Trae Clanton:  

What have I been up to.......... Well, when I left Ronan I moved to Fayetteville, AR to go to college there. At the time it was the #2 party school in the country.........I mean that’s why we go to college right??? Firstly, the University of Arkansas is MASSIVE. The campus is huge, having to park in off campus parking sucked, sometimes it would take 30min to walk to class. Sometimes it was worse than that. Lots and lots of people going to school there. I joined the business school there at the UofA, pretty bland but I still had no idea which way I would go for a career. Oh, before I forget, there is some truth to the whole Southern Hospitality thing too. To a degree. I sure it was much more prevalent in years past, but as a rule folks are extremely nice and pleasant to be around. I never met another person from the Northwest the entire time I lived there. People said I had a “Canadian Accent” which cracked me the heck up. Everyone and I mean everyone down there has varying degrees of a southern accent. Some from Mississippi, or Louisiana have more of a longer drawl, while the local Arkansans have a pleasant sort of musical way they speak, even within Arkansas the accent can widely vary. My buddy I am still in touch with is from Strawberry, AR. it’s over by Jonesboro. He’s got much more of a drawl than someone born and raised in Fayetteville. So folks from the Far North East of the state to the far North West of the state where Fayetteville is sound totally different. Another odd thing for me down there, I ended up working with a guy at the airport with the SAME NAME AS MINE. That really weirded me out, I’d never even met another Trae/Tray/Trey etc. he spells his make Trey. I EVEN MET A GIRL AT A PARTY NAMED TRAE, same spelling as my name. I thought I was dreaming or something. So weird for me. Now I see around the wider Missoula area and even more so around Ronan that there are a pile of kids named Trae, same spelling as mine. Apparently my name was much more popular than I thought. Ha. Or maybe my name was always popular and I was just a jackass. Ha. So, I went to school at the University for a few years full time and then part time. I was sick of no money so I got hired at AeroTech Services at the local airport part time, then full time too. My job “Title” was “Line Tech.” Which is a sort of fancy way to say I was a FUELER for airplanes. Just an upscale gas station attendant I was. It was fun though. I got to fly in LOTS of different airplanes and was invited to fly in some VERY expensive corporate jets and personal jets owned by people I won’t name. I tell you, if you get a chance to fly in a Gulfstream, go for it. No matter the model or year of the aircraft, they are all nicer than any home or vehicle you’ve ever been in. Most of the ones I was in didn’t have carpet on the floor, it was LEATHER. Matching leather for the seats and headliner etc. gold plated fixtures in the head. Crazy nice. I got to do tons of flying in small private planes, planes of all types. Single engine, dual engine and Turbo Jet engines. I even have flown a Piper CUB for four or so hours with my buddy Mikey. Every time we’d get some cash together we’d rent one of Aero Techs small planes like a Cessna 150 or Cessna 172, they were the most common ones we rented. All we had to do was pay for fuel, that’s it, no exorbitant rental fee for us, just gas. It was awesome. The other Trey I worked with and I used to fly girls to Tulsa and Dallas for dates. He has a four year bachelors degree in aviation and is a private pilot and a certified flight instructor and instrument instructor. We had a blast doing that, splitting the cost flying the 172 was maybe $75 apiece and when we took the Cherokee Six which is a dual engine six seater it was roughly double that. But, with the extra pair or seats we’d get another couple to go with and kick in for gas. It was a blast! I even flew myself for many many of those hours flying as my friends were working on their pilots license and were happy to let me fly including takeoff and landing while they got to put the hours in their log books. I ended up with some great experiences that many people don’t get. I feel super fortunate for that too. I was interested in aviation as a career and I would have achieved my pilots license too, but pilots are away from home most all the time and being more of a home body I knew I’d be miserable doing that job for the next thirty or more years, even though I love flying more than most things, it was a better move for me to not get into that career path. I always had a heck of a time deciding on what I wanted to do for a living, I had a massive advantage with my Grandparents paying for any and all schooling I wanted to do, which I took advantage of on and off for many years. I’ve got enough college credits for a Masters Degree but lack several core classes that I don’t have yet. One of those core classes was College Algebra. I don’t know what it is about algebra but it makes no sense to me when you get into the polynomial fractions etc. so I flunked college algebra three times, after I flunked remedial algebra. Geometry and calculus I didn’t have issues with, I think maybe I never got a math professor that could make sense of the harder parts of algebra for me. I loved school though, much more than high school. I guess it’s the “Stigma” of high school, you are forced to go there but you pay what amounts to a good mortgage for college entrance and class fees (along with books) Ha. Offhand I think I went to college for about nine years, not all full time though. I did lookup my number of credits which as said are about enough for a Masters Degree Plus or minus (it’s been like ten years since I looked so my estimate is off memory which can be fallible, either way it’s over or just under a Masters Degree number of credit requirements). I worked at Aero Tech for a couple years and then got PO’ed at the owners and quit. My next job was at “The Crossover Liquor Store”. The owner John Purtle was know for not only being a super cool boss, but he did his absolute best to work around your school schedule. That store is still there, last time I called John was still the owner. He was on if my favorite bosses ever. Saying he was super cool and generous is an understatement for sure. He’s the kind of boss you wish for if you can’t work for yourself. Later on I started to get bored at school I took a year ish off and got SCUBA certified up to Rescue Diver, after that I helped teach the SCUBA classes for a while until they offered me a job as the store Manager, the Sporting Goods store was called Sportsman’s Choice. It’s closed now due to a partnership who bought the store from the original owner, then they ran the store into the ground. I had to watch all my hard work over several years go right down the drain. Due to my estimating the store having six months to a year before they would have to close, I made plans to move to Lewiston, ID. which I go into some just below. For a long time I worked a pretty full schedule at the liquor store and worked full time at Sportsman’s. Choice. I don’t know why I worked two jobs for a really long time, it’s just what I did. I think it was because even though I worked a heck of a lot of hours per week, neither job felt like work at all to me. Time spent at the sporting goods store was like working in Santa’s shop. I learned how to be a machinist there in the back room where a giant Bridgeport Knee Mill sat. I learned Gunsmithing from a couple of the best gunsmiths in the country to boot. So all my time there at Sportsman’s Choice was just a blast every day. Later on I got a job offer to work the door and bouncing at My Pleasure Bar and Grill. I put my notice in with John and went to work in the bar. The owner only employed guys there. He was Iranian and wou...Expand for more