April 26, 2013

48 of 65

Ch…Ch…Ch…Changes

A short time before I graduated from high school, my parents embarked on a new career. They opened a sporting goods store called Sportline in the Arvada Plaza Shopping Center. It was a brave thing for them to do. They had no experience in that business and opening the store took most of their savings. This all occurred as they anticipated having one or more of their children in college for the next eight years.

I worked all the time I was in college to pay my own way as much as possible. That first summer after high school, my job was – no surprise – to help run Sportline. I picked up inventory from suppliers’ warehouses, stocked the shelves, waited on customers, swept the floors, cleaned bathrooms. In short, I did whatever was necessary for the business to succeed. After a few months, I moved to Boulder to attend college.

Between the time I started college in September of 1966 and the end of my freshman year, my perspective on many things had changed. It was not so much that I had matured or been exposed to more urbane thinkers at the university. It was more that the American culture had changed, and was changing, rapidly. Continue reading →