My First 40 Jobs: A Memoir

By Hugh Maguire

This memoir takes the reader from March, 1966 to June, 2003; from Massachusetts to Connecticut, Hawaii to Oregon, South Carolina to California to Virginia; from reporting for a newspaper to Salvation Army Bell Ringer, National Park Service ranger to working for Fidelity Investments; 40 jobs spread throughout America that helped fill up a life, but was it worthwhile?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475901382

Hugh Maguire

Hugh Maguire graduated from Boston College in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. He has lived in six states and traveled through 48 states; working at nearly everything except McDonald’s. Returning to Massachusetts in 1993, he married his lovely wife, Cynthia, and “settled down” in the Boston area.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

NEWSPAPER BOY

YOU ALWAYS REMEMBER YOUR FIRST. My first job was newspaper boy. Even now, over four decades later, I remember it well: The six-day-a-week grind, winter scenes, some of the customers, even the feeling of being a newspaper boy again; riding quickly on my bicycle racing to deliver all the newspapers before dark.

I became a newspaper boy in March, 1966 at the age of 13. I didn’t want to be dependent on my parents for an allowance or spending money any longer. I also wanted to make more money and the thought of having a job thrilled my imagination! One day at Holton-Richmond Junior High School I heard that Bobby Sagan was trying to sell his afternoon newspaper route. I contacted Bobby (who one year later was to ask my sister to their junior prom with the immortal words: Do you have anything else to do on the night of the Prom?) who told me that a couple of other kids wanted the job, but a week later he sold it to me. My father loaned me $50 to buy the route, Bobby trained me for a week, then I was on my own.

At first everything went well. In fact, I felt like a rich man! I couldn’t get over how easy it was to make money! I made $12 a week and thought that was big money! I could see myself getting rich. Why did so many grownups complain so bitterly about how hard it is to make money? I couldn’t figure that out because it was so easy for me!

I even felt guilty over making so much money and thought it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t be this easy! I must owe somebody some of it. Nearly every day I expected someone from the newspaper office to appear and take back some of my money. You see, I was used to receiving one dollar-and-fifty cents per week for my allowance. Twelve dollars a week was a sudden gush of riches!

In my enthusiasm I began building up the newspaper route following Bobby Sagan’s advice. Quickly I reached $17 a week. How easy it was to make money! But that was my high-water mark. The news store then raised their prices on me because their supplier raised the prices on them. I broke the chain. I never raised my prices. Why? I was just too afraid. I was too afraid of my customers’ reactions! So my profit was cut in half.

I delivered 70 newspapers five afternoons a week and 140 newspapers on Thursday when our local paper, the Danvers Herald, came out. I also delivered the Salem Evening News, Lynn Item, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Traveler and Boston Record American. They usually fit snugly into two stainless steel baskets installed on both sides of the back fender of my bicycle by my father. During winter when walking the route all the newspapers were slung over my shoulder in a classic-looking newspaper sack given me by Bobby Sagan.

Many memories are still vivid. One of the most pleasant is of a take-out, fast food restaurant at the end of my route on Endicott Street. They were noted for their seafood. Nearly every Friday afternoon after finishing the route and collecting my money, I stopped there and ordered a fried Ipswich clam roll washed down by a large coffee milkshake; consuming it at a nearby picnic table. Then I started doing it twice a week. How wonderful it was to be rich!

The first few months of the job found me enthusiastic and dedicated, then I grew bored and my performance drooped. I began delivering the newspapers later and later. I read them first; kneeling down on the hard concrete of our garage floor studying the sports, front-page stories, and various other articles. Sometimes I read for quite awhile.

Two sports stories have stayed in my mind all these years. The first was the main sports story on the back of the Boston Record American tabloid one summer day. It concerned a 17-year old hockey phenom out of Canada. He had been signed by the perennial last place Boston Bruins several years earlier and was due in training camp that fall. There were glowing scouting reports and a can’t miss label tagged on him, but I was so used to the Bruins finishing last every year that the youngster in me thought that would never change. The 17-year old’s name was Bobby Orr.

A prizefight between Muhammad Ali and a gutsy British fighter by the name of Henry Cooper also stayed in my mind. I saw the fight on TV then read the reporter’s version the next day. The only drama in the fight was: Which round would Ali knock Cooper out in? It was Muhammad Ali in his prime and I remember his great athleticism and talent as he moved like a greyhound around the ring, punching so quickly that sometimes you could barely see the punches.

One Saturday I accompanied my family to Boston on a day-trip then delivered the newspapers after returning. On Saturdays the papers were dropped off in my garage around 10 o’clock in the morning so I was usually done by noon.

