Thursday, December 29, 2016

Throwback Thursday - The Notebooks

Age 19 or 20
To clear up some confusion, the Notebook passages posted on Throwback Thursday were written by my father and found by me after he passsed away. They were his attempt to tell the family history. He was in his late 80s or early 90s when he wrote them. Today's chapter:

Anyway during this time period, I was making my mind up that I was going to quit school. All I had to do was wait until I was sixteen and I would not have to run from the truant officer.

March 17, 1935 I became 16 years old. April, May, and 26 days before the school term ended, I dropped out. It hurt my parents. I was just disgusted with everything. Jobs were scarce for you. Who ever ws in a position to hire would think twice to hire a child. At one time they would do so at 14 years old. The law had been changed and you had to be 16 before they would be able to hire. But it was usual to hire boys only for jobs that were for boys like running errands.

Where I could get a job was a big problem. There were none. The local stores just about made out. There was the First National stores. They sold coffee, butter, cannded good, eggs. This was the forefunner along with the A&P, a competitor, the beginning of the chain stores which would have their start after WWII. Their products were excellent compared to today. A 16 ounce can of coffee was a dollar. When it was brewed in the morning it gave off an aroma that woke one up. It tasted a hell of a lot better than what we get today.

Tonic [ed: soda] was wonderfully tasty. Every bottled goods or packaged, or canned made a statement. "made from all natural products."

I went to the Center and there Skip asked me if I would volunteer for the summer school, that he would be running for pre and kinder children. As long as they were trained [ed: toilet trained] I would have a lunch with the kids and teachers, dry dishes and maybe have to do a little bit of work.

The children would be checked every morning by a junior year med student. His father was a doctor and he was following in his father's footsteps.

The teachers were any where from [ed: college] sophomores to seniors. And who ever hired them knew how to pick them. Besides being knowledgeable, they were lookers. 35 of them. I had a nice time chasing them. It was the best summer of my life.

There was another boy that would help out after lunch. He didn't chase the teachers.

I recall this little girl coming into the room. It was a large room, the chairs and tables were not set up. Her shoelace came untied and some other kid told her she was going to get punished. I sat down and calmed her down as I was tying her shoe. I assured her that no one would touch her. I would not have anyone do that. She was the younger of two sisters and they both were beautiful. The staff and teachers marveled at their being dressed and looks.

I got that chore down and I got up. As I turned to get up, I saw Julie Dwight looking at me. She was the assistant to Kay Campana.

A day later, I was teasing Kay when she asked me if I loved Julie. I sure did but I was defensive. I thought I might be being set up. Julie was a beautiful girl. Older by 2 or 3 years. Nice background. Father was an engineeer. And she lived in Newton [ed: well-to-do suburb of Boston compared to East Boston]. Kay asked me more than once that morning. But I told her I could speak for myself and I got out of that situation.. Julie when I turned my eyes on her after tying the little girl's shoes, was looking at me with eyes that took me in. Had I walked over to her she would have wrapped her arms around me and said those three little words. I would have had a girlfriend (steady) I don't know what the outcome would have been. Besides, I did not have any pocket money. At the end of the summer I would receive $10 for helping out at the play school. A dollar a week.

9 comments:

  1. Other than babysitting before I was going to be a freshman in high school, your father's first job sounds like mine. I worked all summer (3 months) 12 hours a day, six days a week for $300.00. I had become a certified Red Cross Lifeguard, and there were five of us. Each day, four of us (we never got the same day off because we all took turns) would show up for work. The day was broken into 30 minute sessions. Each person rotated between 1) working the front desk, taking money, and handing out or retrieving baskets of patrons clothes, 2) Lifeguard at high station (we had a lifeguard for the deep end and shallow end, but we called them high and low lifeguard stations because the high {deep end} station was taller than the low station), 3) Work concession stand and take money, 4) Lifeguard at low station. We knew who worked each day and who got off, but we never knew what the starting rotation would be each day. On Sunday everyone worked and there were always two people at the front desk and two people in the concession area. One thing about it, we never got sun burned because of the schedule between inside and out. If we wanted to, on our day off, we could schedule private diving or swimming lessons, and got to keep all the money we made.

    I enjoyed reading about your father's summer and first "job." Did he ever go back to school? Did he ever catch any of the teachers?

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    1. You will have to come back next week to find out
      (-;

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  2. Guess I should have said I did this between my freshman and senior years. The summer after I graduated, I left home and got a much better job (grin).

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  3. Another great chapter! (although, saying it was the best summer of his life is kind of sad.)

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    1. No, not sad. I think he was remembering with a young man's heart. So many girls. So little time.
      (-;

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  4. cranbereez....we waz waitin ta see if gram "maws" named terned out ta bee Julie ~~~~ ♥♥♥
    de food gurl rememburrz A & P...ther waz one in de town her grew up in.....her haza old A & P coffee can; metal, will have to chex de price on it !!!! ♥♥♥

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    1. :-D I loved going to the A & P when I was a kid. While my parents shopped, I would stand by the coffee grinder huffing the coffee bean smell.

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  5. You asked about T Stands For Tuesday posts. Of course they will continue in the new year. In fact, it's taken over three years, but we are finally getting nearly 20 participants most weeks, which makes me so very happy.

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    1. Oh good! I'm enjoying the T Stands for Tuesday posts. It also makes blog topics a bit easier when there's a theme to follow.

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