You Gotta Work.....

I've been mired in music once again this morning--what a way to spend your time! I've said it before: if any of the jobs I'd had when I was a working stiff had been like what I do most mornings now, I'd never have complained....I might still even be working.

I never really had any idea what I was going to do once the wombs of college and the Peace Corps finally said "good riddance" and set me out into the world on my own. I'd always had a vague idea about music (actually, it was the strongest idea I ever had, but even at that, it was vague), but when I finally got the chance to do it for real I found I enjoyed the acts of composing and performing, but I that was simply not riddled through with the requisite ambition to carry through on a career. The older I got, the more I wanted nothing more than financial security and somebody to share my life with; as a result, as late as my early thirties I found myself pretty much starting at zero and building a life from scratch (having blithely acquired absolutely nothing in the way of job skills in college). I fell into my first real Peace Corps staff job sheerly by happenstance, and if that had not occurred, God knows what I'd have ended up doing.

My parents required that I have some kind of job even before I was old enough to have a Social Security card. I was a paper boy with the now-defunct Washington Star, the afternoon paper, for about three years through high school. Every afternoon I'd come home from school to find the bundles of papers left at my doorstep by Mr. Pinson, my route manager. I'd change clothes, load up my canvas paper bag, and walk the neighborhood, putting the papers on everybody's front porch, if you please. If I'd had the temerity to simply toss the paper in the general direction of the driveway, as is routinely done now, I'd have never been paid by my customers. And the customers were in a prime position to give me feedback on my service, since every month I had to knock on their door myself and collect the money they owed. If they didn't like what I was doing, I heard directly about it. In retrospect it was great experience in learning now to deal with the public--oh, I could be quite charming! But in those three years I never saved any money. As soon as I had a wad of collected dollar bills in my pocket, I'd spend my share of it on records and chocolate cokes at the Drug Fair, leaving barely enough to pay Mr. Pinson for the papers.

Once I got my Social Security card, I was allowed to graduate to summer jobs only, and my first was at that self-same Drug Fair. During the summer between my junior and senior years, I was a "utility cashier" at one of their stores, subbing for regular staff who were on their summer vacations. My favorite assignment was working the checkstand at the store's exit because it was always busy and it was fun to chat with the customers as they made their purchases. Other assignments I had were behind the photo counter, where my supervisor caught me more than once going through pictures that had never been picked up (voyeurism was an early and delicious vice of mine), and behind the prescription counter, where I'd take and ring up orders, and chat with the pharmacist as he counted pills on his drug company-supplied plastic platform and push them into bottles with this metal putty knife-looking thing. It was at the Drug Fair where I heard this story from Lois, an older maiden lady who was a full-timer at the store: once while she was working behind the prescription counter a man came up and asked her for a pack of Trojans. "Cigarettes are down in the front of the store," she said. I've told that story for close to 50 years now. God bless Lois for that eternal chuckle.

When I started my senior year I also started a job with the venerable J.C. Penney store here in Arlington that I had been visiting with my mother since I was a little kid. During school I worked at nights--I can tell you from first-hand experience that there is nothing more boring than a department store on a rainy Tuesday night. When summer came, I switched to full-time and stayed at the job until just before I left for Kentucky and college. This budding gay boy was assigned the men's department. Could have been worse. I discovered I loved doing inseam measurements (and some of the customers seemed to enjoy them too...hmmm...). The early-morning store meetings were memorable for their unintended comedic content--even at the age of 17 I had an eye for satire and was only too willing to lampoon anybody I thought deserved it. The store manager was Mr. Selman. Yes, Selman. He'd ask each blue-haired department head to report on sales for the week, singling out the most successful for special praise. All this took place under the wall-sized protrait of old Jesus Christ Penney himself. It ended with Mr. Selman exhorting us all, "Remember, folks, show 'em, tell 'em, sell 'em!!" Off I'd go, in high hopes of measuring another couple of inseams.

I had one more summer job between my freshman and sophomore years at college: I went back to the Washington Star and became a substitute route manager for regular employees on vacation. For two weeks at a time, I was the paper boys' Mr. Pinson. That was a pretty good job. I was paid Teamsters wages, so I made a lot of money, I developed good muscles in my arms from driving those panel trucks that didn't have power steering, and I got to know a couple of areas of suburban Maryland--Kensington and Takoma Park--very well. And music was never far away in anything I ever did: I first heard the Beatles' "Hey, Jude," and Aretha's "Baby I Love You" on the radio as I drove the truck that summer.

After that summer I became more involved in life in Kentucky and more adept at spending my parents' money: I stayed in Kentucky the following summers and did some three credit-hour courses to make up for the mere 12 hours I started carrying during the regular school year. Oh, I shamelessly gamed the system--and had the time of my young life doing it. I may not have learned much about what I would do in life when I was in college, but I took giant steps towards learning who I was. Who can say that's wrong?

Anyway, my parents forgave me.