What jobs did you have as a kid ?

uncle Alan

uncle Alan

Joined
Jul 11, 2004
Messages
1,830
I was growing up before WW II started and the depression was winding down. We couldn't afford coal & they didn't deliver then. Our 1939 Buick was on blocks. T'was a honey with the nakedy lady ornamenting the hood & two spare tire racks nestled in the front fenders.

I cut blackjack oak for the house & cut fat ligthtwood to sell as kindling. Sold my bundles to local store ,milked goats & trapped rabbits & and occasionally large woodrat[shudder]. Rabbits brought 35 cents on the hoof.

Trapper taught me how to trap mink. NOT. He taught me to trap muskrats to keep'em out of his traps. Not knowing how to skin them,I released them. Had to shoot squirrels in the head. If I didn't,the cat had a meal. I had only LR hollow points so it taught me how to shoot & not waste ammo because it,like many other things were extremely scarce.

When the war ended we couldn't ever get the Buick going again. I faught tears when the junkyard hauled it away.

I throughly enjoyed those times because the taught me self-reliance & stick-to-it-tivity .

Uncle Alan :)
 
Nothing nearly that exciting.

When I was 6, my dad would take me to work with him on Saturdays making extra money by installing A/C systems in VW bugs at the dealership where he worked. I would remove sheet metal panels and hand him parts and tools. Later, when he got his own gas station, I pumped gas and cleaned windows. After that, I worked in his car repair shop doing lube jobs and helping rebuild VW engines. In the meantime, I mowed yards, because none of those other jobs paid any money. :(
 
Age 9 I was a paper boy. Used my cubscout knife to cut bundles etc, so I could rubberband the papers up. Nothing like being that age at 5:30 in the morning, delivering papers on a dark street during a storm with the wind blowing. Creepy. Somehow, I miss the solitude. Other than that, I used to make an extra quarter or dollar here and there to chop firewood using my grand dad's old axe. Still got the axe, been in the family since the 1800s.

-Freq
 
I unloaded trucks at a construction sites and roofed when I was 14.

I unloaded the trucks, organized the storeroom and stocked the shelves at at bakery when I was 15.

i worked at Denny's as a dishwasher, prepcook and busboy when I was 16. I remember a man telling his son who was a year or so younger than me to stay in school and get an education or he would have a crappy job like me. I think that drove me to be what I am today.

As a teenager I sharpened knives for my dad's friends and cleaned guns to make a few extra dollars. i also cut grass for the neighbors.
 
I was mercifully free of employment as a lad. However, one Summer I decided (being an avid fisherman) that I was going to sell worms. 1.00 the hundred....

I created a worm-farm from a big old wash-tub and replenished my stock from the drainage ditch that ran behind the property. Hung out a shingle advertising my price.

Then I discovered the downside of this enterprise; fishermen get up damned early in the morning! After being rousted out of bed a few times at 4-ish or 5-ish by local anglers, I gave up the idea.
 
BrianBoyles said:
i worked at Denny's as a dishwasher, prepcook and busboy when I was 16. I remember a man telling his son who was a year or so younger than me to stay in school and get an education or he would have a crappy job like me. I think that drove me to be what I am today.
Click to expand...

Hmmm..I need some motivation for my life. What are you today?
 
Picked oranges and watermelon as a young teen. In High School I worked in a sheet metal factory that made vent covers and then worked at Aunt Sarah's Pancake house as a do it all cook, dishwasher, bus boy.... Also worked repairing mobile homes with my step dad when we weren't fighting with each other.
 
My first real job was a summer job at a Texaco station in 1957. I remember that it was in '57 because a lady drove in to get some gas in her brand new '57 Chevy and we couldn't find the filler pipe. She had to get the owner's manual out.

