Early Jobs

I was a lucky young kid. I guess I just fell into it; never gave it much thought. I learned how to work for money. There were several jobs that came available in my early life, and they were all great experiences. And since I grew up in the Great Depression and World War II, it was expected of many boys my age. The benefit to the whole family was significant: any wage earner in the family lessened the pressure on the “man of the house.” Remember, in those days a great percentage of mothers were stay-at-home moms, so a kid who could earn his own spending money was a family plus.

I hasten to add that if I had a true need for money, my parents would find a way to provide it. But there was an unspoken family understanding that money was scarce, and that only our most pressing needs could be afforded. So we — Dave, Alice and I — lived by that understanding. The money I got from my jobs was mine to save, spend or share. I shared some with Alice; she was my twin, and she was a girl — girls back then didn’t work at any job until they were old enough to “babysit,” the only job available to them. Dave? Well, Dave was four years older than I, and had had paper routes, etc.

My first job for money (I did a few things around the house as part of parental expectations, but that wasn’t what I would call a “job.”) was helping my uncle Paul dig a basement beneath his house. He had dug out an area about ten feet square, and hired me to come to his house when I could, and take shovel in hand, fill the wheelbarrow, and push it out back and dump it behind the back lot. I was about twelve at the time. The deal was I would get lunch, and he would pay me fifteen cents an hour. (The minimum wage in 1941 was thirty cents an hour, but it didn’t apply to me, and this was a family deal.)

Well, that sounded just fine — better than sitting around the house and getting nothing. So I started the job. I weighed no more than 60 or 70 pounds, so pushing that wheelbarrow was really tough, and if I filled it too full I couldn’t push it at all. Then one day, after about four weeks on the job, I strained my lower back — to a point of some real pain. Paul said that was enough, my health was more important than our arrangement. We totaled up my time, and he paid me in full: six dollars. A small fortune for Paul, and probably undeserved. Plus the lunches. That was the only job I had that summer. I was more proud than you can imagine of that six dollar bulge in my pocket. 

The next summer I went big time: a paper route for the Charleston Gazette. I would report at 5 a.m. every morning, fold my papers, put ‘em in a shoulder bag and make my deliveries to about 110 customers. Then every Friday I would go to each customer on the route and collect for the week’s papers: thirty-five cents. From that I would pay the “substation manager,” a guy who worked full-time for the Gazette, whatever they charged, and kept the rest. That’s when I learned about incentive: the better I collected, the more I could keep.

My customers were mostly very nice about paying, but some were hard to catch at home. There was one guy in particular who was never at home on Friday, so his ‘bill’ had run up to about three dollars: a small treasure. It happened that as I was delivering my route one Saturday morning before daylight, his house was alive with laughter and noises. I knocked on his door. He came, and in a tipsy voice asked who the hell I was. I told him, and that he owed me three dollars for his papers over the past few weeks. He smiled, forked over a five, and said keep the change. Then he invited me into his party. I said I was busy with my route. Scared to death.

One more quick story about my paper route: On August 14, 1945, our manager called all the delivery boys to the substation. He told us that an “Extra was coming out and that we could sell them on the street. “JAPAN SURRENDERS!!”

My route included the employee entrance to the Union Carbide plant on U.S. Route 60 in South Charleston, so I grabbed a big bundle of papers and hightailed it to the plant entrance. Since it was part of my “territory,” I claimed possession of the plant entrance. Luckily, employees were reporting for the evening shift, which began at 3:00 p.m. And the day shift guys were coming out of the plant. I had customers going both ways, and sold every paper within about twenty minutes.

The excitement of Japan’s WWII surrender was electric. Workers were literally throwing money at me. One guy gave me a dollar bill and kept running. (The papers cost five cents.) Money-wise, I cleaned up, and that was in itself momentous. But beyond that, I got caught up in the enthusiasm of the event — the surrender of Japan — to the point that I was like a kid at the circus. We had been in a terrible Pacific war that every kid knew about. We had followed it since December 7, 1941. And now it was over. What a day.

And that evening, on the streets of downtown South Charleston, people were in the streets, yelling, laughing, celebrating. Cars were going up the main highway to Charleston with people shouting out the windows. (Gasoline was rationed; most drivers had little to spare.) Everything was scarce — I saw people in one car going up the highway to celebrate, and the wheels of their car had no tires! Driving on the rims, it was that big a deal to them. Tires or not, the war with Japan was over. It was that kind of a crazy day and night, and I — me — scrawny, thirteen-year-old Alan Farley, had had a part in it. Just think about that. As I said before, what a day.

After that, I had summer jobs as a car hop in a root beer drive-in, an usher in a theatre, and a stock room boy in a hardware store. Some of the time I worked two jobs at once. Then, my last “early” job was really different. The City of South Charleston, under the direction of the Police Department, decided to paint parking ‘stripes’ on the main streets. The parking was side to side, angled to the curb. The stripes were to be in yellow paint, about five inches wide. I somehow heard they were looking for someone to help the painter, and got the job. The painter was Shorty, a really scruffy short guy who was a sometime house painter. He was actually very nice to me, friendly to all, and a known regular around the local beer halls. Shorty and I would report to Police headquarters at 4:00 a.m., and a cop would drive us, along with our buckets and brushes, to that day’s starting point. Shorty would stand back from the curb, squint, and decide the angle of the stripe. Then we would paint — freehand! No guides, just Shorty’s eye. By the end of the summer, those stripes were at all possible angles; some slots were wide, others narrow. Here’s part of the reason: Al Wells’ pool room, located at the midpoint of all our work locations, opened at nine. Every morning at about five till, Shorty would tell me to keep painting; he’d be right back. Most mornings, when he returned, Shorty would be strangely glassy-eyed and very happy — and that’s when the paint lines would start to wander. The cop who transported us would also drop by to see if we were OK. He would just shake his head and drive on.

It was a great job for two summers. I was paid pretty well, there was no pressure, and Shorty was responsible for all the mistakes. I was home by about 12:30, in time for lunch and then catch a bus to Rock Lake Pool. At the pool I’d tell my buddies the latest Shorty story. Who says that work isn’t fun? I have to say that I was more fortunate than many other kids. I knew plenty of boys who would have done as I did — they just didn’t get the chance, either because they lived in very rural areas or for family reasons. 

(Back then, and later and later as an adult, I became accustomed to physical work. Work that involved pick and shovel, mowing scythe and ax, digging, pulling, lifting, sweating, cussing the tools and the boss — the kind of work that brings a certain satisfaction no other activity can provide. One does those things and gains enormous respect for those whose lives are tied to hard hat, blue collar stuff, day after day. I wish the politicians would be required to live that life for a few months. Just think.)  After high school, I continued to work summers — at more substantive yet physical jobs — until I was through college, and early into my teaching career. But those weren’t “early” jobs, so I won’t go into that.