My Only Crime Was Being Born, Volume 2

Chapter 1

Jeffee’s Most Asinine Gov Thing at Fort Sam Ever

I really thought I was at the end of Volume 2 of my biography without adding anything more. But what happened to me on Friday was the most asinine thing that's ever happened to me while working for the government and that is saying a lot. So I had to tell you.

And again Murphy's Law was in effect, no good deed goes unpunished. I was all alone in the office because our boss had to sadly go to a funeral and Carol had her regular day off. I had to go over and see a guy named John about the NAF property book so after I get done visiting I thought I'm near the warehouse where we pick up our office mail so I'll go over and pick it up like I have been doing for probably the last 10 years since they stopped delivering the mail to our buildings.

Once again I'm using my own money to buy gas for government business like I have done my whole life, probably cost me at least a couple of thousand dollars that I was entitled to but again like I say elsewhere they make it so hard for you to collect local mileage it's just not worth the hassle.

I arrive at the bay in the warehouse where we go to get our mail. I parked my car and got out and headed to the mailroom window. Normally all I have to do is ask somebody I see behind the counter or ring the bell to bring somebody to the counter and then I say please give me the mail for Internal Review or IR which is Stop 27. Today at the mailroom would be very different. I go up to the counter and asked the guy for the mail Stop 27. The young man goes to me I'm new here I don't recognize you, could I see your ID? I am a little bit puzzled but I showed him my identification.

He looks at my identification card and then gets some kind of a book and starts flipping the pages in the book and he comes to a page and he says according to this book Carol E is the only person authorized to pick up mail for the Internal Review office. I think I gave him a quite puzzled look and said I have been picking up mail here for over 10 years since you stopped delivering and the only mail we ever get anyway is the Newsleader which is the local base newspaper writing nice articles on all the wonderful units we have on the base – not exactly hard-hitting news if you know what I mean.

The guy again says I'm sorry only Carol E can pick up the mail. I told him give me back my ID card. Then I said to him in a rather rude manner which is the way I intended to say it: Keep the damn mail. And I stormed out of there. As far as I'm concerned they better get a really large bin for the Internal Review mail cause I ain't never going over there again to pick up that damn mail screw them. For once again the government lets bureaucracy get in the way of common sense and I have to suffer.

Chapter 2

A Day in the Life of a Fool, March 8, 2011

Here's what in this day-to-day makes me unhappy and probably is a typical example of the low-level crap that continually happens in my life that makes me very frustrated, depressed, and not thrilled with the world around me. In no particular order, I had to call Dell two weeks ago because my sound system failed. I couldn't hear anything, music videos, the nice files where people speak, sing, sound the kind of things that is nice to hear.

One reason I like having a sound system on my new computer is that many years ago in 1994 I got an old Dell computer. I think I got it because I went to some timeshare presentation or land purchase presentation something like that because they have to promise you nice things to get you to go where they're trying to sell you some overpriced land or a timeshare. And as it typical for Mr. My Only Crime Is Being Born I am not editing Volume 2 on my new computer but on my old computer because a very unnice person sent my new computer a horrible virus that wiped out my computer; I have to start over with new operating system – Windows 7, several new anti-virus, anti-malware software, reload all my old programs including Microsoft Office etc. – more about that in another chapter.

So I got this computer; it's free, it's the bare-bones model. In my experience, unless you're Stevie Wonder it is not really useful to have a computer that doesn't have a monitor. So I did splurge and get a crappy monitor, one of those old ones, cheap China monitors, not the nice new modern flat screen you see today. As a matter of fact I still have the computer, it still works, and luckily I don't have to use it... Until now because at least I can edit my book on the old computer. So I lived without sound for 15 years and I was damned determined when I got a new computer it would have a good sound system and I was going to hear everything I wanted to hear.

So of course I was upset on February 23 when my sound system stopped working. I called Dell technical support and Dell's very nice but it takes forever and you have to phone several different phone numbers to ever connect with somebody who can really help you.

