I've forgotten an awful lot about my childhood years but somehow the things I learned on my summer jobs have stayed with me.
My earliest recollection of doing work for compensation (an actual job) was mowing lawns for our neighbors. This period was probably from about 1962-1965. Sometimes I used our mower and sometimes I would use the homeowner’s. I believe the least I got paid per lawn was $1 and the most $3. That sounds pretty low but I guess when you figure the price of gas then was 25 cents and the price now is $2.50 to $3 that would be like getting paid between $10 and $36 per lawn. That sounds about right when I consider the size of the yards I mowed. (My “allowance” in those days was also a quarter/week.)
Before high school graduation and also one summer thereafter I worked odd jobs at my father's car dealership. I did whatever nobody else wanted to do or anything out of the ordinary. I helped out behind the parts counter, performed inventory, maintained the landscaping (mostly mowing grass), and performed general cleanup around the building. Most of my work; however, was detailing new or used cars for sale or delivery. It’s not hard to figure that is why I’m the detail nut I am today. Working at the dealership put me in contact with all sorts of employees with all sorts of values and personalities. The best were life-long employees like Rob Hilgar who would do anything for you and worked as though he owned the place. The worst were low-lifes who came and went and exhibited neither personality nor values. Needless to say a teenager learned a lot about life in such situations. Everybody had a nickname. There was Prior, the Kid, Higgie, The Jew, Rollo, Fixey, Duke, Hulie, Lolo, Jackson, and many more. I was “Tiny” as my brother, "Rollo" had dubbed me.
The summer after high school graduation was spent at Slippery Rock State College (now SRU). I knew that my upcoming ROTC enrollment at Penn State would require some extra credits if I was to graduate on time so I took three Phys Ed classes at SRSC in 1968. They were two swimming courses and a tennis class. It didn’t matter to me, I just needed three credits. In the afternoons I worked at the college library (mostly returning books to their rightful place on the shelves). I became well acquainted with the Dewey Decimal System. I developed terrible headaches and went to the college infirmary for them. They diagnosed my problem as never focusing my eyes on anything further away than a few feet for hours at a time.
The next summer (1969) I also took a couple classes at SRSC (one was Philosophy and I think the other was a history class but I’m not real sure). I worked at the dealership after class. It turned out that these extra credits actually enabled me to graduate from Penn State in March instead of June.
My first full time summer job was in 1970. My dad knew I guy who worked at the Kennametal Tire Stud factory in Slippery Rock and he got me a job that paid minimum wage ($1.90/hr.). I remember that they needed a photograph to attach to the application (I used one of my senior pictures from high school). At the time I wondered why they needed a picture and later figured the process would assure that they only hired clean cut white boys. My position at Kennametal was “Test Driver”. Can you imagine – a 20 year old kid as a test driver? I thought I had the world by the tail. That is, until I found out what a test driver did. My responsibility was to put miles on a Chevy Impala that had experimental studs in all four tires. You can imagine the noise they made (good thing the AM radio worked). I worked the afternoon shift. I clocked in at 4 PM and picked up the car from Butch English (who became a good friend and eventually an usher at our wedding). I drove down to Cranberry to pick up the turnpike and took it to Breezewood. I then took US route 30, 66, 356 and 8 from Breezewood back to Slippery Rock. The idea was to spend half the shift on the interstate and half on rural roads. Sometimes the route was shorter as I had to measure wear on the studs before heading out. The high point of the summer was when they asked me to take a sexy, Kennametal-yellow, Olds cutlass coupe to Pittsburgh International Dragway and drive it for a photo shoot for a national tire magazine. They wanted lots of tire smoke which was right up my alley. I still have the picture of me inside the car (you can’t tell who’s under the helmet) with the caption, “Kengrip testing doesn’t stop on icy roads” (see above photo). I only got one traffic ticket (a miracle) that summer. Luckily the cop didn’t have a clue how fast I was going (well over 80), he only knew I was passing a string of traffic in a no passing zone.
