Post #38

Thought for the day:
The trouble with doing nothing is you can’t stop to rest.

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Just recently a couple of kids—looked like high schoolers to me—came to our door asking us to purchase a book of coupons to various eating and entertainment places, you know the kind we’re talking about. The proceeds, they said, would not be going into their own pockets, but would go toward maintaining the athletic programs at the local high school. I liked their spunk (“spunk.” Isn’t that a neat word? I think we ought to work that into our conversations every once in awhile), but I didn’t feel that we could afford the $25 they were asking for their product. Their entrepreneurship, though, made me get to thinking about what I did as a youth to earn a few bucks.
In an earlier blog I’ve already written about selling the Saturday Evening Post magazine door-to-door when I was 10 or 12 years old and, believe me, that was a job! Aside from that, though, we kids didn’t do a lot of thinking about work, especially work that required daily attendance. Oh, there were times when, as young kids, my brother Dave and I raised money for some specific thing that we just had to have (see pages 31-35 of my book, “My Conscience Wears Size Twelve Slippers” for an example) but those weren’t real jobs. It wasn’t until I got into high school that I got a regular job—a job where I went to work on a regular basis and got paid for that work at the end of each week.
In the summer of 1941, when I was a fifteen-year-old, I got a job as bus boy/dishwasher at Eisenhoods, one of the fanciest restaurants in Santa Rosa. In today’s California that wouldn’t be possible. A kid that young would have to have a work permit and a whole bunch of other stuff, I suspect. But at that time in history, whomever an employer wanted to hire was—within reason—at his discretion. So my buddy, Lemar Fisher, and I were hired on at Eisenhoods, which was a real break for us because there weren’t many jobs to be had, by anyone—regardless of age. The job itself was simple enough, to hear the manager tell it. All we had to do was make sure that the dirty dishes were quickly removed from the table when a customer was finished eating, take the dishes back to the kitchen, dunk them in hot sudsy water, thoroughly dry them, then stack them neatly in the service area. Lemar and I agreed that we would divide the job into two divisions—table bussing and stacking, and washing/drying—then the two of us would trade off; one night Lemar would be the busboy while I washed the dishes, then vice versa the next night. That way we wouldn’t have to be constantly putting on and taking off the rubber apron that the person doing the dishwashing needed for the protection of his clothing.
When we got to work that first night we discovered that things weren’t quite as easy as we thought they would be. For one thing, we discovered almost immediately that the waitresses didn’t like the busboy(s) because they were afraid that they (we) were going to steal whatever tips might be left. In addition to that, Eisenhood’s prided itself on the amount of food each order contained as well as the beauty of the tableware that the food was served on. All of the plates, cups, saucers, etc. were heavy duty ceramic. While they were very attractive, they were also very heavy, so much so that it was a struggle for either Lemar or me to carry a tub full of dirty dishes from the dining room to the kitchen. That weight led to the disaster that took place on the second night of our employment. Lemar was the designated busboy/stacker and as he carried a large stack of clean, dry plates to the service area, they slipped out of his grasp and crashed to the floor. When I say crash, I mean they CRASHED! Diners throughout the dining room craned their necks to see what had happened and several people tried to get under their tables, probably thinking that it was an earthquake. That’s when we discovered another thing we hadn’t been told about: the cost of any broken plates or missing silverware would be deducted from our wages. When the maitre d’ told Lemar that he had to pay a dollar for each of the twelve broken plates, Lemar told him, “There’s no way I can pay that much, but even if I could I wouldn’t.” Considering the fact that we were only making fifteen cents an hour and worked only five days a week from five in the evening until we were finished up after the restaurant closed at ten, that was a very logical decision, but it was also the end of Lemar’s job.
Well, I needed the money so I stayed on. After a full week, the manager told me that if I wanted more hours he would arrange for me to clean up the restaurant’s bar every Sunday morning. [Historical note: In the early 1940s, Santa Rosa had what were called “blue laws.” By law, all bars had to be closed by midnight on Saturday and could not be open on Sunday at all. In addition to that, no department stores were open on that day and only one pharmacy could be open. The several pharmacies in town had a rotating schedule of who would be open each week. Those laws made Santa Rosa a very quiet place to be on Sundays.] now…back to the story. Because of these blue laws people who went to the bars usually stayed until they closed, and the bartenders didn’t want to hang around and have to clean up the bar room (at Eisenhood’s they called it the lounge) so they wanted me to do that job for them. Each Sunday morning I was to come in and clean tables, wash and put glasses back on the shelves, scrub the floor, and—as required by law—break all of the empty liquor bottles and put them in the waste barrel. Well, while that took about four hours to do and put an extra sixty cents in my pocket, it didn’t take me more than a couple of weeks to get tired of cleaning up other people’s messes. When I told the manager that I wouldn’t be doing the bar thing any longer he said that that was part of my job and I would either do it or find another job. I found another job.
Sometime soon, I’ll try to tell you about some of the other things I did to earn a little money.
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You might want to mark the 7th of August on your calendar.

At 12hr 34 minutes and 56 seconds on the 7th of August this year, the time and date will be 12:34:56 07/08/09 (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9).
You probably won’t get this opportunity again for a long time, not until 1 hr 23 minutes and 45 seconds on the sixth day of July, 2089, if I’ve figured correctly.
1:23:45 06/07-89 (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9)
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