UNCLE DAN Chapter 9

Stinking Cowboys need a Bath
courtesy photobucket.com

    

While recounting this story about Uncle Dan in order to help understand some of the things that happened later - - I find myself involved more than intended.

Uncle was busy working on the ranch for there were always things to do. The rancher had contracts to supply hay for some riding stables over on the California coast. They had to haul the hay from the ranch to stables on the rancher's trucks.

I went with my Uncle and another ranch hand just for the ride. They had some fine horses and the people riding them were dressed in stylish riding apparel and as I thought about the horses I rode on the ranch and how poorly I was dressed it made me feel somewhat inferior to those people.

I walked around the stables while the hay was being unloaded and thought how fine they were. It made me think being a horse wasn't so bad after all at least for these horses.  

My tenure on the ranch being over I returned to Oakland, California, and the first thing my mother said was "You stink and need to get a haircut."

 

Usually I didn't pay any attention my mother but in this case I knew she was right for I hadn't been living in the best of circumstances.  After a bath, haircut and some new clothes I had cleaned up pretty good and faced the problem of getting a job.  Finally I was eighteen and began my search for employment for I was on my own.

Bethel Church, Oakland, CA

As it so happened my mother lived next to a Pentecostal church and they were having a revival meeting. My family attended and went forward at the altar call.  Then my mother insisted that I go with her to the meeting and making a story short I went and got saved. It was a total transformation for me.  All that stuff that you read about in the bible worked for me especially 1 Corinthians 5:17 about being changed into someone new.

After beating the bushes for a job I received an offer to come back to work in the cannery and then a man I had worked for in the roofing business came and found me and offered me a job roofing. I had sought for work for so many months with little result and now I had a choice of two jobs.

roofing courtesy photbucket.com

I took the roofing job because I liked to work outdoors, and got me a place to live.

Letting a lot of water run under the bridge time passed and by now I had married a girl in the church, started a family and my Uncle Dan having left the ranch, came to work at roofing again at the place where I worked.  So it was that me, my Uncle Dan and my step dad worked for the same contractor.

This continued for a couple of years until the service station next to the roofing company was up for sale.   

Gas station coutesy photobucket

Uncle Dan wanted to buy it so he could quit roofing the only problem was he didn't have enough money. He finally talked me into going in with him so we found ourselves in a business we knew very little about.                           

To be Continued