How It All Began: Part 1

I first met Zep Commando Co-Founder Jozep in 1974 after I joined Ma Bell as a directory assistance operator. Jozep's wife at the time was a co-worker and invited a bunch of us to a end of summer party at their Capital Hill apartment complex.

Honestly I don't remember a whole lot about the party but Jozep and I met on other occasions at other parties and bars for after work drinks and got to know a bit about each other. Not really friends at this point, as I was with his wife, but I think we liked each other enough to do things together at some point.

Sometime the next summer, Tommi, Jozep's wife, approached me with a very strange request. Tommi knew that my girlfriend and I camped and hiked a lot during the year and wanted to know if I'd invite Jozep camping for a weekend.

Well sure, I can do that, but what's really the motive here?

Well, Tommi says, I think Jozep might be gay.

Okay. Just what makes you think that?

He's always spending time with his friend John and never with me. (Okay, there's some logic there, right?)

Let's look at the timeline here. I'm 24. Served 4 years in the Air Force. Moved to Colorado to spend some time with a woman that I'd met in Spain. Ended up falling in love, both with her and the Rocky Mountains. I'd met gay people, both men and women, at work and never had a problem with any of them, but I probably wasn't the open guy in the world. I was playing sports and drinking and cussing and doing all the manly stuff that was expected of a guy in the early 70's.

So what do I do, besides saying yes I can go camping with him? I invite a wing man for protection.

Dan F. was a co-worker that started at Ma Bell on the same day as I and I'd become good friends with him and his wife, who was also a co-worker. So Dan became my back up in case Jozep decided to try anything funny.

Well, Jozep isn't gay. The three of us had a great time camping in Rocky Mountain National Park, hiking and smoking weed and drinking Jack Daniels.

I reported back to Tommi that she had nothing to fear, other than the divorce which would happen a year or so later.

When my own marriage failed, Jozep and I became better friends and spent many a evening sitting around his dining room table after he got off work and before I went in for Graveyard shift.

Jozep played his guitar and was an accomplished painter even then and one night as we were taking Jozep showed me a "ZEP" hat that his brother in law, who was a rep for the cleaning products, had sent him.

I immediately laid claim to it (read: I stole it) and proclaimed that from then on we would be known as the ZEP Commandos.

And the rest, as they too often say, is history.

The Man Beneath the ZEP Hat by Jozep 1977