JENN McKINLAY: With a nod to Lois Duncan, let's revisit the summers of our youth. I'll got first. Summer of 1985. I wore a blue and white checked POLYESTER above the knee dress with a ruffled collar and sleeves and a dark blue apron. My job? Ice cream scooper at Friendly’s on Main Street in Niantic, CT. Best summer job ever!
Why did I love it? Because every break I made myself a tall sundae with three scoops of coffee ice cream, hot fudge (Friendly’s has the BEST bar none – fight me!), marshmallow sauce, two Resee’s peanut butter cups, topped with a mountain of whipped cream and a cherry. Oh, I also had a basket of fried clam strips and fries on the side because it’s all about balance. It was glorious. I worked with my friends MaryBeth and Matt (I have no idea what happened to them) but we had an absolute blast back in the day!
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| The iconic uniform in the Museum of Springfield, Massachusetts |
How about you, Reds? What was your favorite summer job?
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: The summer between my sophomore and junior years at Ithaca I got a job as a waitress at an iconic NY resort, Scott’s Oquaga Lake House. In the southern tier, at the edge of the Catskills, it was like working in a real-life version of Dirty Dancing, except the guests were largely Quebecois instead of Jewish New Yorkers. (My French, at that time, was very good, and the guests loved when I spoke “Parisian” to them.
We lived in girls and boys dorms, and when we weren’t working, we had the run of the grounds and the lake. Some nights we would canoe across the lake to a local bar, and yes, as an adult, I realize that canoeing while drunk is a terrible idea. There were torrid hook-ups, dramatic break-ups, personal crises and skinny-dipping.
Oh, the actual work? Three meals a day. I got really good at fully loaded tray service. I wore a kind of diner waitress dress for breakfast and dinner and a dirndl - complete with scooped blouse that showed off the Alps - for dinner. The pay was good, too, despite the fact tipping was forbidden. Honestly, it was more like being at summer camp than a job.
LUCY BURDETTE: I’d have to say mine was a waitress job as well–at the Alchemist and Barrister restaurant in Princeton NJ. I was organized and efficient, but the best part was the friends I worked with. We all sat at the bar after our shifts were finished and drank way too much and had a blast. We learned that better tips came with high heels and slinky black outfits. No wonder my feet have hurt ever since! We also raided the walk-in refrigerator and ate piles of shrimp and other delicious goods until the owners figured out why their profits were evaporating…
RHYS BOWEN: The only summer job I had during my school days was working in a plant nursery. Incredibly boring work, scraping moss off pots etc, but livened up because my best friend worked with me and we created a murder mystery, assigning other workers to roles as victim, murderer etc. The owner’s son was the murderer and once we’d decided that we were rather afraid to be alone in a greenhouse with him.
No summer jobs in college. I traveled every summer, around Greece one year, summer semester in Germany twice.
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, I had a knock down drag out battle (sort of) with the proprietor of the Dairy Queen in Zionsville, Indiana, site of my first summer job. She told us we had to wear white uniforms, polyester, exactly, Jenn, and I absolutely refused. And I showed up in a white oxford button-down shirt and a white canvas mini-skirt. She was outraged, and wanted to send me home. I said–you told us WHITE, and this is WHITE and I am not going home. She finally relented. And Lucy, they SO watched the supplies. We were allowed 50 cents of ice cream a day, which meant we could fill a medium cup. We got really good at filling those cups.
But my BEST summer job was at the Lyric Record Store. It was in downtown Indianapolis, and I got to choose which records were played on the store’s speaker system. (I bet I sold dozens and hundreds of copies of Harry Nilsson’s Pandemonium Shadow Show and The Beatles’ Revolver.) They had little listening booths where customers could try our records privately. Remember those? I loved that job. I adored sending people home with a new record they’d enjoy..
HALLIE EPHRON: My favorite summer job was assistant to the woman (a female Lieutenant Colonel) who ran Butler Hall, a large apartment house at 119th St and Morningside Drive. It was owned by Columbia University. I spent the summer living with Jerry and my job was just up the block and around the corner from the apartment I managed to illegally sublet (from the same landlord that ran Butler Hall). I typed leases and filed and showed vacant apartments. I’m sure another life I’d have been a very happy secretary. Go figure.