The next summer, 1971 between my junior and senior years, was my first professional experience. I applied for a ranger job at Moraine State Park since I was getting a minor in recreation (I still believed my future was in the forestry field). When I interviewed with the Park Superintendent I was stressing my recreation courses and all he was impressed by was that I was a forestry major (as he had been). I think I got the job primarily because a good friend from high school had worked there temporarily for several summers and put in a good word for me. At this point I was getting old enough to pay some attention to supervisory styles as I thought I just might be a supervisor someday. I learned lots about how not to supervise from the superintendent. He was the sort of guy that wouldn’t give you the time of day during working hours. He made sure you knew that he was the boss and you were insignificant. However, if he saw you on the street or in a social situation, he was like your best friend. A 21 year old is not prepared to understand such demeanor, at least I wasn’t. I loved the head ranger, though. His name was Mel Hayes and he had grown up with my dad. He told me that my grandmother used to bring soup to his family which was much poorer than Dad’s. She told them she had made too much but he knew that she was just trying to help them out. Mel was the antithesis of the superintendent. He had a great sense of humor and got a kick out of everything. He smoked big El Producto cigars which he would remove from his mouth and look at when he was giving this youngster advice. On the side Mel ran a used car lot. I can still remember him saying that his customers couldn’t go wrong with his 50/50 warranty. “Fifty feet or fifty seconds,” Mel would say, “then it’s theirs!” Mel taught me how to make a cigar last by waiting until just before it went out to puff it back to life. This job was both stressful and boring, and scary and exciting, depending on what day of the week it was and what the weather was like. A rainy Monday was boring. A sunny Sunday was unbelievably stressful. Especially when the park reached its carrying capacity and had to be closed. Sometimes I would spend hours at a time standing in the sun on hot pavement directing traffic. I can’t count how many times I heard, “Why can’t I park here, there’s lots of room on the grass.” I used to pray for rain on the weekends. Beach patrol could be exciting, strolling along watching bikini-clad women. It could turn real bad though when the lifeguards asked you to “handle” tense situations involving local thugs from nearby New Castle. I am ashamed to admit that the authority to write tickets went to this 21 year-old’s head. One time I cited a poor guy driving his family home from the beach for going the wrong way on a one-way road. He made an honest mistake and didn’t see the sign. I should have given him a warning but I gave him a ticket “just because I could”. If I had been the manager I would have fired me for doing something like that. Just one of many things I did in my youth that I’m not proud of. Other than the drownings (pulling dead bodies from the lake), I guess the most memorable part of this job was asking and obtaining my two days off for one week on Saturday and Sunday and my two days for the next week on Monday and Tuesday so I could have four days off to get married. There was no such thing as annual leave or vacation days on this job and if you didn’t work you didn’t get paid. I couldn’t afford a day without pay so I had a very abbreviated honeymoon (Sunday through Tuesday). I suppose this would be unheard of today.
Before high school graduation and also one summer thereafter I worked odd jobs at my father's car dealership. I did whatever nobody else wanted to do or anything out of the ordinary. I helped out behind the parts counter, performed inventory, maintained the landscaping (mostly mowing grass), and performed general cleanup around the building. Most of my work; however, was detailing new or used cars for sale or delivery. It’s not hard to figure that is why I’m the detail nut I am today. Working at the dealership put me in contact with all sorts of employees with all sorts of values and personalities. The best were life-long employees like Rob Hilgar who would do anything for you and worked as though he owned the place. The worst were low-lifes who came and went and exhibited neither personality nor values. Needless to say a teenager learned a lot about life in such situations. Everybody had a nickname. There was Prior, the Kid, Higgie, The Jew, Rollo, Fixey, Duke, Hulie, Lolo, Jackson, and many more. I was “Tiny” as my brother, "Rollo" had dubbed me.
The summer after high school graduation was spent at Slippery Rock State College (now SRU). I knew that my upcoming ROTC enrollment at Penn State would require some extra credits if I was to graduate on time so I took three Phys Ed classes at SRSC in 1968. They were two swimming courses and a tennis class. It didn’t matter to me, I just needed three credits. In the afternoons I worked at the college library (mostly returning books to their rightful place on the shelves). I became well acquainted with the Dewey Decimal System. I developed terrible headaches and went to the college infirmary for them. They diagnosed my problem as never focusing my eyes on anything further away than a few feet for hours at a time.
The next summer (1969) I also took a couple classes at SRSC (one was Philosophy and I think the other was a history class but I’m not real sure). I worked at the dealership after class. It turned out that these extra credits actually enabled me to graduate from Penn State in March instead of June.
