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My first (and probably only) true love story had humble beginings. Towards the end of summer, 1980, it was becoming clear that my two buddies and I was fixin' to get kicked out of our apartment. It was party central in a no-partying-allowed town, Hennefer, Utah. Sure enough, we got the boot around the end of August and since me and my friend Roger didn't really have jobs or money or really anything better to do, we decided to go on a road trip to California. We got to the coast and bummed around for a while, doing day-labor for cash by day and spending it that night in the bars. We were having a ball. Plenty of everything we could've wanted or needed. This is about when Polly entered the picture. Tall, blonde, blue-eyed surfer girl, and a complete idiot. Her picture is in the dictionary under 'air-head'. Roger fell plumb in love, and I couldn't stand to be around her. After a day or two, it was obvious she was homeless, so Roger invited her to move in with us. We lived in the camper shell on the back of my truck. All it took was about 3 days to bring the situation to a head. I told them I was going home. It was the middle of October by then, and I decided I had to find somewhere familiar to winter. I told them they could ride back to Utah with me, but there we part ways.

When we got back to Coalville, we had just enough money for a room at the local dive hotel for a week or so and were lucky to both get hired on to different drilling rigs that same day. I didn't spend much time at the hotel. I was doing a lot of double shifts trying to get enough money to buy a little trailer to live in. Things were starting to look up finally, when roger's driller fell asleep at the wheel coming home from the rig one night and put them all in intensive care. It was touch-and-go for awile, they were all gonna live, but Roger was gonna do his living at the hospital for the next month or so. Great. Just what I needed. I was stuck taking care of Polly. I told Roger that if he had any couth at all he would buy her a bus ticket to L.A. when he got his check, 'cause she sure wasn't gonna live with me much past that payday.

For about two years before all this was going on, I had tended bar off and on at a little bar called Taggart's, over in Morgan county. It was a fun little bar, off the beaten path, mostly only locals even knew where it was. Hal, the owner, was planning a big Halloween party and asked if I would help out behind the bar. I didn't really want to, I wanted to party instead, but I said I would. The big day rolled around, and the party was proving to be a first class blow-out. I was working the day shift on the rig, and had to be to work at 6 the next morning, but my driller was at the party, and since he drove the crew to work, I figured I'd just crash in his car and at least I'd get to work. There was some L.S. Crazy going around that night. I saw my driller eat some. That was O.K., I didn't want to be the only one on the crew trippin' at work the next day. (Enter here the standard disclaimer about how Pritch does not condone the use of illegal substances in any way, shape or form. Usually. Sometimes.)

Well, the party was in full swing. It was getting late, but nobody seemed to notice or care. I was still behind the bar, in my ghost costume-the light blue sheet from the hotel with eye holes cut in it. All at once, this cute little blond was sitting at the bar saying "Tell me-don't I know your name?" "Well sure" I said "I'm Pritch. Everybody knows me". "That's right-you used to go out with my friend, Kelly" she said, then asked "what time do you get off-I need a ride home" "Hal" I hollered. "I quit-see ya later", and out the door we went. I told her that I would be happy to drive her home, but if she wanted to get there alive, she'd best drive. No problem. She slid in behind the wheel we left. In my condition of heightened awareness, I don't know how I missed the fact that she did not drive to her house, but to the apartment my friends had been kicked out of some months before. In my other condition of heightened umm, well, you know, it didn't hit me 'till we were halfway down the walk. "Wait a minute-I don't live here anymore!" "Well-where do you live?" "Umm-in Coalville, at the hotel, but umm" Reality check time. Roger's air-headed friggin' girlfriend was there, "Umm-we can't go there-it's complicated". I tried to explain as best I could. "Let's just go to your place" I said. "We can't. I live at home and the folks are there" "O.K.", I said, "lets do this. In two days, I have days off. I'll come pick you up on thursday and we'll go out on a proper date, and by then I will be living alone."

The next day, after one of the worst days at work I can ever remember, hangover-wise, I got home and told Polly to get in the truck and we would go visit Roger at the hospital. When we got there, down in Salt Lake, I pulled up to the front door and told her to go in and I'd park the truck. That was the last time I ever seen Polly. Roger was so mad he didn't speak to me for at least a month. I guess Polly hung out at the hospital for a couple days until the nurses took up a collection for bus-fare.

Thursday night, I picked up Kim at her folks' house, and since it was payday and days off, we went to Wendover, Nevada, and gambled away that whole check. Saved just enough for another 2 weeks at that flea-bag hotel. We got back to Coalville just in time for me to go back to work, so I threw her the keys to the truck and told her I'd catch a ride to her house and pick it up later. She put that truck to good use that day. When I got back to the room, all her stuff was there. I don't really ever remember discussing this at all, but we all know what head was doin' all the thinkin', so maybe I could have agreed, at some point.

That was 24 years ago and is why Halloween is our special holiday, and we are more in love every day.
God's honest truth.

And don't you know I never get to gamble away paychecks anymore, either.