Many of the best lessons during our student years took place when we were not enrolled in school. Tuition was so inexpensive in the 1970s that we could quit school and work some low wage job for awhile and then re-enroll and coast for a bit. That all came to an end when Reagan and his party took control in 1981 and tuition doubled overnight. I had a taste of that bite during my final year in grad school, 1981-82. But, as usual, I digress.

At some point in 1976 I was out of school and working at yet another low-level minimum wage job. The great part about jobs like that was in the event the feeling of telling your boss to go to Hell crosses your mind, you can actually do it, and then find another job the next day. Which is basically what happened to me, except a monkey wrench got thrown into the deal.

I actually had a car for a few months that year. A 1962 Ford Ranchwagon, three on the tree gear shift and enough room in back to play basketball. So, being newly unemployed, I drove home to Hunter's Point. I was subleasing a one-room cabin that sat next to a mobile home for the princely sum of 25 bucks a month or something like that. My room-mates were two young women (both were TESC students) who lived in the trailer and I had use of the kitchen and bathroom. One of my roomies had a very protective boyfriend who liked to play with his pop-out stiletto whenever he talked to me. Fun.

Anyway, I drove home to find all my possessions (which could fill maybe 3 suitcases) piled up outside in the light drizzle. Why? "Remember that itching you have been complaining about the last few days?" the woman with the boyfriend asked, "Well, we have it too. The doctor told us you gave us scabies which really grosses me out."

Scabies, otherwise known as the "itch-mite," is an easily transmitted pest that burrows under your skin and itches so bad you can't sleep. I think I picked it up during one of my hitchhiking trips down to Southern California the previous month. Scabies are so contagious that if a carrier sat in a chair, and you sat in the same chair a minute after they left, you could get them too. I suspect Mr. Stiletto didn't understand that, and his suspicious mind had more to do with my eviction than the little mites.

So, for about a month I lived in my car, driving around Olympia scratching like crazy and looking for work. One day I drove over the railroad tracks next to the Olympia Dog Pound (on the Port peninsula) and heard a grinding thud followed by the sound of metal scraping on pavement. My radiator had fallen off. And with an audience of wildly barking doomed dogs, I circled the car and kicked and dented the body every few feet with my heavy hiking boots, swearing and scatching at the same time. Not what I consider a real high point in my life. I would wait seven years before purchasing another car.

Here's how I got rid of the scabies. My girlfriend lived in a student house down on French Loop Road. Everyone in that house was very good to me. They drew the hottest bath I have ever been in, before or since. The doors were held open for me as I ran into the house, quickly got out of my clothes, and jumped in the tub. For good measure I poured in some Purex or Chlorox or some toxic bleach like that. And hey, it worked. I killed the scabies. But I had little white spots on my arms for some time.

And here's something I learned. There is word called "scabiophobia," meaning: fear of scabies. It was a condition I got to witness firsthand by many in my circle of friends that month.