A very nice lady was kind enough to figure out a way to diagnose my computer and found a couple of hardware errors by doing checks on the sound system. Windows is very clever and has self-testing features inside their operating systems and seeing what works or doesn't work. You have to be an expert to figure out how to do them and not be old and decrepit and never grew up with computers, so I needed help and thank you Dell for helping me with that.

Course I'm upset when today March 8; I suddenly don't hear sound anymore. Usually my computer makes little noises like a bell rings if you hit certain features you like. I wasn't hearing those noises; I was suspicious and I had my failsafe way to test and see if my sound system works. My buddy Louie sent me this great video of this guy impersonating all six of the Village People. Real guy is in the middle and he is hooked up to the other five Village People-looking puppets. I guess you would call them the policeman, the firemen, the engineer, whatever they were and then he goes out and does this incredible routine dancing and moving the five puppets while the Village People sing YMCA.

I got to hear the silent version of YMCA and it's is not as good as the audio version. So again tonight I called Dell and told them I was upset that the nice gentleman named Kirby, who came out on February 23, didn't seem to do a very good job. Kirby fixed my computer and now it's not working again and has the same problem that Kirby fixed a couple weeks before. At least this tale had a happy ending; this very nice gal at Dell took control of my computer and within a few minutes I was listening to sound. I don't understand what she did but thank you very much but I'd feel better in the long run if I never had to call them about things like that and the sound system just worked.

I'm still having problems with my sound today. I figured out a way occasionally to put the sound on but I think because of this Dragon NaturallySpeaking software, it keeps changing whatever sound card I'm using on my computer so I have to constantly go to my controls to open a video file and listen to it. But I can't open a You Tube video file because for some damn reason, my computer freezes every time I try to open a video from You Tube. Any geniuses at YouTube or anywhere else that have a fix for this problem; please let me know. Good news! Paying over $1,000 to start over with Windows 7 and a lot of other new software fixed my You Tube video problem.

Hey I figured out a way to solve the problem of YouTube videos freezing. You just have to get your computer infected with a horrible virus that wipes out everything on your computer so you have to start over with new operating system like Windows 7 and spend at least $1000 fixing your computer. By doing that when you finally get your computer back working two weeks later; you magically find that you can watch YouTube videos. I guess I'll have to watch YMCA by the Village People several hundred times to break even.

Chapter 3

Jeffee Gets to Do Annoying, Crappy Paperwork

The thing that's annoying to me is I get to do all this incredibly crappy paperwork. I'm still trying to clean up the hit-and-run accident that totaled my daughter's car and unfortunately the hit-and-run driver wasn't nice enough to come to my door and say: Hey Jeff, I caused the accident. I have come over here to take care of that paperwork for your totaled car; you shouldn't have to do it, you you're not at fault for me running a red light in and hitting your daughter's car and totaling it. But he did not come to the door and so I had to do it myself.

Farmers Insurance has very nice, incredibly nice people, but because of the mumbo-jumbo of legal crap I have to fill out all these exacting forms and get them exactly right. The form I stumbled on was this power of attorney which basically gives the car back to Farmers Insurance for stripping of parts but they have to get a quote on the car to consider it a total wreck before they'll send you the check for the amount of the totaled car.

They were very nice and set me a FedEx Express envelope with all of the forms. Unfortunately they told me wrong on one of the names; they said I have to sign the name exactly as it is on the title or it's no good. They told me my name is Jeff Weber and my wife's name is Judy Weber. So I sent in the form with Judy Weber as my wife's name, which was wrong. Because now it turns out she had to sign as Judith Weber not Judy Weber. But again Farmers was very nice and sent me another FedEx envelope, another power of attorney form and so again we filled out the forms, again I got in my car, again I went down to FedEx, Kinko's which luckily is pretty close by and again I mailed Farmers Insurance another FedEx package so I'm really hoping that's the end of that.

