Job’s Aplenty

This week, I am finally retired – no where to go – no deadlines – no excuse to ‘just leave the house’ – no co-workers and/or customers. Wow, this is quite a shock, as I have worked from before my teens (60+ years). When I was 7 or so, my allowance was earned by being paid a penny for every pail of peas and beans I picked for my father. I will talk about the size of our garden in a future story. One of my first jobs was working for a lady who had opened a little gift shop. She had the neatest little ornaments. When I was around 9, I would go to her store and sweep the floor, dust the shelves and merchandise, and if I was real lucky she would have some reason to leave (I am sure she did it just for the look on my face – that I was going to be in charge). I felt so important and if anyone ever made a purchase when “I was in charge”, I was an “Entrepreneur Extraordinaire” in the making! There never seemed to be a shortage of after school jobs, and if I did not like a place that I was working, I could leave (never seemed to be any hard feelings) and know another job doing something was available. The least suited job I had was working the gas pumps at a service station on the main highway that went past the town. I had a very good friend who’s Dad owned a garage in town and my friend could change large tractor tires in a jiffy – was he ever good, he could take the tire off the rim, remove the tube, fix the leak, put the tube back in then use these heavy bars and a huge hammer to force the tire back on the wheel. I had watched this many times and he actually made it look pretty easy (not so). Anyway, there I am at the gas station, and a car pulls in for gas. I ran out and filled the gas tank, pop open the hood and checked the oil and water, washed the windows and asked – “how are your tires?” When you have never actually fixed a flat tire, don’t ask ‘how are your tires’. The reply was – “Oh, I almost forgot, I have a flat in the trunk and will leave it here and pick it up in a couple of hours, just put in a new tube”. So far so good, a new tube, I would not have to try to find the leak and repair it. O.K. now, how did my friend do this? I am sure if they had video cameras in the 50s, I would have been on some ‘how to screw up’ show. After much effort I actually got the tire off of the rim, now for the easy part, just take out the old and put in the new tube, which I did. I lined up the valve stem to the hole in the rim, then took a big metal bar, and force the tire back on – done – now proudly filling it with air, I hear this ‘not good’ noise and how come it is not inflating? Off comes the tire (getting better at it now – practice makes perfect) and much to my dismay, when putting it on, I had (with the big metal bar) ripped the new tube to shreds. O.K. pretend you are setting up Ikea furniture – and it reads “to assemble this section, follow the same directions as Picture B”, which it seems I was about to do – exactly the same. Once more, another new tube and being more careful this time when replacing the tire, everything looks good haha! (Look at me - I did it!!!). - Now where is that air hose? Nooooo – again that noise! Well three times right (or something like that) – finally I ended up with a tire complete with a new tube, filled with air – with my clothes completely filthy, and two brand new tubes in shreds! I am basically a very truthful person, but I am sorry folks – any trace of the two ruined new tubes, were never to be found – ever. For the rest of that job, when a car pulled up and I would rush out - I always seemed to forget to ask “how are your tires?” Another job was when I was around 14, my father was hospitalized for a few weeks. I was allowed to stay out of school to look after his hardware/lumber yard business. Like the store keeper and the cigarettes, I got to enter the items in customers ‘books’. I had to rely on the honesty of people when they purchased lumber – I truly had no idea. The hardest part of looking after Dad’s store was when someone would buy bags of cement – damn those things are heavy, and at the time, I was built like the ‘skinny kid at the beach’ that was having sand kicked in his face. Many of my other paying jobs were working on farms, from about age 12 until I left for the Army on my 16th birthday. My farming experiences were many, which I hope to relate over the life of this blog. Another after school job (that many of the town’s kids had) was hauling wood, coal and water (no indoor plumbing) for various ‘real old’ townswomen, who I now realize were most likely still in their 50s. When we had sub zero temperatures and it would be snowing, sometimes it was very difficult to give up our warm homes to haul the wood etc, but we did (for all those old - old women), and I am sure for the rest of our lives it has and will continue to help us realize the value of dependability and promptness.