Your turn, Readers, how did you make some scratch during the summers of your youth?
I worked in a cafeteria in Ocean Grove . . . either working on the line, meaning I kept the counter filled with salads, or working in the salad room making the salads. The best part of the job was working with friends and a long afternoon break that meant we could go to the boardwalk or to the beach. My grandmother lived in Ocean Grove, so I lived with her for the summer . . . and that was delightful.
ReplyDeleteOh, I love that, Joan. I coul really use some beach right now!
DeleteI rode my bike to house cleaning jobs in college, which were okay. But then I started working part-time at the Mobil station on Highway One in Newport Beach California. I wore jeans with my Mobil shirt embroidered with Edie (the boss sent the shirts out to be laundered). I started out pumping gas, but soon enough graduated to tires, adjusting headlights and and inspecting smog systems (got my State of California license to do both), and tune-ups after my boss sent me to a week of tune-up school. Feminist that I was, I LOVED it. (I have so many stories about the job, which I segued to full-time at after I graduated. Maybe one day I'll write them down.)
ReplyDeleteEdith, I just have to ask - did you ever see John Wayne? Although I do suppose he never had to gas up his own cars.
DeleteNo, but I pumped Buddy Ebson's gas once!
DeleteYou have had the most interesting life, Edith!
DeleteThere is something so appealing about female mechanics. A friend of mine was/is the first mobile Tesla mechanic - she drives up and down the PCH fixing Teslas.
DeleteAnd poof, that's an instant series character, Jenn!
DeleteI worked at a McDonald's in Nashua, NH for over 4 years. I knew that place inside and out. The only thing I wouldn't do was go up on the roof. I am still friends with some of the people I worked with and it will be 50 years ago in Sept. My interview was, what size uniform do you wear and can you start tomorrow. My neighbor already worked there and apparently gave me a raving review. It was hard work at times but we had fun while doing it.
ReplyDeleteI did a tour of duty at McDonalds. Morning shift, making the biscuits!
DeleteI worked at McDonalds for one winter. It was the worst job I ever had. The head manager was the world's biggest gaping a-hole. Almost everyone there hated him because he was a nightmare of epic proportions. If I ever found myself in need of job and had to consider working again at McDonalds, I'd find the tallest building I could and swan dive off instead.
DeleteAs I mentioned in a previous JRW post, most of part-time jobs were working as a student librarian at my junior high & high school. But one summer, I was hired to be a student librarian at an infamous high school in Toronto's Jane-Finch neighbourhood. Why infamous? It is in a "bad" part of town, the only high school with metal detectors (in the early 1980s). But I had the greatest time working in air-conditioned comfort in a huge school library. The full-time librarian (Mike Freeman) lived only a few blocks from my parents' apartment, so he picked me up each morning & dropped me home each day. Much better commute than taking multiple TTC buses! And Mike & I stayed in contact and remained friends for over 15 years, mainly because of our love of books.
ReplyDeleteI love that, Grace. I also worked as a school librarian on the west side of Phoenix (very rough 'hood) when I first moved here. The kids were great, but the pay was abysmal and I don't think it's improved much.
DeleteSaw that Friendly uniform and smiled. Wore one in the late 70's in Waterford, CT! Just down the street from Niantic! Small world.
ReplyDeleteNo way!!! I love Waterford (skipped a lot of high school at Harkness). :)
DeleteThe place is still in business but the Demers sold it off a long time ago.
ReplyDeleteThe first job I had was right after high school graduation when summer jobs were really hard to find where I lived. Unless you wanted farm work, which I did not. I babysat for 3 young children. My mother drove me back and forth the several miles each day. I earned $25 for the week, which wasn't bad back then. I really enjoyed hanging out with those kids except the time the oldest, 4-year-old Bobby, climbed up on me in the hammock. All three kids were napping, or so I thought, and I was almost asleep when he was suddenly on top of me! I was surprised and shocked and suddenly "woke up." Now I have to wonder what sort of person he turned into.
ReplyDeleteBobby sounds like a scamp! LOL.
