(fall 1972: first teaching job)
By day, I was teaching full-time senior-high English in Grand Centre, AB (now Cold Lake).
Eventually, by ‘night’, 1973-1975, I was performing in two groups: Four, which became Betty Plus Four. In 22 months, we performed about 150 gigs, averaging 4+ hrs. a show (well over 600 hrs. of live performing, plus another 400 hours of setting up, taking down, travelling, and practising, so closer to 1,000 hrs. devoted to music in that time). (BTW/ we never heard ourselves playing–no monitors then.)
Many of the gigs were on school-day evenings (some running to 1 am or later, plus takedown and drive home). School started around 8 a.m.
We sometimes drank if there was a bar open when we set up, between sets, and often after a show. When I left the band in July 1975, I was on the road to becoming an alcoholic and, for months after, I experienced sweats as my body readjusted. I also had also been exposed to way much smoke since this era preceded smoking bans in public places. Some band members also smoked.
The band really wanted me to stay as their leader, lead male singer and rhythm guitarist, but my wife and I had just had our first-born and the door was open in Edmonton Public to return to teach in the city after I’d acquired three years of experience. I was a now-or-never situation and I had maxed out the living-in-a-small-town life. Much as I loved the music, my family needed a change of scene and I needed to change my lifestyle before serious health problems developed.
BTW/The bands played in Grand Centre, at CFB Cold Lake, Cold Lake town, Pierceland (SK), Bonnyville, CFB Red Deer, CFB Wainwright, and CFB Namao. I would estimate that we played for about 10,000 people in that time.
I don’t quite know how I managed this dual life, but I was still young and really had a passion to play live–a dream I got to live out bigtime, fronting two bands. (Later, though, I would continue to front teacher bands until 2002, so my dual life of music and teaching ran for 30 years in totality.)
(Best and longest-running of the teacher bands (Ken Klause-l, Ken Kulka-r): Fudge, 1990-2002, Scona Room, Strathcona High, Edmonton)
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A second, much different, dual life began around 1978 as a senior-high English textbook writer with my fellow grad student/teacher-friend Glen Kirkland (later Jerry Wowk) which ran to about 2010.
(Glen)