“I was teaching over on the eastern slope in Adam's city school district and all we knew was that we didn’t want to stay there. Dave was born in New York City and grew up in Houston and he had no desire to ever live in either one of those places ever again. At that time, there was a teacher placement board that would send out notifications when school districts were looking for a teacher, and that’s how we heard about the opening here in Parachute. We didn’t really have any money at that point, so we packed a lunch and came down here for the interview and they hired me on the spot. Right after the interview, we drove up the creek to eat our sandwiches and as we were eating, Dave looked over at me and said ‘you’re not gonna take the job, are you?’ and I said ‘well, I haven’t decided yet.’ I think I was a bit taken aback when I got here, because I thought we were coming somewhere green, but let me tell you, all I saw was BROWN. But, at this point, the school year was already ratcheting down and I knew I was gonna have to make a decision whether I would sign another contract on the Eastern Slope or if we would come down here. So finally after some hemming and hawing, we decided to come down here and have a fresh start."
"The funny thing is that they didn’t ask a single question about Dave. He could’ve been a mass murderer for all they knew, but all they cared about was that I had my credentials and I was ready to start working. I always thought they must have been pretty desperate to get someone hired down here; once I got here I started thinking ‘wow, maybe I should have checked this place out a little bit more before I decided to move here."
"When we moved here, it was during another oil ‘bust cycle’ so everybody who had any get up and go in them had already gotten up and went. It felt a little bit like a ghost town when we arrived. Living here was challenging to say the least. I mean, we’re talking about shit kicking cowboys, and a lot of them."
"We moved here in 1967 and directly into this house. When we decided we were coming down here, we went to look for a place to live and it was between a house that had no windows out in the country, and this one here. So we signed a contract and rented this place for $60 a month, and that was that. This was home.”
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