DeleteFirst, I want to thank all the Connecticut Friendly's employees who made my Sundaes and cones, and brought the "Big Beef Cheeseburger Specials" (that were $.99 back in the day) to my table. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteMy first summer job was as a waterfront counselor, swim instructor and life guard for a kids' camp in New Hartford Connecticut in 1965. It was so much fun. One of my best friends and I took the life guard course together during the winter and then worked together at the camp. We had an outrageously fun time. Our tans were spectacular.
You're welcome! Life guard jobs always seemed very glamorous to me - the girl afraid of water over her head.
DeleteI also worked at a plant nursery, Rhys. My primary responsibility was watering everything. My favorite task was dead heading the roses in the owner’s personal rose garden. The aroma was heavenly.
ReplyDeleteAnother summer I walked beans at my roommate’s grandpa’s farm. He didn’t have much faith in me because I was a “city girl”. By the end he had to admit I was a hard worker and did a good job. (For those who don’t know, walking beans entails walking up and down the rows in a soybean field chopping out the weeds and volunteer corn stalks by hand with a hoe.)
I have never heard that term "walking beans" and I was a country girl when I started out. I bet you were ruthless!
DeleteMy best summer job was working as a camp counselor for the YWCA day camp, City Capers. We took the kids all over Portland on the bus, and went to a lot of fountains, parks, the library. We had a van and the whole camp went on field trips at least once a week to parks and lakes that were farther away. At the end we did an overnight camp out. I was working with a couple of friends from college, and had a really great time.
ReplyDeleteI had another job as a young adult that doesn't really qualify as summer-only employment but I have to mention it because of the polyester uniforms. I worked at a downtown "motor inn" (motel was not a fancy enough word for this place), full time when I took a break from school and then weekends and then full time again for a couple of years after I was done with college. I was a front desk clerk and got to wear a rust colored polyester blouse with a big floppy bow that I had to tie on the shirt front, brown polyester pants or skirt (skirt was hideous) and jacket and/or vest in the same brown polyester. The cocktail waitresses in the bar wore the same rust in scoop-neck design and brown polyester mini-skirts. We catered to business clientele and some folks (mostly men) stayed there on a regular basis. I used to joke around with some of the guests, and one in particular had a great sense of humor. For some reason, it was safe to play practical jokes on him. We had him "arrested" in the lobby by a singing telegram cop on his birthday once, and there was something that involved leaving an ironing board set up in his room. The memories are all a bit vague, but we had a great time. Of course, Sen. Packwood also stayed in that hotel, which led to my Me Too (well before the Me Too movement) experience.
Polyester! Ugh. Sorry to hear about your Me Too experience. That's lousy. I sincerely hope things are changing.
DeleteI landed a kitchen job in a Chatham seafood restaurant on Cape Cod. Morning prep (salads and desserts) and starting at 3pm, dinner prep and service. Beach time in between. They fed the help an early dinner, usually broiled blue fish. I learned cooking basics, commuted the five miles on my bike, and spent my beach time reading. Bliss. We wore white polyester uniform dresses topped with a starchy white kitchen apron smeared with chocolate sauce. Hair off the neck, bundled into a hairnet.
ReplyDeleteSounds like the perfect summer job. Amazingly we didn't wear hairnets, but I think we did have to wear it pulled back - it was the late 80's - we all had A LOT of hair.
DeleteI worked as a food service worker in an IBM building in Kingston, NY. It was a fun job and I made a lot of friends.
ReplyDeleteWas that in or near Lake Katrine? My first teaching job was there at the brand-new jr high school.
DeleteFood service jobs are such great learning experiences.
DeleteMy summer jobs in high school were boring, either babysitting or cleaning classrooms at the convent school. But as an adult I had two really fun summer gigs. One was teaching sewing summer camps for kids. Four days, three hours a day, with a break outside on the picnic table for snacks. Six girls in each camp, and a teenage assistant, who got to learn to sew along with the littles. They each made a beach coverup, a drawstring beach bag (decorated with puffy paint as one of the crafts), a simple t-shirt, and a pair of shorts. My daughters invited their friends, and I had no trouble filling each week's quota.
ReplyDeleteThe other job was making banners and flags for my friend Barb, who spent every summer making them for color guards all across the country. In her basement, where she made more than $100,000 in five months every year. We used high-speed sewing machines on all kinds of silks, lame's and other glittery fabrics. Barb was a genius at interpreting music in shapes and colors; her Dorothy red shoe/striped leg flag for Wizard of Oz music is still a favorite, along with the enormous piano key flag she made, big enough for the color guard to float over the entire marching band while they played Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. I didn't work on either of those, but that's the kind of work she did. Her daughter had been in color guard, and Barb got her start making flags for their band. Later, her daughter took over the business.
