Tim H. Halstead:  

What can I say about school other than I was never cut out to follow rules and I got by without any real brain work, although I could have excelled had it truly been important to me. After Madison, I would basically drop in on classes that someway interested Me. Regardless of my reasons, School was simply School. Maybe if I had participated more or was more outgoing . , I may have spent more time there. I however was more concerned with the Politics and who had the best Smoke and other such mind bending items . Such was my so called wasted years , ha ha . Those I can truly say I miss . I did have to start going to some BS continueing Education . My professional credentials required it a couple years after returning stateside . I saw little point in more education so I could continue to have a few Professional licenses hanging on the wall so I could look at them and recall when I truly took work so serious that it may have been the #1 thing in my life .It took about 30 minutes to get that kind of thinking changed, while argueing with one of the Pakistanis on my Crew, to set me on the right course. I was pushing to get a job done during a serious sand storm in which you would be lucky to see 20 feet away. His name was Nawab, & He just threw his arms up and took off for his tent as I headed to my place of peace . We were down in the big dunes, dead in the worst part of the empty quarter, when I got this tap on my caravan door. It was my friend Nawab. He was a solid bull of a Man and I had all I was going to take when he came, shut the door, and went to my stove to brew up a pot of tea. Not a word was said as I sat at the table and was totally worn out from fighting the elements. Nawab stuck out his hand and I took it. We shook hands in an effort to let each man know he had the other's respect. He looked me right in the eyes and with a voice so kind I had never really heard a man speak to me in such a manner. "Mr.TIM,this is no ones fault;this is simply our life as God creates all things and this is not bad or good. It is a way for a Man to show the way he deals with all things beyound control and we get a chance to show the ones around us what kind of Men we are and that is a wonderful gift." From that moment on I have let all things that do not breath take a back seat to those that do . My entire value system changed and I made a promise from that day forward that I would no longer play the GAME, about what ever object others may think would impress someone; if I was not ready to give it all up to help someone out and bring back a spark of the Human that was simply down and could use a bit of respect, regardless of how minor it may seem to others. I have been back in Oklahoma and I quit drinking a drop of liquor for 24 years now and I have yet to let this country of self indulgence make me falter from the values I picked up 29 yrars ago . Just one more good adventure and that would be the capper for this weary traveller .You see I been doing some hard travlin . . . I thought you knowd . . . ! College: College was simply a quick fix to a chance obtaining a poffesional license by taking a test that would eventually give you the rigt to practice what you had probably already been doing in order to make money to survive . All you truly get is a paper with your name on it and a seal so you can hang it on a wall as though you now know more than you did prior to taking that little test . Now you can be liable for any errors that are made and you have to deal with a bunch of worthless government engineers and E.I.T. or the Dept. of Trans./ C...Expand for more