I don’t remember that I ever ran away from home unless the time Frances and I hopped on a bus to go across the wide open spaces of Wyoming to Moab, Utah, where our mother lived, counts.

    However ................. Frances eventually, chose to return to Reliance to be there and finish school with her class and I stayed behind. By this time, we were in New Mexico.

    I eventually ended up in Newcastle, Wyo. the summer of 1955, with my mother and her husband, Fuzz Cordry. There I met a girl who was much more "advanced", shall we say, than I was. We hitchhiked to Moorcroft, Wyo. and caught a ride with a couple of young men and I use that term loosely. About the only thing I will say about that is that I was a very fortunate dumb kid that managed to make it back home unscathed (no thanks to my streetwise friend who was apparently out for a better time than I was).

    Life (for me) more or less hit the toilet  and I contacted my old friend, Ivah Hickey in Reliance, to have her get bus fare for me back to Reliance, from my dad. As soon as the $20 got to me I was out of Wyoming. Over the years I have kind of determined that Ivah (probably) and not my father, sent me the money. She was such a wonderful person and that is the kind of thing she would have done

    I went to school in Reliance for another year until I learned all I needed to know and ran away to Chamberlain to get a job and a room above what was the Gambles Store, but that's another story.