I worked at the Shell, (then Chevron) station for my entire H.S. career. Back then it was a full service shop, not a convenience store. I started there as a freshman and "retired" just before moving to California. Shawn's dad was my boss for a number of years. Shawn's dad, Jim, was the guy who taught me all about engines. He had me changing oil, lubing, tune-ups, fuel pumps, alternators, starters, everything. Sort of off topic as I loved that job.
I did bale hay on weekends one summer. That was a horrible job. Wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have severe hay fever...bale - sneeze - bale - sneeze and so on. I can't remember the farm owner's name, (out near Tiger) but he was a cool dude. It was Bob Smith, Tom Hader, Scott Kullberg and me working. I remember one day it was really hot, into the upper 90's. We were sweating our asses off baling. Farmer guy came rolling up on his tractor with a trailer in tow. On the trailer he had a bunch of baloney sandwiches that his wife made and a cooler full of beer. Good GAWD! Beer had never tasted so good!
My first job (besides all the babysitting) was on a raspberry farm in Lynden, working for Smucker's. My job entailed standing at a conveyor belt and pulling out the gunk that shouldn't be in raspberries. I still don't enjoy raspberries very much! The first round of this work was with strawberries and rotten strawberries smell veeerrrry bad.
Conversely, my favorite job was my senior year of high school, working at the golf course in Blaine. My English teacher got me the job. I spent most of the time preparing carts (pull and power) for members' tee times, cleaning carts when they were returned, pulling clubs for members who would be showing up to golf, cleaning their clubs when they returned and picking balls off the golf range. I also worked one day in the pro shop and a day as the starter. (both frightening!) Very fun job and great perks for golfing on a very nice course.
I worked for the Forest Service doing Wildland firefighting the summer between my senior yr and college and LOVEDDDD it. It was great money too for right out of high school. I had such a blast and would love to do it again! I met a lot of great friends too that came up from different states!:)
I worked at the Airport Grocery for a time for Bob and Cindy, pumping gas, stocking shelves and so on. I was fun Bob was a good guy to work for and it kept my 68 El Camino full of gas for the summer. But then there were all the odd jobs I did for our neighbors from cutting grass to dry walling a house.
Good ole reliable Del's Drive In!! Not a bad first job by any means but the big thing to write in the yearbook when we graduated...$2.84 NO MORE!!!!!!!!!!
Now that I think of it...another summer job I had was one I inherited from my brother, Chuck. I didn't stay with it long...Water Meter Reader...I just hated gettin' the snakes off the meter in order to read it! They would wrap up around them where it was warm...
I also worked at the Ione Supermarket one year for Charlie MCCartney bagging groceries and stocking shelves...
The best ones were when I got to work out in the woods, cutting wood with Dad or fighting fires for the forrest service. The worst one by far was a bunch of us had to dig out alot of dirt from under this guys house in what I would not even call a crawl space. We had to move buckets of dirt through the little pathways that we had dug out. Bending over packing heavy 5 gallon buckets and also a wheel barrel I believe. That part sucked, (good thing we were young and stupid back then, and did not know any better. I would not have been able to do that for long now.) But it was not the worst part of the job. The worst part was that there were a bunch of cats that were living under there.(Do you see were I'm going with this?) They peed and crapped everywhere. It stunk to high heaven. But thats still not the worst part. The cats had somehow got in the floor joices and in the pipes under the house and crapped up there too. They must have been eating laxatives because it kept dripping down on us. Nasty!!! Needless to say, I did not go back after that first day. There is only so much I will do for $4.50 an hour.