I'll say one good thing that happened today. I figured my federal income tax couple weeks earlier. I was very depressed because I wound up owing $350 despite having a $1,500 credit for buying a new furnace and air conditioner under the federal energy program as they were giving out $1,500 credits until the end of December and luckily I bought mine on December 20 so I qualify for the credit. And I'm from the old school - I've never done my income tax on TurboTax or any of the softwares; I was doing it the old-fashioned way - writing on a pieces of paper called tax forms.

My guess is even the IRS is getting modern because this year for the first time they didn't even mail me the 1040 instruction booklet that includes all the forms in the envelope to send it back. I guess that's their subtle reminder they would like you to use the Internet or something to file. I am from the old school and do it by paper. But one of the disadvantages of using paper is you might miss something that the TurboTax or other software would catch. I almost missed an $800 working credit because I didn't know about it. Through some miracle of good luck which is rare in my case I stumbled on this story on CNN or Yahoo that talked about the tax credit for working families and it's very simple to fill out. I filled it in the block for the credit when I filled out my 1040; I'm entitled to a credit of $800 as a married couple. So when I refigured my income taxes with that working credit for $800 now I'm getting a refund of $448 so that was some paperwork I was very happy to redo. Weedhopper again speak too soon. There's good news and bad news. The good news is I did get the $448 credit; the bad news is the IRS is applying it to money I owed them from the previous year so I didn't see a nickel but I did have my debt to the IRS reduced.

If I owed money, I was casually waiting till April 15. There is no great incentive if you owe money to the IRS to mail early is there? So it will make me happy, tomorrow I’m going to mail in my income tax forms. I have my wife signature on the Farmer’s power of attorney that I had to go down to FedEx and remail.

Tomorrow luckily we have a Post Office on Fort Sam Houston so the IRS will get my income tax forms tomorrow and hope I get the refund soon, (as you'll see above I got a refund, but didn't really get a refund). I also mailed in an energy refund to the state of Texas. Texas has this big energy rebate fund to encourage people to do energy conservation projects like put in insulation, get new windows that are sealed and to buy a new furnace or air conditioner. Luckily again I bought a new furnace at the beginning of the energy program when the energy fund had plenty of money. In Texas it's a first come first serve for the energy rebates, when the $14 million runs out no more rebates. I was entitled to $1,000 energy rebate and finally after three or four months I did get the check for the $1,000 hallelujah.

Texas has a website that lets you somewhat measure the progress of what's going on with your rebate; I was able to go in there and see that they approved my rebate. I saw little later my account has been processed so I should be getting a check for thousand dollars from the state of Texas – thank you Gov. Rick Perry. Unfortunately the site never tells you exactly when you will get the check; just says approved. Maybe take two months I was thinking. Around the end of February I thought but of course I was wrong, when people are going to send you money it's never early it's always late but I'll be waiting for my check. I finally got my check in late March again hallelujah.

Today March 8 really didn't get off to a good start. I get to work around 10 after six in the morning, it’s dark at 10 after six in the morning and it was strange because usually my boss is there a little early and the lights are on. I see car lights in the parking lot so thought my boss went to get something out of his car hadn't come into the office yet.

It was dark in our office and I flipped on the lights and the lights don't come on. We have no power. And yet I get faked out at first because the big building in front of us did have power but then I realized something as I walked behind that big building to our little building. I heard this very loud noise and when you hear that very loud noise it means their generator is running because the power is out. They are the Emergency Operations Center for Fort Sam Houston so they have to have power at all times so when the regular electricity dies, they flip on their generator. We were a little building not quite as important so we don't have our own generator. But luckily I have a real cool boss and wonderful secretary named Carol so like the Three Musketeers we make the best of a bad situation.

We hung around the office in the dark with a couple of flashlights for about 10 minutes and we said we don't think the power going to come right back on. We were supposed to go to this Wingman Day, an Air Force Way of learning to help your buddy in preventing suicides and a lot of very good things and Wingmen day was supposed to start in about one hour.

