Bob's Corner
What with Labor Day lurking around the corner, I am reminded of the story about a meeting of leaders regarding the global population and women going into labor to give birth.
“My friends,” intoned the chairman, “somewhere in the world a woman gives birth every 25 seconds. What are we going to do about that?”
One delegate responded, “First, we’ve got to find that woman and stop her!”
Beyond that, with shaggy Labor Day ready to provide a three-day respite for many -- newspaper folks not included -- I thought it would be “interesting” to recount my adventures in Labor Land. My first official attempt at getting paid for working was outside a Safeway store in the Linda Vista section of San Diego. My line, with prompting from an older kid, was, “I’ll push your cart to your car for 25-cents.” Didn’t work.
Then I opened a Kool-Aid stand in front of our house on Dunlop Street. Did well until the neighborhood bully came by and drank all my profit. I never asked my parents for cash, except when I was in the sixth-grade, and thought that I’d enjoy an allowance like my buddies. My Dad told me that I didn’t require an allowance because I got everything I needed. Well, everything I needed except a Buck Rogers decoder ring. I still didn’t get an allowance. I only wanted four quarters a week, but Dad told me to get a job, which I did a bit later.
In-between I mowed lawns. Trimmed the edges, raked the grass and swept up all the debris. For 25-cents per yard. But hey, this was in the early 1950s when a quarter went a lot farther than today. In fact, a quarter then took me to the Linda Theater for a Saturday matinee with two full-length movies, several cartoons and some serials. Plus a large bag of popcorn. Pretty good for a fourth of a buck.
Boy, I’m dating myself. OK, I still remember elevator operators, curb feelers, Coca-Cola in glass bottles, only black-and-white TV, wide white-wall tires, TV dinners that tasted like the box they came in, and quarters made of silver.
Oh, about that allowance request (see above). I got the standard lecture about “when I was your age.” You know, he delivered newspapers that sold for 3-cents each; he had to walk barefoot in the snow; and he and his family lived on day-old bread and surplus pinto beans. Actually, part of that was true, which I found out as an adult.
Well, this is starting to get out of hand for space. So I’ll just fast-forward through my labors: newspaper carrier, change boy at the San Diego Zoo for Canteen Service, routeman and equipment deliverer for the latter, high school snack bar worker, service station attendant (three weeks worth), cafeteria staffer, catering company worker, copy boy at the former San Diego Evening Tribune, reporter/photographer at the latter, public relations flack for NCR Corp., reporter/photog and news editor for the former Escondido Times-Advocate, and news editor and publisher of the Curry Coastal Pilot in Brookings, Ore.
Which brings our labors to being editor and publisher, with my wife, Jan, of the very newspaper you’re clutching, for the past 21 years. Lotta’ labor; probably not as much as some out there, but at 63 estoy mas que harto de todo este ruido.
Hey, can I borrow a quarter?
