February 13, 2026
Gentle reader,
I can't help but think of a member of a Catholic church in confessional when writing: It's been four years since I last wrote a chapter.
If you are new to this blog/memoir, here are links to the previous chapters:
This is a horrible picture, taken probably by my mother. It was likely shot with their Argus C3 camera. I had the one below, in my camera collection. It was made before World War II. I don't know how old my parent's camera model was.
It is of my first "real" girlfriend and I. I was a Senior. She was a Sophomore. Her name is Susan. She is one of two sister's of my friend, Steven. She was in seventh grade when I was in ninth grade at the junior high school in Denver. She is NOT the seventh grade girl who I made the mistake of smiling at during study hall!
This is (likely) a shot from a drone of South High School in Denver, Colorado. This is the rear side of the school. The main entrance is on the other side, facing the large parking lot. As you can see, it is old and enormous! I could not find one of my classrooms, turns out, there was a classroom on both sides of the stairs IN the stairwells! Quite a massive change from junior high!
During the summer break between my triumphant year in ninth grade at Merrill Junior High, I do not recall hanging out with any of my school friends. Since there was so many of us kids in our family, we tended to play with each other, growing up. Unlike most kids, I was actually excited to start tenth grade at South. Weird, I know.
Despite all the well-wishes and kind words from (mostly) girls in my junior high school yearbook, everyone seemed to have changed in those three intervening months. I could not understand why people who seemed to really like me last year suddenly did not want anything to do with me!
As a result, I pulled back into my shyness shell and vowed to just make the best of each school day.
Then this happened: I was walking up to the school's front entrance, a week of so after the first day, and a girl walked right up to me on the lawn out front of the school. She asked if I was a sophomore. I replied in the affirmative. She introduced herself as a senior(!) and said that seniors are supposed to make friends with new sophomores to help ease them into senior high school life. She met me every morning, as promised. I wish I could recall her name.
I have pondered that encounter many times since then. Was she pulling my leg? Was she really a senior? Was their truly a "program" or did she just decide to do that? I will never know the answers.
That may look like a girl, above, but that was me. Photo by my little brother, Jim. Somehow, Dad knew the family of former Governor Sweet of Colorado. That person let us stay in their "cabin" in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It was actually a chalet. It was awesome. Everyone was going to ride horses. Not, I! No way in Hell! (I was traumatized by a horse when I was little.) Anyway, what do I see, but Dad, who ALWAYS wore slacks, wearing blue jeans! And cowboy boots and he was on a horse! Who was that man and what did he do with Dad?
Anyway, that photo was shot as Jim and I were hiking up a pinnacle some distance from the chalet. I seem to recall the peak, which we reached, was at 11,000 feet. That number could be way too high, however.
Okay, so I was back to being the shy boy in all the classes. However, I already had my life planned out: As a small boy, I had decided what I wanted to do when I grew up: Be an auto mechanic.
Denver had a Technical School downtown. It was called: Emily Griffith Opportunity School. Juniors and Seniors from all the high schools rode school buses to and from the technical school every afternoon of those two years. That was the ONLY times I rode school buses! Seriously! Every school we attended, we attended in Kansas, California and Colorado, we either walked, rode our bikes or, once I was a Senior in high school, I drove my car.
Students were bussed to the technical school from high schools all over Denver. Every break, we hung out in the hallways. There was a really cute redhead, someone told me she might have been from West, who kept looking at me! I was too damned SHY to get off my butt and go talk to her! She was not the first "little red haired girl" who caught my eye which I did NOT go up and talk to!
South High was, I kid you not, two and a half miles from our house. Denver is mostly flat, we lived in the southern suburbs, but there were hills both ways! The only other kids who rode busses to and from school were the kids that lived in the poorer parts of the city, I made friends with some of them. I rode home with one friend, (I was the only white kid on the bus) and we walked to his house and played and hung out. Then, I caught a city bus back south to our neighborhood. One thing I remember was the smell of their neighborhood. "What IS that smell?" I asked him. "What smell?" "You don't smell that?" "Oh, that smell! That's the Purina factory. They make dog food there."
We moved to Denver from San Anselmo, California in the summer of 1971. Dad had earned his Doctorate of Theology at San Francisco Theological seminary. It was not in San Francisco, but across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County, in San Anselmo on Seminary Hill. He was offered a teaching post in Denver. It was at Illif School of Theology in Denver. The campus was adjacent to Denver University which was between where we lived and South High.
