Scattered Thoughts of an Aging Juggy
By Dennis Schlabach

 

First job – Summer of ’81, hanging out around Richfield, Utah, waiting for enough people to not show up to give me an opportunity to become the next great jug stomper!  Gary Nelson had been my lab partner in college back in Michigan and throughout the year had me salivating while thinking about flying in lamas and playing with explosives.  Finally, I got my chance, started making more than my beer tab and I was happy working for Seiscom-Delta! Living in a tent later that summer outside Montpelier, on a small island on the Paris River and after a night of serious partying slid back into the tent, only to have the dogs bark and force the invading skunk into leaving his calling card.  The next morning I showed up, reeking of skunk (I thought it beat dealing with the mess) and got flown to the line, opposite the pilot in the back seat, doors open, and nobody else on board.  I was on the powder crew and we started that day with a nice cliff.  Great way to work off a hangover!  Keith was the PM and Ruthie ran the office.  What a way to get introduced to juggin’.  There was a couple of books worth of stories from that season alone but one of my favorites was when we were working outside Dell MT.  Duane and me took the last flight off the mountain as a storm moved in.  Wild Bill Bliss was flying the 204 and told us to hurry up, he didn’t have much fuel.  Well, he had taken off without refueling due to the approaching weather in order to save us from spending the nest few days in a pre-positioned shelter.  Shortly after we took off we got deep into clouds and spent the next eternity searching for daylight.  The low fuel light went off indicating about 7 more minutes of flight time – max.  About 5 minutes later, we were about to just put it down and hope for the best when we found a hole in the clouds and set it down safely.  I know there are plenty of instances where we found ourselves hanging on by a thread but this one really got my attention.  My hat is off to Bill (if you’re still out there) for getting us out of there.  At the end of the season, we were in Thayne, WYO and got snowed out for a couple weeks straight.  Finally they shut us down for the winter, but not before we had our last party.  Jeeps place, Keith gave him a large handful of bills and covered our drinks for the evening.  Didn’t take us long to drink up the tab (those shots were going down easy) and we bought a couple of kegs to take to Duane’s place behind the bar ( I think it was Duane’s)  Anyway, what a party!  Snow never stopped falling, leaving us lots of cushion to dive in from the front porch.  I’ve got lots of pictures in a box somewhere, and when I dig them out I'll post them.  There are hundreds of stories I could write about, and may later.  Great people!  Great times!  I raise my glass to those carrying on the tradition!