I had a paper route when I was 9 years old. But I gave up that day job a year later after making $10 playing at a Rotary Club meeting as a member of Dutch Groshoff's Banjo Band. The photo below is from a TV appearance we did on KXLY-TV in Spokane. I'm the chubby kid second from the left.
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In junior high I teamed up with classmate John Eads to form a folk duo called "The Kinsmen." We played together all thru high school and made some decent dough for kids. From there on I've pretty much made my living from playing, recording and teaching music.
My day jobs were few and I'm sure I can list them all:
(1) In the summer between soph. and jr. years of high school I was grounds keeper at the newly-established Britt Music Festival in Jacksonville, Oregon. By coincidence, the last concert I did with the KT was there in 2005, and now we live just 1/2 mile from there.
(2) In the summers between my jr. and sr. years of high school and again between my frosh and soph. years of college I was the pool manager and life guard at the Rogue Valley Country Club.
(3) After I transferred from UCLA to U. of Oregon I took a job as a saleman at Eugene Music. I also taught guitar and banjo lessons there.
(4) For a few years I was the bookkeeper for L.S. Cedar Company on Vashon Island.
(5) When I met Meri and moved to Denver I would help Meri at her printing company when I wasn't out on tour. I learned how to type-set and do art lay-ups for printing jobs.
(6) Meri and I acquired a window-covering business in the 1990's (in addition to the print shop, copy center, shipping company and entertainment agency that we were already operating). I learned how to install shutters and blinds and did that for about 5 years when I wasn't touring.