I get this brilliant idea that I suggested to our Three Musketeers. I said let's get in our cars and go over to the Burger King on post which is near where we are supposed to be for this Wingman thing. We will have a nice cuppa coffee, a croissant sandwich, a little TV and then we'll go over to the Wingman thing when it's time. Great, everybody said that's a great idea so we locked up the office, drove over to Burger King and they had plenty of power. We ordered our coffee, got a croissant, sat down to watch CNN news for about half an hour. We had a very nice experience so that was one occasion where I was able to turn a lemon into lemonade and I wish there were more occasions like that.

I'm really happy because lately my Dragon NaturallySpeaking is working much better. At first I couldn't figure out how to turn the microphone on and off but I got lucky; because it's working really well. Yesterday or the day before it drove me crazy because suddenly it didn't recognize me at all and was acting like I'd never loaded a profile at all. Course you got a realize I'm still a neophyte when it comes to computers and I guess I accidentally messed up something and I had a profile for me but somehow or other it had stopped being the default profile so it was thinking I would try adding new profile but luckily through some miracle I stumbled on where my saved profile was; when I clicked on it then everything started working again. Now my new profile is Jeff Weber restore, because the old Jeff Weber profile just won't work and I don't know why.

Chapter 4

Jeffee and His Working Career – The Early Years

Like I said elsewhere I'm talking about where I lived as a boy. I lived in Ramsey, New Jersey. The earliest jobs I can ever remember having were the typical little boy jobs that you have in a nice suburban type of neighborhood. My earliest memories of jobs were raking leaves, mowing lawns, and shoveling snow when winter came. I was a fairly assertive little man. In my enthusiasm whenever it was the right season I would go knocking on the doors of my neighbors who didn't have any children to help them with these kind of chores and see if they would like their leaves raked or their grass mowed or their snow shoveled depending on what time of year was. I'd make pretty good money doing that.

Of course I always had to mow our own grass and rake and shovel our own snow at our house. But that's okay, that's part of the chores being a child of helping your parents outside in the four seasons of the year. I made a little money doing that and did meet a lot of nice people and I kind of enjoy being outdoors so that was nice. The start of my working life.

The first what you would call real job I ever remember having was helping this friend of mine named Mark M deliver newspapers for the Bergen Evening Record, the local North New Jersey newspaper.

How exactly how I came to help Mark I don't remember but I would help Mark and then he would pay me money. On a good day I would get $.50 for helping him but on other days he might just give me a quarter or $.35. Then at some point for whatever reason he never came to my house to get me when he went up to get the newspapers and after a couple weeks I asked him. I guess he decided he wanted to keep all the money for himself and he recommended I get my own Bergen Evening Record delivery route. I called the Bergen Evening Record to see if there was another paper route in the area that I could do.

That was a good idea. When I called up the Bergen Evening Record I was able to get my own paper route. I would ride my bike, pick up the papers, deliver the papers, and collect the money for the papers. I was really the true independent businessman and at a very young age. It was good training for future life; I enjoyed it, met a lot of interesting people and was glad I took the job. And people were nice and gave me lots of tips.

The first real job I ever had with a real business was working for a local pharmacy in Ramsey, New Jersey. The owner was a pharmacist named Mike D. He was our neighbor down the street and I guess casually I must've mentioned I was interested or something but at the tender age of 12 probably violated some child labor laws somewhere who the hell knows. I found myself working a couple hours a week on the weekend at Mike's Pharmacy. I think I used to help stock things like candy, gum, cigarettes, and back then cigarettes had not been identified as the killers we all know they are today. Whatever kind of work I was doing I certainly wasn't dispensing medicine at the pharmacy. But I remember the pharmacy had these old-style cash registers where you had to push the keys down. The customer's total amount would appear on the cash register and add up all the purchases that the customer made. They'd give me the money and I'd make them change and put their purchases in a bag. I did that very well; never had any problems of making change or messing up the people's purchases. The pharmacy provided me a very good job. I enjoyed my good little job and don't even remember what I made an hour but it was good wage back in those days who knows.

