A new girlfriend. I knew her family. They were Ojibway from Bois Forte. I had previously worked with her mother. Cheryl had a five year old son, Joe. We got along good. His Mom had been sober for a little over three years. My oldest son Chris had just graduated from high school. He came to live with us, along with my mother-in-law. It was a full house.
I pretended to stay sober, never coming home if I was gonna drink. That's the way it was. I usually stayed at my partner's house. One day after a job, I got stopped by a state trooper. He said I didn't seem drunk. I wasn't, I had just split a 12 pack with my partner after a day of sandblasting. Couldn't pass the breathalyzer so off to jail I went, which is no sweat for me, but it was the same day my MN drivers license was reinstated.
After being released, it was decided I would go north to the old State Hospital for “treatment”. It satisfied the judge and my new wife. After six weeks of vacation, I would advise the new CD counselor that I had been a counselor in one of my previous jobs. I finished with treatment.
The judge was happy, my wife was happy, we acted like newlyweds. Nine months later we had a son. The old dump we were renting was for sale. I bought it for the big 2-car garage. I now had a place for my Harley and that beautiful 57 Chevy Belair!!!
Number 3 wife had a job at “Indian Ed”. My old job at the gravel pit had ended after eight years. The ready mix operation was moved to St. Paul where I had friends who are still driving. Being the one and only plant operator when it shut down, my high buck paychecks ceased, so as always, I adapted.
After the DWI, I was sentenced to three weeks of night incarceration on the Old State Hospital grounds where we were charged $20 a night. I could leave during the day to work. I would go home and work outta my garage. Had to ride city buses. Returning in the evening we were breathalyzed, fed soup and a sandwich and would crawl into the bunk bed to be awakened at 5 am.
The place was packed- every bunk was filled- housed in open dorms. I was one of the old farts who was highly irritated by the loud rap music that was played all night long. After doing my pushups one night, asking the owner to turn it down, I was told to “Fuck Off!” That's all it took. I went across the room, opened the window, pushed that “boom box” to its death, slammed the window and was greeted with cheers. We all slept peacefully that night.
Weekends were the longest. From Friday night until Monday morning we were restricted to grounds. If you missed a “countdown” you served another day, and they made another $20. The population was 99% white working men under 30 who were caught up in the new DWI enforcement.
One of the weekends I was locked up, I met a fellow former Marine Vietnam Veteran. We were the two oldest and were mostly left alone because of our surly attitudes. Anyhoo, Ol' Walt offered me a job. He had set up a re-ink operation and wanted to get into re-loading toner cartridges. He asked if I could take a cartridge apart, clean it, reload it, package it. Sure I said, knowing I could. I gave his shop a visit, it was nearby. He handed me a toner cartridge. I used a needle nose, a Phillips, pulled the cartridge apart and put it back together in less
than three minutes.”With a little practice, I'll cut another minute off that time.”“Damn,” he said, “Can you start work Monday?”
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