Sewing jobs! I love it. That's AMAZING about your friend! As a marching band member who had to play Rhapsody in Blue - WOW!!! Our band would have been much cooler with a flag like that!
DeleteJenn, they won the state competition that year with that one!
DeleteWhat an amazing business, Karen! I love stories about smart women who see a need and go after it. Who would have thought about marching band banners except a band/color guard/majorette mom?
DeleteI worked in my father’s store for two summers. The first one I was in the office replacing the pregnant secretary who was a social whiz and an accounting whiz. I was a very shy kid who knew no one and hated to talk. It made me so nervous I would forget how to add! There was this funny machine that added things up – long before computers. If it or you made a mistake, you had to search for the error through what seemed like miles of paper tape. Meanwhile my father could look at an invoice and add up the whole thing in his head in the time it took him to read it. As an aside, in his last years, when he would get agitated or nervous, especially in the hospital, I would get him to work his way down from 100 by 7’s. He did it every time.
ReplyDeleteThe second year I moved downstairs to the main floor stacking shelves, and packing meat. Still painfully shy and being daughter and granddaughter of the owners, I was supposed to talk nice to the customers who of course all knew me. (You should know that I left home for university at 16, so really did not know the older people.) Stacking shelves meant I could hide in the boxes in the backshop for longer than was necessary, and wrapping meat meant that I only had to deal with the teasing from the meat cutter, who was slightly biased against me, but taught me a lot. I enjoyed that job- sort-of. The problem with being family is that things were stacked against you as you had to do more than everyone else, and took the grief for everyone’s mistakes. Oh well, builds character.
The last one was working at a Provincial lab in Biochemistry for the amazing sum of $500/month – I thought I was rich. I was processing spits and poops – now that was fun!
Margo, I used one of those machines in a job I had as a time study clerk in a factory. Was it a comptometer? They were huge, and had ten rows of ten numbers, and a big handle you had to pull, like a slot machine, to register the digits? There was also an adding machine that was simpler, and smaller, that had the paper tape, but that was later.
DeleteSpits and poops - lolololol - you got me to snort coffee, Margo!
DeleteI remember "adding machines" because calculators were SO expensive in the seventies - one of my older cousins got one as a graduation present before heading off to engineering school! And at my first job, check out girl at now-defunct drug store Carl's, there was none of this slide and beep. The price of every item a customer bought had to be keyed into the cash register by hand. It was a real challenge for me, because I'm a touch dyscalculic, and tend to reverse number orders. I got really good a quickly double checking myself!
DeleteKaren you are right - that is exactly as it was. I remember as kids going over to the store and playing with it for fun. It was NOT fun when you had to actually use it!
DeleteJenn, the spits were tb cases. Unfortunately there were way too many from the Reservations. The poops were slimy diarrhea that had an odour all its own. The other option was wedding blood draws from people who needed a blood test to get married. The best/worst one was from a man who was a very frequent drug user, who no one could get the blood from; he calmly sat on a chair and took it from his foot. Talk about eye-opening.
DeleteNeither of my two summer jobs were a favorite. My absolute favorite pick up job was signing on as a cook on a cargo boat in Caribbean. It transported fruit among the islands. I had no cooking skills, especially skills needed for shipboard cooking! A couple of the sailors took me in hand and taught. By the end of my tour - three months I think - I could cook anything and I'd seen the Caribbean. Years later someone asked me how I got a crew card. I starred at them blankly and then realized why the Captain never dropped me off on some Island when he discovered I had zero cooking capability. I was an illegal hire! Job security on the high seas.
ReplyDeleteThat's so incredibly bold and brazen, Kait! I love it. I feel like there's a book in there...hmmm.
Deletewhoa. SO true!
DeleteAw, I love it, Jay. Kool Kone is such a great name. We had the Frosty Treat in Niantic.