Chapter 5

Working for Railroad Model Craftsman – It Changed my Life

The next job I can remember was in high school which I started when I was 13 or 14 I don't actually remember. That job was being a shipping clerk for Railroad Model Craftsman magazine. Like I said earlier or later in this autobiography book, I've always been a big railroad and model railroad fan my whole life.

Again I love real railroads and I also love model railroads. Again, I am a vigorous reader and one day I was in the Ramsey public library and I happened to notice the magazine rack. When I went over there I found a couple of magazines devoted to model trains. I read everything, maybe that's why I became an author late in life. I don't miss much of what I read. Railroad Model Craftsman astonished me. It turned out that magazine was published in my hometown of Ramsey, New Jersey. What are the odds of that? Actually later on finding out the information that the magazine was published in Ramsey, New Jersey had a significant effect on the rest of my life, believe it or not.

I jotted down the address of Railroad Model Craftsman in Ramsey, New Jersey that I believe was on Arch Street and almost right next to the four railroad tracks of the Erie Lackawanna Railroad that ran right through the center of Ramsey, New Jersey.

So I found out where that street was and promptly next week I went over to the offices of Railroad Model Craftsman and met this wonderful gentleman who was the editor of Railroad Model Craftsman named Harold Carstens. He was a wonderful, wonderful man and the other couple of people that worked in that office were also wonderful. I think one was named Naomi and one was named Susan, they were absolutely wonderful people. Harold was impressed with me and I am like 14 or 15 and he offered me a job as their shipping clerk after school for a couple hours every day after school, I don't exactly remember. Railroad Model Craftsman was the place I got my first Social Security card which I'll never forget.

My job consisted of opening mail from people who wanted to buy back issues of Railroad Model Craftsman, people who wanted to buy train layouts that showed suggested ways you could make a model train layout, books that actually had punch out houses, factories, other buildings, you could put up on a model railroad site and other books. I also mailed out letters to subscribers using a Pitney Bowes meter machine and it was really interesting job and I really enjoyed it.

And I got to sit on this conveyor belt that went from the first floor to the basement which was pretty cool because I guess we got deliveries of magazines and other things in the basement so I would sit on the conveyor belt, turn it on it and would go down to the basement. I would jump off, turn it off, pick up the boxes with our magazines and other goodies, put them on the conveyor belt, and change the direction of the conveyor belt to go back up on the conveyor belt to the first floor. I really enjoyed that when I was 14 or 15. And ironically the offices for Railroad Model Craftsman were located right next to the Erie Lackawanna Railroad.

Here is how Railroad Model Craftsman affected the rest of my life. Railroad Model Craftsman was owned by an eccentric millionaire by the name of Charles Penn. Mr. Penn was approximately 2, 000 miles away from Ramsey, New Jersey. Mr. Penn lived in Arizona and again believe it or not, he owned an actual ghost town in Arizona called Bumble Bee, Arizona.

One year later, Harold Carstens drove out to Bumble Bee, Arizona from Ramsey, New Jersey to meet with Mr. Penn. When Harold Carstens came back from that meeting in Bumble Bee, Arizona he showed me pictures of Arizona, the cacti in Arizona, the beautiful deserts in Arizona, and I fell in love with Arizona.

It was after seeing those pictures I made up my mind I wanted to go to college in Arizona and live out West. I was tired of living in New Jersey and the East with the cold weather and I wanted warm weather and it was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life when I decided to go to school at the University of Arizona. I would've never known about the University of Arizona if I hadn't noticed that Railroad Model Craftsman was published in Ramsey, New Jersey, hadn't gone over to Railroad Model Craftsman offices in Ramsey, New Jersey and asked for a job, and then been hired for that job. So you never know when a simple twist of fate might do you some good so follow through on something you think that is right and it may benefit you the rest of your life.

