A blogger friend, who is a friend first that just happens to be a blogger,  he is a writer; wrote recently about his first job his mother pushed him into to pay for his auto insurance.  I believe he was paid about $1.40 and hour.   His story reminded me of my first job.

I was about 13 or 14 years old.   A friend of mine needed to quit the job he had, and recommended me to his boss.   I didn’t need to interview, I just needed  to show up after school for about an hour.   I showed up at the back entrance behind the bar of our communities American Legion Hall.  An older gentleman pulled up in an old black limo, parked and struggled with his breathing as he climbed about 8 stairs.   He introduced himself as Bob.  Bob was the bartender.

The pay was 60 cents and hour, hey I am a few years older than my blogger buddy I mentioned earlier.   I wiped the tables, pulled the bar stools out and swept the floor.   Every other day I mopped the floor.  About every third day I would fill the coolers with the beer and soda or pop depending where you are from.   I don’t think you can do that today.   I also stacked the beer cases in the back store-room that the beer distributor left outside the back door.   In 1966 nobody ever stole the beer before we got there, that wouldn’t happen today either.  If it was Monday and there was a wedding reception downstairs over the weekend, I had to clean up, beer bottles left on the tables and your general party trash all around.   I swept, then mopped, in addition to cleaning the upstairs.   This usually took a couple of hours, so Bob would pay me more, at a higher rate; I might take home about 3 Bucks.

It was some spending money, money I didn’t have to ask my parents for……..usually I would go up to the Hobby Shop, where there was a soda fountain, you know with the stools, the old-time soda fountain or bar, depending on where you grew up.  You often saw these soda fountains in drug stores.    Anyway, I’d get a soda, a Vanilla-Coke and a bag of dry roasted peanuts, I even got a dime back from the two quarters I’d pay with.  I’d still go home with 20 cents.   Ohhhhhhh, life was good.