When I was a teenager in 1966, I got a summer job in Zion Park working at the Lodge. It was not only my first real job, it was also a turning point in my life and a learning experience I’ll never forget.

My dad was a construction carpenter and he had friends in the construction business — good friends. I was starting my first year of college in a month and 74 cents an hour just wasn’t cutting it anymore. So I finished out that summer with a real, real job as a laborer on a construction site earning a man’s wage and doing a man’s work.

After I moved to Springdale, at the entrance to Zion Park, a contest was held as part of the Zion Park Centennial. I won! My winning entry was a memoir of my days working at the Lodge. I’m publishing it as a series of blogs here and this is number seven.

(NOTE – Phones and Tablets might not display these stories correctly because they’re embedded PDF’s. The solution is to use a REAl computer, not a fake one!)