ReplyDeleteFirst paying summer job other than baby sitting was at the U of W before I started in Fall Quarter 1964, I had washed out of being a 'table swamper". I was caught eating the left over food instead of tossing it. After this week of disgrace, I landed in the library. Put myself though the University working there. Loved it enough to go to Library School. No polyester uniforms were needed.
ReplyDeleteCoralee, that was the Maine Millennial's college job track. All work study students at Smith start as kitchen flunkies, and as soon as she could, she nabbed a real job in the town library. (I sympathize with eating the leftover food - there is SO much wastage at schools!)
DeleteSounds like you landed in the perfect spot, Coralee! I love it when seemingly bad endings turn into really good beginnings.
DeleteI have a Kreamy Kakes diner in my books, Jay, but I may need to add a Kool Kone for summers!
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, summers spent scooping ice cream! I spent 2 in my home town, at a place maybe some of you remember - Howard Johnson's - and third just for New Englanders, Brigham's, Harvard Square branch. I'd come home with ice cream everywhere, including hair and shoes and toss my very ugly uniform right in the sink. Hometown was the largest gateway town to some vacation areas, and in summer, HoJo's was insanely busy. There weren't a lot of other jobs, though; it was considered a good one and I could live at home and save every penny. I made some friends outside of my usual world...and lost my taste for ice cream. And Halley? We were practically neighbors at Columbia. Moving to NY for grad school, I did the easy thing and took a room at Johnson Hall, the grad students women's dorm. Morningside and --117 St? Next to the law school. With rules, a cell-like room and no kitchen, it was pretty weird after 2 years in my own (shared) apartment in Cambridge. I moved out first chance I got.
ReplyDeleteThis is all so fascinating! Summer jobs are so formative. . We learned how to deal with people (or not), that people are strange and/or wonderful, what a "good' boss was, and what it felt like to make people happy and to solve problems and make decisions that mattered, and why there were rules (or not) and accomplish things, and oh, earn our own money. We even learned the value of a day off, you know?
ReplyDeleteBrigham's treated its employees enormously better Howard Johnson's...and those employees returned it in loyalty, responsibility and customer service. I learned lessons from that which stuck with me my whole life.
DeleteExactly! It is training in every way.
DeleteAh, Jenn. I'm a sister Friendly's alum, though those blue and white polyester uniforms were phased in shortly after I wound up my ice cream scooping career. We wore gray cotton dresses (below the knee!) and white aprons (impossible to keep clean when working the ice cream counter). For a first job it was fun in some ways, but darned hard work, too. The shop was near a ballfield complex, and four or five Little League teams a night coming in for after-game celebratory cones got old quick. For a number of years afterward, I did not have any interest in ice cream. Happily, I recovered from that little side effect.
ReplyDeleteSo interesting! My husband used to reminisce about selling souvenirs at the World's Fair in Queens in 1964. (He was 19.) We have numerous souvenirs he brought home with him. He remembers how the souvenir stand was selling pencils for 25 cents each. Or NOT selling. So the owner changed the price to "3 for a dollar" and they quickly sold out. Lessons in retail.
ReplyDeleteJenn and Julia, if you ever have the misfortune of spending time in Wareham, you should check the place out. And Julia, very cool that you might put the name in your books.
ReplyDeleteI sold swimming pools and hot tubs. One summer I was the parts manager. I flirted shamelessly with the Hot Guy on the service team, who was very nice to me, but alas, no romance. No ice cream to steal, no meals, nothing.
ReplyDeleteBut I did learn how to clean a pool when you uncover it in the spring and find the carcass of a squirrel in the water.
Great to hear about everyone's different jobs! I loved going to Friendly's, though I never worked there. I worked on the family farm--haying and dealing with the veggie garden, oh, and cooking, and doing dishes. Later I got paying jobs--dishwasher again--and the highlight was a summer working at an Oregon resort. Lots of toilet cleaning. Fun stuff.
ReplyDeleteI loved my summer job at a company picnic grounds wearing a red and white checked apron. I did the same job for ten years and at the end of the workday, after feeding thousands of people (barbecue chicken, potato salad, Cole slaw, cranberry sauce, kolaches, potato buns, pink lemonade (or coffee) and an ice cream sandwich), selling snacks at the concession stand or lifting kids onto pony backs for rides, even cleaning the restrooms fun. My boss was my dad's best friend and it was definitely a family business.
ReplyDelete