of a loner. Having been raised alone and not permitted to develop social relationships with the neighborhood children, I was used to being a loner. Not having parents who knew and socialized with the parents of my college classmates created another gap in the social fabric. My grandparents who raised me belonged to and lived in a different age, and would have considered the college kids rather frivolous. So, I went to school, left class, and went to work. Work was my recreation as well as my sole source of income. As that first year wore on I gradually began to think more and more of my experience in Detroit and decided to return the next summer.
Probably a year wasted in college!! You know, being poor really can affect the way you see yourself. I need to think about the topic in greater depth! I just got a glimpse of the idea in that last sentence- like a crevice opened up in my thinking and an idea flashed in like a bright light. I’ll take some time and think about it, then I’ll say more.
(added later by Dad) Being poor means you have limited or no options. I always had options: the open road and I knew how to work and how to get a job.
Map of a Mountain Man 