Duane Callahan:  

When I think of all first cousins¿, I believe I am the oldest as I will be 67 on June 17. Both grade and hi-school was very difficult for me and I rarely got a grade above a C. I was quite bashful. However later on in life, I found that when pictures and the written work were combined, learning was much easier. When Bob and I were young we played with Jerry and Danny Berge every week and many more days in the summer. They were our best friends. I still remember walking by the Soltis house and seeing Danny. Back then he could not understand why we wanted to go over to the Berge¿s all the time. Now many years later, Dan Soltis and I still talk on the phone a couple times a month and we get together every few years. After I got out of high school, Jim Prasnick and I worked at the paper mill for a year or so and then I moved to St Paul and worked for Gould National Battery. At that time the build up for the Vietnam War was going strong and before I got drafted, I joined the Air Force. I remember standing in line at the induction center in St Paul where they were short of both Marine¿s and Army people. The went down that line of 600 people and counted 1,2,3. The 1¿s were Marine, the 2¿s were Army and the 3¿s stayed in the Air Force. Of the 45 months I spent in the service, 34 months were spent on Long Island, NY, 8 months were spent in Udorn, Thailand and 3 months were in the hospital in St. Albans Naval Hospital in New York because I got a kidney infection from drinking the water in Thailand. Since I was getting close to my 4 years of service, I worked at the hospital in intensive care for 2 months, waiting for my discharge papers to come through. When I came home in 1968, I went back to work at Gould National Battery making $1242 a month. While working at Gould, I also went to the St Paul Vocational for jewelry and watch repairing. I moved close to the school because I worked 8 hours a day and went to school 7 hours each day. After I finished school, I continued to work at Gould for the next 8 months or so until I got stabbed in the back on Selby Avenue one Friday evening. Four months later after spending 6 weeks in the hospital and 10 weeks recuperating, I decided to leave the Twin Cities and went to work for a jeweler in Albert Lea, MN. The pay was 76 % less than I was making at Gould, yet I enjoyed all aspects of the job. Two years later, I returned to the Twin Cities and went to the Minnesota School of Business for two years. During that time, I also worked at Donaldson¿s department store and when I finished school, they created a new job and hired me as inventory control manager for the 4 stores they had. The pay was about the same as I was making at Gould 4 years earlier. I transferred merchandise between stores and also manager the jewelry departments during stove manager¿s day off. I usually rode the bus with 2 paper bags full of jewelry valued at around 50,000 dollars. I never had a problem. The Twin Cities had everything I enjoyed and each week I went to one of the performing arts entertainment somewhere around the cities. Also, I loved to dance and learned to dance whatever was popular at the time along with rock & roll, all ballroom styles, two step, Tango, Rumba, Polka, Schottische, swing, Universal Peace and more. I lived in the Twin Cities until 1975, when I took a...Expand for more