A recent Facebook entry shows a photo and a note that our youngest grandson, Gabriel, has his first summer job, sweeping up the leftovers at Sandy’s Barber Shop. This ground-breaking event immediately stimulated my memories about the early summer employment of his father, Ken, and of his aunt Deb and uncle Chris. They, as I recall, weren’t forced to look for summer jobs to get funds for personal stuff, although this was a well-accepted benefit. Since I, myself, had never held a summer job as a teenager – given the fact that most of what might have been available was quickly filled by college kids and others who were not already full-time workers in one of the local steel mills of the Mahoning Valley – I could not impose this condition on my own kids. They chose to work, I believe, because it’s what all of their friends were doing and they, themselves, needed a reason to get out of the house during the summer months.
Deb’s first summer job was an agricultural one associated with the Connecticut Valley. First of all, she harvested cucumbers from an airplane-wing. Actually, the wing was attached to a truck passing through fields of cucumbers. Teens, lying on their stomachs on the wings, reached down, plucked the passing produce from below, and tossed them into baskets fixed to the wing. I don’t remember if she made it for an entire season. An alternative summer job for many other young adults in the area was harvesting tobacco. Surprisingly, the Connecticut Valley was great for growing leaf-tobacco dedicated to the production of cigars. The fields were covered with gauze tents, increasing the humidity for the leaves and protecting them from insect infestations. A few hours in these enclosures gave many young workers a nicotine high.
Deb’s summer occupation in Houston was certainly one Karen and I did not promote. In fact, we probably tried to dissuade her from taking it, a pointless attempt with any young adult. The summer between her freshman and sophomore years at Syracuse University required that she have an excuse for getting out of the house. Apparently, any excuse would be acceptable. She found a job selling Cutco kitchen knives! I’m not at all sure how she found, nor chose, this position as a door-to-door salesperson. Maybe she hoped this would hone her skills as a budding actress, since she was majoring in theater studies at SU. However, her audience was limited, primarily to friends-of-the-family. She may have sold one set to one of them. Karen and I bought a set of eight knives and two (large!) forks. Four of the daily knives can still be found in our kitchen drawer some forty years later. The serrated bread knife is the most frequently used of the lot. We enjoy a daily bagel.
Deb’s first real job was as a worker at Tracey Laughman’s Deli at the entrance to Ponderosa Forest, our housing development. She waited tables, a preparation for the post-college roles she later held. She also did some food prep, mainly salad dressings. Another specialty was preparing banana-pudding, a major offering of this neighborhood deli.
Her brother, Ken, followed her into the dining job-market. His first summer job was with Denny’s Restaurant, located at another entrance to Ponderosa Forest. He was able to ride his bike to-and-from work at hours which were, at the time, considered to be safe, but which would now cause many parents some concern. For a time, he was even less than a busboy. The task he complained about most was the nightly clean-out of the oil-fat-drain. I don’t know what he did with the product. He did advance to busboy and junior waiter. However, he left Denny’s for another food service: working at a popcorn specialty shop. Here he had to sign a non-disclosure agreement relating to the unique mixes added to flavor different styles of popcorn. The family enjoyed the leftover products from this occupation.
Ken seemed to prefer his next job, working at the Houston AstroWorld Amusement Park. At the time, he was enrolled at TA&M and was eligible to work in the financial office where the park’s daily funds were gathered and counted. Like his grandmother, who had worked in a similar position at Kresge’s Department Store in Niles, he may have complained, from time-to-time, about the dirty money he handled every day.
One advantage of Ken’s daily commute to AstroWorld was his ability to drive his brother, Chris, to work as well. Chris had a position as a “starter” for one of the rides at AstroWorld; I don’t recall which one. This job may have come after an earlier one working at a local video-game-shop near Ponderosa Forest. At an early age, he became an expert at arcade video games. He did well enough to win a bicycle offered as a prize to the highest scorer. Evidently, if he were good enough to win a prize, he would be qualified to lead others into this original form of electronic addictive behavior.
The major use to which the three of them put their summer funds may have been automotive. At an early age, Ken had possession of the “brown bomber,” which, I believe, I may have owned and, finally, dedicated to his use. I also remember he spent many hours attaching a TA&M blanket as the interior roof in his personal-use vehicle. Deb’s first car was an AMC Gremlin, which lived up to its namesake. I may have helped pay for this one, as well as a rapidly obtained replacement. At the time, they were responsible for the gasoline and maintenance of the vehicles they drove. (Chris was granted primary use of a former red-and-white Buick family car while he was at college.) I continued to pay for the automobile insurance for each of them, since I would have had to do that even if they had, somehow, continued to be one of the drivers of the family-car.
On the other hand, what may have prompted me to encourage each of them to purchase their own personal items from their own individual earnings was an event in which I participated with Deb. Buying shoes. I had agreed, one day, to take her shopping for a pair of new shoes she liked. My own shoes seldom cost more than $20.00 a pair. Needless to say, I was dismayed with the ones she chose for more than $50.00 a pair! And they weren’t for everyday use, either!
At that point, summer jobs became useful for reasons other than as an excuse to get-out-of-the-house-for-a-few-months. Now they were part of leaving home for twelve months a year and the beginning of new, independent lives.