While working at Railroad Model Craftsman I made a bad mistake and I'll admit it for whatever reason. Right across the street was this Five and Ten cent store run by these rather frugal individuals; I believe they were brothers.

Somehow or other I found out that I can get a job at this Five and Ten. And it would pay about $.50 or a dollar more an hour. So I quit my job at Railroad Model Craftsman and started going to work at that Five and Ten. Big mistake. Those brothers were horrible to work for. They were really a pain in the butt to work for. If you were goofing off for 2 seconds they got mad and basically they gave me my first lesson in the fact that when you go to work for somebody else you may get a bad boss and really not like your job very much. That was proved to me many times over the years.

Chapter 6

Good Job at Sub Sandwich Shop

I can't really remember any other jobs I had in the New Jersey area so I'll fast-forward to jobs I had after I went to the University of Arizona. There I got a really good job while I was going to school with a great boss by the name of George. George ran a Submarine Sandwich Shop that employed nothing but college students and there were two basic jobs in the submarine sandwich place. You either made sub sandwiches for the people who walked in and bought them in the shop to eat there or bring home or you would be a deliveryman for the sub shop when people would call in an order that make the sandwiches put them in bags right the addresses and then you get in your car and go out and deliver them. Being right next to the University of Arizona, obviously our main clientele were hungry students in dorms and apartments in the nearby area.

I did both jobs and it was really nice because a lot of the time I had my friends working in there with me including my lifelong friend from college Terry Klein. George was a great boss and always treated you well – a real example of somebody whose bark was worse than his bite. Because when you met him for the first time you think he could be an awful yeller and a screamer, a very hard boss to work.

But beneath that gruff exterior beat a heart of gold and it was great pleasure to work for George and I enjoyed working at that submarine sandwich shop as long as I worked there. George was even nice enough to help me out in the situation I talk about elsewhere in the book when I got the incredibly stupid idea of driving across the country to visit that girl in Georgia named Nody. George was nice enough to give me lots of extra hours and lots of deliveries so I could make enough money to be able to go to Georgia.

One nice thing George would do is he would give us a discount or free sub when we were working there and he let us go behind the counter and make our own sub. I remember all the time when I went back behind the counter in the mood for a roast beef sub and I would put on two or three times the amount of roast beef on the sub we were supposed to so I really made a good custom deluxe sandwich exactly the way I wanted to and it was all for free as I said George is a great boss.

Chapter 7

Jeffee Delivers Newspapers by Car and Scooter

Let me go from the extreme opposite of a job I enjoyed to the very opposite of the nice time I had working at George's Submarine Sandwich Shop and tell you about probably the worst job I ever had in my life with the worst working conditions and other miscellaneous worse things.

One day I was going by the student job office on the University of Arizona campus and outside on the bulletin board I noticed that the Tucson Morning Star, I believe was the name of the paper, was looking for people to deliver the newspaper on motorized paper routes.

Like I said above, I had experience delivering a newspaper on a paper route on a bicycle but this was different; this was the adult version of what I did as a youth on my bicycle. When I called them up, I found that they were looking for somebody who had a car. They would give you four or five routes; you might be delivering 100-250 papers and you have to do it out of your car in the middle of the night. All delivered newspapers had to be delivered right to the persons front door at their house, apartment, or trailer, I had them all.

For whatever reason in my infinite foolishness I took this job. And it was a real nightmare. First of all I delivered the paper seven nights a week; I never got a day off. I still remember one night the foolish things you do when you're in college.

The way it worked was this. I had to go to the rendezvous point where the newspaper delivery truck would come with tons of newspapers and four or five people like me would assemble at this rendezvous point, pick up the newspapers we were going to deliver and then have to deliver them. But it wasn't that easy.

