At home in the work-a-day world

At Week’s End

Young folks today have many opportunities for part-time jobs at various public and private venues. My granddaughter in New Mexico, Olivia, is paid handsomely to watch after pet turtles of a couple who travel extensively.

I think it is good training for kids to suffer the responsibility of earning a buck, as long as they don’t get carried away. They should temper working part time by realizing one day soon that will be an everyday occurence for years to come.

They’re only kids once. Taking advantage is highly recommended by a fellow who has been around 75 years.

In the 1950s, jobs for teenagers in small towns were scarce, other than mowing, haying or delivering newspapers; no fast-food restaurants existed and adults clerked in stores.

My first foray into the work-a-day world — and be paid for it — came on a chilly Saturday morning.

Bob Holtz had a small bait shop on South Ninth Street in Humboldt. He decided to add a concrete pad in front of the entrance, a task that required more than two hands.

Because I had helped Dad pour concrete sidewalks and patios on weekends for a couple of years, I knew concrete work.

I arrived at the appointed time, hopped off my bicycle and pulled up the collar of my mackinaw, just right for the weather. Once we got to stirring sand, water and cement in a big metal trough with wooden sides, I quickly shed the jacket. By early afternoon we had floated the concrete to a nice smooth finish and had it well-edged.

Then came the surprise. I hadn’t asked about wages — “Bob’ll be fair,” Dad said — and when he handed me a fiver I was shocked. In 1955, $5 was a fortune for a kid, when a nickel would buy you a Coke or candy bar, and it cost a dime to see a movie at the Cozy.

I dashed home, as fast as my legs could pedal, to report the windfall.

I had many chores at home — pushing an old reel-type mower, pulling weeds around the chicken pen fence, policing the yard — but I dreamed of finding more paying jobs.

A part-time one that was a constant throughout high school was haying, mostly for Jack and George Works. For the handful who don’t know, George was the dad of Joe, Fred and Dick, as well as Virginia and Bob, my best friend in high school. We often celebrated our birthdays — born a day apart in the old St. John’s Hospital — with girls now our wives, Beverly and Tami.

The Workses then had huge fields of alfalfa and I was paid $7 a day, mighty good income for a teenager.

But, not quite as much as filling in for some guy’s two-week vacation at the Clark Lumber Yard, which paid a king’s ransom of $50 a week.

My first regular job was in 1958 at the Humboldt Union, where I was paid $6 an hour to run an old roll-and-bed press as well as perform chores for Malcolm Higgins, a one-man show. That was catalyst for a three-year stint at the Pitts-burg Sun, at a dollar an hour.