Growing up in Montana wasn't easy for me. Almost every reason for living there, I disliked. I hated fishing, hiking,skiing, hunting, farming, ranching, mining, lumbering. So I always felt out of place. Just faking my way threw life. Oh, I could go to Frontier Town , and play pioneer, with the best of them. But just not my thing! I managed to get all the way to high school with out establishing a personality. Oh I was always kind of a funny goof, but no attitude. Then one stoned day, exploring an abandoned open mine camp, it happened. A footnote: where I lived there were abandoned mine shafts, and open pits everywhere. Yet rarely did a child ever get lost, or fall on one. Figure... Anyway, that day laying on a rock, I looked over to the next rock. There it was, all brown, and cracked. It was a brown leather bomber jacket. Just like James Dean wore in Rebel without a Cause!!!! I picked it up worried it might be concealing a snake. Nope, it was beautiful, and mine.
At home that night I saddle soaped the hell out of my bomber rebel jacket. I fit great, and I looked great in it. In fact I felt different, sort of tough, sexy, and bad. I couldn't wait to get to school. I think I liped off to my mother going out the door. It felt so hot!
I strutted threw Helena High School with a slight sneer on my face. I swaggered to my locker. Opened it and slammed it closed. " What the fuckkkkkkkk". The crowed halls cleared. If only we could smoke in school halls, I thought. I felt that James Dean was walking with me. We would have been best friends in High School. I would have wanted it to go farther than friends, but we would be kool.
Having watched all the James Dean movies, I could quote from almost everyone of them. And many times relied on the text to get me out of trouble...or in trouble. Now I have this magic jacket. Oh the times that jacket saw... It traveled to San Fransisco with me. SURPRIZE! It was standard issue dress for Castro. Three National Tours, Louisville, and back to Montana. I gave it to Harry Gadbow on his fiftieth birthday.
Because he was the first to say," You look like a bad ass James Dean, Eps!"
This is a picture of me and friend Gayle. It was on the front of our college newspaper in 1971. It was fall, and I was still being James Dean. Skipping classes, and recovering from the night before.....
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