That us, in Kansas, likely preparing to move back the San Anselmo so that Dad could teach and take classes at that seminary. I had just finished third grade, I think. I showed you pictures of the houses we lived in back then, in previous chapters, in Marin County. I am on the left, Becky, the youngest is hanging from my left shoulder and Marcia's right shoulder. She is the oldest of us. In front, Judy, the "middle child" then, Jim, the forth child, Mom and Dad. Jim now towers over me.
Nancy, my wife and the love of my life, surprised me with a trip to California in 2010. I had not been back since 1971! That's Marin County on the other side of the bridge, with Mount Tamalpais being the taller ones. It has two peaks.
That's my darling, Nancy, posing in front of an enormous Coast Redwood tree. They are said to be the longest lived trees in the United States.
Anyway, this chapter is supposed to be about GIRLS. Well, Susan was it, as far as in Denver. I bought my first car, a 1964 Chevrolet Impala two-door hardtop, like the one below, in September of my senior year.
There I was in my senior year, I had enough credits to graduate early, but still needed to attend South during the morning of my second and final, semester year. They told me, just pick a class! So, I picked sophomore history. I love history.
I remember that I was sitting towards the front of the class. I tended to look around, and a cute girl with long, dark hair, kept looking at me from the far side of the room. Remember, I have never kissed a girl! I did not go to any dances, because I did not know how to dance. I had NO girlfriends since 9th grade. It was time to make my move.
My Impala was not a Super Sport model, which came with "bucket" seats and had a console and floor-mounted gear shifter in between the two seats. It had this type of seat called a "bench" seat. Mine had a brown interior. Also, note the gear lever attached to the steering column. Back then, American cars tended to have six and eight cylinder engines which made a lot of torque. Torque is a twisting force. Torque is what gets the car moving and up to speed. Horsepower is what helps cars to travel fast.
Why and I telling you all this? Since the seats went from one side of the car to the other, it could hold six adults, three in each seat. Which made it possible to have one's girlfriend seated RIGHT next to you.
Since I was taking a sophomore class, I ate lunch with the tenth graders. Which Susan was one of. I got up the nerve to talk to her and we started eating lunch together. Then, I talked her into letting me drive her home from school.
Take a close look at the map below. All of those grey areas are in fact streets. LOTS of streets. Denver has grown a LOT since 1975.
Denver was first laid out in the 1800's following Cherry Creek which ran from northwest to southeast. Thus, Downtown streets are angled compared to the rest of the city which grew up around downtown and are the traditional North/South, East/West layout of most metropolis's in the world.
Well, she gave me her address, remember everyone walked or rode their bikes to and from school. So, she knew the way home. We drove up to her house, she took me inside, and who did I see, but my friend, Steven! He sees me and we each said the other's name in unison and then, "What are you doing here?" We laughed and he said, "What are you doing here with my little sister?"
Well, it turns out that their father was also a preacher! Small world. He was Episcopal as I remember. As time went by, both families got together. I think Mom and Dad were happy that I finally had a girl friend. She had an older brother David(?) He and Steven had LONG hair. They also had a younger sister called Mimi. She and my baby sister, Becky, became friends.
Back then, the federal minimum wage was $1.65 an hour. My first job was at a Mobil gas station on Colorado Boulevard. Regular gas was 33.9¢ a gallon. Yes, one could buy almost three gallons of gas for $1.00! My first paycheck after two-weeks full time was for just over one hundred dollars. I thought I was rich!
Typical scene across the United States in 1973: People waiting in long lines hoping to get some gasoline.
Then, the Arab Oil Embargo happened! Don't know what that was? Look it up. Suddenly, there was very little gasoline and other petroleum products available to purchase! When stations did have gas, they had to ration it! Such as: Cars with even number license plates could buy ten gallons on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Cars with odd number license plates buy ten gallons on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, for example. It was CHAOS!
That's me at seventeen. When I started my Senior year at South High, I was five feet, six inches tall and weighed one hundred and fifty five pounds. Nine months later, I was Six feet three inches tall and still weighed one hundred and fifty five pounds! Yes, I grew one inch a month!
I don't have any other photos of Susan. We dated all that semester and eventually, we did it! Yes, I used "protection". The only woman I impregnated was my first wife. Sadly, right after I graduated, OFF to Richmond, Virginia we went!
My boss was of Polish descent, named: Ermer Bocim, and referred to himself as a "Pollock". He specialized in foreign cars. So, I learned to work on them as well as domestic (American) cars and trucks. I made arrangements with him to store my car at the station because I was coming back to Denver!
And, that, dear reader, is where I will leave off. I promise it will not be YEARS before I continue the story.
Feel free to leave a comment below, or on Facebook.
Scott Robb
February 13, 2026