I very quietly slipped the newspapers inside the outer doors of the houses late that afternoon, but right at the end of the route a woman in her sixties caught me. She asked where I had been? I meekly and apologetically explained that I had gone to Boston that day with my family. She patiently waited for me to finish, told me I had been delivering the newspaper much too late each day, then fired me.

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It was an adventure delivering newspapers during a snowstorm. I would fight through the biting wind, my mood and load lightening with each paper dropped off. The landscape was dramatically altered and occasionally I was unsure of where I was.

Snowstorms obliterate landmarks and the most familiar territory in the world can become unfamiliar during a blizzard. You don’t realize how dependent you are on landmarks until they disappear. Sometimes the houses and trees all became one white blur and you could be walking through Siberia. I might not recognize a house I had been to many times. Trees would bend so far over as to be unrecognizable, drifts obscured familiar features, and if the house was white it blended into the snowstorm.

I remember one yard in particular. It had an elegant curving driveway passing through a stand of graceful pine trees. When plodding up to the entrance the day of a blizzard not only had the driveway disappeared but the arrow-straight pines were bent in two forming a lover’s arch over where the driveway had been. Walking under their embrace and in the sheltered quiet beneath the pines I suddenly felt mystically removed to a different time and place. It was a white, enchanting world full of castles, witches and princesses; like C.S. Lewis’ magical kingdom of Narnia. But after a moment of astonishment, my mystical world vanished.

In back of our house at 120 Sylvan Street was a wonderful 275-acre meadow. I loved wandering through it; discovering animals, observing birds, watching the seasons unfold. The tall, green grass rippled in the wind like wheat in a wheat field. A pond was set in the heart of it, which could not be seen until close by, and I remember the thrill of discovering it for the first time and feeling so far from home like Lewis and Clark on their expedition. I caught horned-pout fish in summer, watched muskrats swimming by building their lodges, and played hockey on the frozen pond in winter.

After finishing my newspaper route I cut across the huge meadow to return home. I still recall the wonderfully fresh moist smells of springtime in the meadow; red-winged blackbirds swaying on the tops of cat-o-nine tails gurgling their throaty calls; the meadow turning greener each day. What a miracle it was to see a frozen, white, lifeless wasteland turn moist and flowery and green in the space of three or four weeks!

Winter I remember best, however. It grew dark early and frequently I finished my newspaper route after sunset. Walking home across the pitch-dark meadow the only lights were from far away street lamps. It was cold and quiet in the meadow, only the crunch of my steps on the snow to be heard. Some nights I stopped, looked around and listened. It was a different world out there in the dark away from the warmth of home and friends; like the frozen tundra of Siberia. I was amazed anything survived the piercing biting cold of the night. It made the sudden appearance of spring all the more miraculous to my eyes.

Sometimes the wind howled. It seemed human and evil, searching out any unprotected part of me to seize in its icy bite and devour. When the soft warm lights of home finally appeared to my red, wind-whipped eyes and I entered our house; a flood of warmth engulfed my heart and the world was suddenly a better place.

One winter afternoon after finishing my newspaper route I began the usual short cut across the huge snowy meadow. Suddenly, there on the icy shoulder of busy Endicott Street, lay a 10-dollar bill! In the mid-1960’s a 10-dollar bill was a lot of money to a 14- year-old. I was overjoyed and hurried home to tell the good news.

The next Friday evening I took my sister and grandmother (who lived with us) to Romy’s Ye Olde Oyster House Restaurant in Danvers for dinner; which wasn’t far from where I found the money. That 10-dollar bill covered most of the price for three meals.

After that I kept a sharp lookout upon the shoulder of Endicott Street. Several weeks later I found a one-dollar bill lying in almost the same spot, but that was it.

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It was February, 1968. A snowstorm had raged one week earlier. Ice and snow lay encrusted on the ground. I was late again delivering the newspapers and it would soon be dark so I decided to deliver them by bicycle because it was much faster than walking my route.

I was about half-finished as an early winter twilight descended. Pedaling past my house on busy Sylvan Street I was unable to use the sidewalk because it was buried in snow; which also extended several feet out into the street forcing me to ride farther out into traffic than I wanted. Headlights beamed then passed by as I hurried to finish the route.

But one set of headlights did not curve away like the others. It kept bearing down on me, advancing at high speed. At the last second, realizing we were on a collision course, I swerved my bicycle to the left. A split second later the pickup truck smashed into my rear wheel just inches past my right ankle.

I was catapulted into the air and landed in a snow-bank. The pickup truck careened wildly into the other lane then it too crashed into a snow-bank.

A tall, thin young guy came running out of the truck toward me.

Are you all-right? Are you all-right? He gasped.

