When Kids Had Jobs

Sacked Potatoes at four years old: 
When I was quite young my parents had a general store in rural Nebraska.  Needing a few cents for a soda I ask if there was any work I could do.  They showed me how to weigh out 10 pounds of potatoes in a paper sack and would pay me 1 cent per sack.  They were surprised when they found I had filled over ten sacks.


Tended Our Motel:

When I was between eight and ten years old we had a motel in Southern Oregon where I helped my parents by showing the rooms, checking in guests, carrying their bags, cleaning the rooms and making the beds with 'hospital' corners.

Picked Blackberries and Hops:

During the summers a friend and I picked and sold blackberries door to door.  Another time we went with his mother to pick hops in the field along with transient adults.  I was allergic to the vines but we stayed with it and made between one and two dollars a day.  It was there that I first experienced seeing two men in a fist fight.

Set Pins, Collected Scrap and More:

During my fifth and sixth grades I set pins in a bowling alley for 5 cents a line.  The evening leagues had five  players bowling three games so I could make 75 cents.  Soon I learned to set two alleys at a time and doubled my earnings.  If I set both early and late leagues I could earn $3.00 plus tips.  All this was not without risks as sometimes pins would fly out of the pit and through a window.  Once I was tired, let my feet drop a little and had a pin hit me in the head.  The manager took me to the hospital and I checked out OK.  Some friends would help unload cream cans from the truck at the creamery and earned some cash.  The Korean war was on so we would collect scrap metal to sell to the junk yard.  I also had a small route selling Grit magazine on Friday afternoon, making a penny a copy.

Full Time Summer Farm Work and Other Jobs:

My seventh, eighth and ninth grades found me with paper routes, working at the swimming pool, mowing lawns, scooping snow and even working a couple of weeks on local farms as well as my parents store.  The rest of my high school years were more of the same with the summers working full time on a farm.  We worked 12 hours a day with lunch provided, six days a week for $25.00 a week.  During my last summer our high school building burned and I got to play fireman and take a hose inside.  Before we were called out I could see the hallway wall bowed in about 6 inches.  These jobs got me a 1949 Cushman motor scooter ($65.00) and the next year a 1937 Buick Special ($55.00).  I graduated high school in 1957 and went straight to Basic Training at Lackland Air Force Base, ending my youthful jobs.

Conclusion:

I am sure that many of you have similar memories, done without worrying about government regulations and onerous child safety laws.  Doing these jobs taught us about work ethics, respect for our elders, the value of money and prepared us for our adult life.  Today adults deliver the papers, automatic pinsetters set pins and most kids are forbidden to work similar jobs.  I believe WE were the lucky ones, gaining knowledge you can't learn in a classroom.