Page 29 - Been There… Done That!

Been There... Done That!
CHAPTER 2 “Let’s Start A Band”
After leaving the Navy, where I had been performing at the time, I decided it was time to go after my dream of a career in the music business. Of course, I didn’t have a career all planned out, so I came back to Lake Ozark, Missouri and took a job as an electrician because it was the only job available that paid decent wages. I can’t tell most of the details of that experience, but I remember well the day I quit.
My uncle Hank had a contract with Nickerson Farms, a roadside restaurant franchise much like Stuckey’s and he was hired to do their electrical wiring. I had only worked for him for a few months and some of the work took us out of town. We stayed in motels wherever the job was and we got up one morning to find an ice storm that was a son of a bitch. It was a severe storm. When we got to the site, we saw an electrical conduit had been left exposed and the frozen rain had utterly iced it over. In a losing attempt to free it up, I started beating on the ice with a chunk of pipe and we set up some torches to warm it up. The weather was just freezing miserable cold.
Then old I. J. Nickerson drove up and wouldn’t even get out of the car. He just asked if it was cold enough for me. He went on and on until I finally told Hank it was too cold, let’s get out of here and he agreed.
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