I turned 6 in 1949, which meant the school bus finally arrived for me. At last, I was one of the big kids, riding for 8 miles on steep mountain roads from our mining camp in Anvil Points, Colo., to the town of Rifle. I joined my friends in singing Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall without stopping once the whole way there. In those days, there were no kindergarten classes in Rifle. I went...

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