Brings to mind being a ski bum for one winter in the early '60s. I did janitor and scullery maid work at a lodge for a place to sleep (with a small fridge and a little roaster oven thingy, a ski pass, and $20/week, which had to pay for my food, drink, and gas.

It was great. The staples of my diet were frozen Swanson meat pies (6/$1.00) and Kruger beer (88c/six-pack). The bar up the road would give me free drinks for playing guitar and singing dirty songs, and if a listener wanted to buy me a drink, the bartender would put his money under the bar and give it to me later. I had an old VW bug (Everyone my age had an old VW bug then, except the poor fools who wanted to be sports, and had old MGs or Triumphs and bummed rides from the rest of us most of the time, while they were waiting for parts.) and would - probably quite illegally - pick lodge guests up at the bus station in the city and run them up the mountain for $3 a head (gas was then a quarter a gallon, or so). The only problems were: 1) that it was a singularly bad snow year, and this was before snowmaking, so it got pretty drunk out; and 2) I was in love (still am, come to think of it) so I turned away an abundance of opportunities that I would have begged for a couple of years earlier.

The fun part was a few years after law school, when my old employer came to me for legal services and I got to charge him a multiple of my former weekly pay, per hour. And I was still the cheapest lawyer he could find!

Peter.