My first full time summer job was in 1970. My dad knew I guy who worked at the Kennametal Tire Stud factory in Slippery Rock and he got me a job that paid minimum wage ($1.90/hr.). I remember that they needed a photograph to attach to the application (I used one of my senior pictures from high school). At the time I wondered why they needed a picture and later figured the process would assure that they only hired clean cut white boys. My position at Kennametal was “Test Driver”. Can you imagine – a 20 year old kid as a test driver? I thought I had the world by the tail. That is, until I found out what a test driver did. My responsibility was to put miles on a Chevy Impala that had experimental studs in all four tires. You can imagine the noise they made (good thing the AM radio worked). I worked the afternoon shift. I clocked in at 4 PM and picked up the car from Butch English (who became a good friend and eventually an usher at our wedding). I drove down to Cranberry to pick up the turnpike and took it to Breezewood. I then took US route 30, 66, 356 and 8 from Breezewood back to Slippery Rock. The idea was to spend half the shift on the interstate and half on rural roads. Sometimes the route was shorter as I had to measure wear on the studs before heading out. The high point of the summer was when they asked me to take a sexy, Kennametal-yellow, Olds cutlass coupe to Pittsburgh International Dragway and drive it for a photo shoot for a national tire magazine. They wanted lots of tire smoke which was right up my alley. I still have the picture of me inside the car (you can’t tell who’s under the helmet) with the caption, “Kengrip testing doesn’t stop on icy roads” (see above photo). I only got one traffic ticket (a miracle) that summer. Luckily the cop didn’t have a clue how fast I was going (well over 80), he only knew I was passing a string of traffic in a no passing zone.
The next summer, 1971 between my junior and senior years, was my first professional experience. I applied for a ranger job at Moraine State Park since I was getting a minor in recreation (I still believed my future was in the forestry field). When I interviewed with the Park Superintendent I was stressing my recreation courses and all he was impressed by was that I was a forestry major (as he had been). I think I got the job primarily because a good friend from high school had worked there temporarily for several summers and put in a good word for me. At this point I was getting old enough to pay some attention to supervisory styles as I thought I just might be a supervisor someday. I learned lots about how not to supervise from the superintendent. He was the sort of guy that wouldn’t give you the time of day during working hours. He made sure you knew that he was the boss and you were insignificant. However, if he saw you on the street or in a social situation, he was like your best friend. A 21 year old is not prepared to understand such demeanor, at least I wasn’t. I loved the head ranger, though. His name was Mel Hayes and he had grown up with my dad. He told me that my grandmother used to bring soup to his family which was much poorer than Dad’s. She told them she had made too much but he knew that she was just trying to help them out. Mel was the antithesis of the superintendent. He had a great sense of humor and got a kick out of everything. He smoked big El Producto cigars which he would remove from his mouth and look at when he was giving this youngster advice. On the side Mel ran a used car lot. I can still remember him saying that his customers couldn’t go wrong with his 50/50 warranty. “Fifty feet or fifty seconds,” Mel would say, “then it’s theirs!” Mel taught me how to make a cigar last by waiting until just before it went out to puff it back to life. This job was both stressful and boring, and scary and exciting, depending on what day of the week it was and what the weather was like. A rainy Monday was boring. A sunny Sunday was unbelievably stressful. Especially when the park reached its carrying capacity and had to be closed. Sometimes I would spend hours at a time standing in the sun on hot pavement directing traffic. I can’t count how many times I heard, “Why can’t I park here, there’s lots of room on the grass.” I used to pray for rain on the weekends. Beach patrol could be exciting, strolling along watching bikini-clad women. It could turn real bad though when the lifeguards asked you to “handle” tense situations involving local thugs from nearby New Castle. I am ashamed to admit that the authority to write tickets went to this 21 year-old’s head. One time I cited a poor guy driving his family home from the beach for going the wrong way on a one-way road. He made an honest mistake and didn’t see the sign. I should have given him a warning but I gave him a ticket “just because I could”. If I had been the manager I would have fired me for doing something like that. Just one of many things I did in my youth that I’m not proud of. Other than the drownings (pulling dead bodies from the lake), I guess the most memorable part of this job was asking and obtaining my two days off for one week on Saturday and Sunday and my two days for the next week on Monday and Tuesday so I could have four days off to get married. There was no such thing as annual leave or vacation days on this job and if you didn’t work you didn’t get paid. I couldn’t afford a day without pay so I had a very abbreviated honeymoon (Sunday through Tuesday). I suppose this would be unheard of today.
After college graduation I was blessed to obtain a professional position and never again had to work temporary or part-time positions. I know I was a better professional for the experience I gained those summers.
No comments:
Post a Comment