When you got the newspapers you had to fold all of your newspapers to the throwing position which basically involved taking the newspaper, folding it into thirds and then shoving one of the thirds into the other third and so you folded in thirds and made kind of an envelope. And on mornings when the weather was threatening and it was raining or it might rain because just like the Post Office you didn't get the day off when the weather was cold or raining, the newspaper would give you these little plastic bags and you had to put the newspaper in these bags after you folded them.

And I think the newspaper wanted you out there at two or three in the morning at the rendezvous point; a wonderful hour to be out working. On many days when you'd show up on time to the rendezvous point, the delivery truck would be late and all you could do was wait, not very interesting.

I did not get paid for waiting; all I could do was sit there and wait. I wound up with five paper routes so I had about 250 papers to deliver. When I took that job I still I had a ‘56 Chevy as my car. I remember the first night or two I delivered my papers with my ‘56 Chevy. Wow, that was a real pain in the butt because I had to stop all the time, get out and throw the paper, follow the delivery route with a car. I pulled sometimes in the driveways and other awkward places and I found it was taking me like half a tank of gas every night to deliver the paper.

Of course the newspaper wasn't paying me anywhere near all the money I was spending on gas so I was literally losing money delivering that newspaper. I came up with a great idea because my very nice mom had crated up my Vespa motor scooter from New Jersey and shipped it out to Tucson, Arizona so I could use it while going to college because at the time I didn't have a car out there and the weather was nice in Arizona, I could use a scooter.

So after two or three days I decided to see if I could deliver the newspapers using my scooter. And that worked out pretty good. What I used to do with my scooter was to use the floorboard. When you put your feet on this floorboard there would be some empty space between your left and right legs. I would take the papers, put them in a big sack with as many as I could carry and then I would go out and deliver the newspapers. That was very easy; throw the newspaper, pick one from the sack between my legs, throw it to the house, trailer I was supposed to throw it to.

The thickness of newspapers was normally light on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and the paper was pretty thin and light and I could carry all 250 newspapers between my legs in the sack. But on the heavy days like the weekend like Sunday, the newspaper was always very thick, the best I could do was carry half of my newspapers between my legs. I would take the half of the newspapers, go out and throw them. After throwing half the newspapers I would drive back home, load up the rest of newspapers, and go out and finish my route.

At one point as I remember, the newspaper gave me a new route to deliver. My wonderful newspaper supervisor took me out in the back of a pickup truck one night and there were about 50 customers on that route and he showed me where to throw those newspapers. All he gave me was one night of experience. So the next night on my own I am out there trying to deliver all five of my paper routes.

Well, guess what. I go out there the next night and the first four routes I delivered were my old familiar routes and so I knew where every newspaper went; I had memorized all of the delivery points. Then I went to do that new route and I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on with that new route. I had no clue even what street I was supposed to begin on and so after trying a few minutes I totally gave up on it and didn't deliver any of those newspapers that I had no idea where the hell the customers houses were.

I got the shock of my life the next day. I was going to my classes at the University of Arizona and wandering around the campus when out the blue this pickup truck appears on the street right in front of me on the campus and somebody jumps off the pickup truck and grabs me and says to jump in the back of the pickup truck.

How they found me on the University of Arizona campus I have no idea. I was coming out of one of my classes and somehow they found me. It's not like I gave the newspaper supervisor a list of my classes during the week and told them please, drag me off the campus anytime you need me because delivering newspapers is the most important thing in my life.

I was wondering, is this a kidnapping in broad daylight? No, it was some supervisor from the newspaper who had been getting lots of complaints from customers that their newspaper hadn't gotten delivered that morning. Of course those customers were right: because I didn't know where the hell to deliver those newspapers.

I found that the reason I was in the back of the pickup truck was because the supervisor decided we've got to go out right now and deliver those 50 newspapers. I felt a little more at ease and figured nobody was going to have to pay a ransom for me. We drove in the back of the pickup and delivered the newspapers. And I guess after that second or third time the supervisor took me out to deliver the newspapers, I found out I had a pretty good memory and I figured out where all those houses were and then I was able to deliver all five