My next job was working part time after school at a surplus store in Hollywood. ('58 and '59)
 
Growing up in a farm family in the 1960s and being the oldest son didn't give me a lot of time to do kid stuff.I was feeding animals by the time I was about 6,collecting eggs working truck patches,driving trucks and tractors so my Dad and cousins could load hay bales or sacks of potatoes of course,the pay wasn't very good although I did get payed for picking potatoes,we also had a 100ac tract of timber that Dad and Grandpap worked off and on,I went along and usually ended up holding the measuring pole when Dad was cutting logs to length.By the time I was about 10,my Dad helped a couple of my Uncles when farming was slow in the winter,so on school holidays,I usually went along with him and my uncles,I got to lug shingles up a ladder when they were putting roofs on and I remember one time putting T&G flooring in a cold storage somewhere in NJ.The first money that I made on my own was trapping,I ran a trapline when I turned 12 and was legal to hunt and trap,I started fixing and servicing tractors shortly after and had a few cars and a motorcycle.I started selling car parts and scrapping cars when I was 16 and got my license.Those were good days and I don't have any regrets other than not keeping a couple of the cars that I scrapped.
 
I am just about 38 years old. Didn't have any early jobs as cool as Uncle Alan's, but had some good ones. I started doing yardwork for older folks in my neighborhood when I was 13 and have never been without a job since.

After the yardwork enterprise, I spent my youth doing stints as a ranch hand, an apprentice silk screener, and cook at a pizzeria. Never made too much dough but had lots of fun at all of 'em!!
 
Mowed lawns with hayfever and trapped neighborhood gophers one summer when I was 12 or 13. Paid $15.50 for a Garcia Mitchell 300 spin cast reel. I think it was '72. I still have the reel.
 
Last edited:
Paper Boy when I was 9

Bailed Hay when I was 13

Roofed Houses when I was 14

Pumped Gas when I was 16

R&R Transmissions when I was 17

Mowed Lawns all that time as well...
 
1st job: paper boy for 4 years

2nd: my mom worked at real estate in the summers (elementary school teacher the other 9 months of the year), I cut lawns and did landscaping around houses that they had for sale or had open houses coming up soon. I did this on/off for several years.

3rd: worked in a deli. pot scrubber, bottle sorter, and other crap jobs. at least they fed me well.

4rd: kmart. retail. sports/auto dept.

5th: movie rental place the summer I broke my leg in high school. I couldn't do much with the big ass cast on my leg, so I sat on a stool, watched movies, and was the cashier.
 
Working in my fathers auto upholstery shop, odd jobs etc. When I was a teenager, I was the "headliner king" of the commercial park. I still have dried glue in my eyes.
 
Like a lot of other folks, i started off throwing papers - longest damn route! Did enjoy the solitude and there was a Dennys right across the street where I used to get breakfast. Still remember throwing the Sunday edition one morning when it snowed 21 inches. Busboy, dishwasher and cook at Mr. Steak - best job in the world because I met my wife there. Three summers at the block plant - absolutely the worst job in the world. I had the choice of dumping color which consisted of 8 94lb bags of white portland and 53 lbs #5447 Davis "mesa buff" color into the mixer every 8 minutes - you had to get them up on top of the mixer to dump, or hand stacking 12x8x16" split face fluted sand block as they came out of the kiln - 1 every 20-30 seconds - these bitches were so heavy (around 100lbs because they were still green) that the automated equipment wouldn't handle them. Then I got to clean the mixer and the besser block machine with a 20 lb air hammer and sweep up all the crumbs that would drop off the line. Yea, that job sucked. A couple of years as a driver for a wholesale garden distribution company. Washed dishes at the school cafeteria when I was in college and then off to the real world.
 
My Dad trained bird dogs when I was young and it was my job to feed, water and clean up after them. I also had to take care of the horses and quail (which we had part of the year for training).

He had a few people who wanted their dogs yard-broke (heel, sit, stay, etc.) and he didn't want to mess with that so he taught me to do it. I got to keep the money for that and I trained a few bird dogs on my own as well. I was around 12 or 13.

When I got my driver's license I got a part time job at Woolworth's (I'm dating myself here) and also bailed hay in the summer. It wasn't unusual for me to work 9am-1pm at WW and then spend 6 or 7 hours afterward putting up hay.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top