Yah, I’m ok, I whispered, more scared than anything else. My kneecap ached because it bore the brunt of my weight crashing into the icy snow-bank, otherwise I was fine. Looking at the mangled bicycle I saw how close the truck had come to my right ankle and leg.

The driver put the bicycle in the back of his pickup truck and drove me the short distance to my house. Luckily, I had enough sense to ask for his name, address and phone number.

Only my grandmother was home, who never learned to drive. My mother returned home from teaching school about one hour later and nervously I told her what happened. Immediately she took me to Hunt Memorial Hospital in Danvers to make sure I was all right. The doctor gave me a tetanus shot then released me.

My parents contacted the driver and the police. He turned out to be 19 years old with a string of speeding violations. His license was briefly suspended and his insurance company paid for my hospital visit and a new rear wheel, fender, and baskets for my bicycle.

If my bike had been on ice when swerving, I would have ended up under the wheel of his truck.

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After a year of delivering newspapers I began missing the possibility of playing organized sports after school or just playing sports with my friends as I had done for years. The constant pressure of delivering newspapers six afternoons a week began weighing on me, increasing as time went by. I wondered how I could get out of it. I discovered that working was a drag. It was boring, monotonous, unsatisfying. Was this the future? I began to prefer an allowance to this working for money. There was no end to it! How could I escape and live off my parents again? I didn’t have the guts to tell my mother I wanted to quit. She wouldn’t have let me. I was the one who chose to be a newspaper boy. I knew my mother would not let me out of it. What was I to do? The months and years went by as I grew sicker and sicker of the job.

Finally, deliverance appeared. We were moving! My father accepted a promotion from his company – McGraw Hill – to their headquarters in New York City. We were moving to Connecticut. I was able to leave my job with honor! I sold the route to a kid in junior high school who was about the same age I had been when starting. He wouldn’t pay more than $35 for the route, however. I was so desperate to get out of the job and afraid no one else would buy it that I accepted the 15-dollar loss; another indication of my business prowess.

But I was happy! After two-and-a-quarter years I was out of a job I detested. I was determined not to work again for a long, long time. Like Huckleberry Finn I had developed a strong dislike for working. But if I had known that 39 more jobs were awaiting me, I might have fled down the Mississippi River just like him.

CHAPTER 2

A&P CASHIER

WE MOVED FROM THE SMALL town of Danvers, Massachusetts to the corporate, sophisticated, larger town of Greenwich, Connecticut on July 3, 1968. The next summer my mother insisted I get a job. It had been one year since I last worked and was now about 16 ½. My mother had a job all picked out for me – cashier at our local A&P supermarket. It was in the Riverside section of Greenwich, the same section we lived in.

But I didn’t want to work. After the newspaper job I saw how hard working for a living really was. It was a never-ending grind. I hoped to put off working for another five years until I was graduated from college and ready to try again. Maybe by that time I would find a job I really liked and would be happy to work at. But my mother had other ideas.

I put her off, stalled, and avoided her for weeks until she finally confronted me with concrete plans to visit the grocery store and speak with the manager. I was petrified. The idea of speaking to the store manager frightened the wits out of me.

The next morning the dreaded appointment arrived. We drove to the A&P in Riverside; I spoke briefly with the manager, Mr. Robbie, then filled out an application form. He told me he’d let me know.

With relief I quickly walked away feeling quite proud of myself. Now I could face my mother waiting in our car with pride. But one more task remained. My mother had asked me to buy her a pack of cigarettes. I disliked doing this because although I was 16, the legal minimum age to buy cigarettes, I looked much younger.

Sure enough, the girl at the cash register asked to see proof of my age. I never got my driver’s license until age 17 so I had no proof to show her. I left the A&P without the cigarettes feeling embarrassed.

My mother hit the roof when I told her what happened. With me as a reluctant witness she stormed into the A&P, grabbed a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, then confronted the same cashier who had turned me away. She told the girl off and we walked out, my embarrassment so great that I hoped never to get the job.

But one of my mother’s many outstanding qualities was perseverance. I would gladly have let the application die but she would not. One week went by with no word from the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company so my mother swung into action. With her prompting I called the grocery store and spoke again with the manager. Mr. Robbie surprised me by saying he was interested in hiring me but there were no cashier openings at the moment. I would have accepted a position sweeping the floors but my mother had her sights set higher. I must be a cashier! One more week passed then she drove me down to the A&P and reluctantly I pestered Mr. Robbie again. To my amazement he hired me!

I quickly took to cashiering. What I really liked about it was the money. I loved handling all that money! I enjoyed having a cash register stuffed with hundreds of dollars. I never stole any, I just enjoyed having all that money in my possession, however briefly.

In an embarrassing coincidence, the girl whom my mother told off was assigned to be my trainer for the first week! Her name was Claudia. She was a tough yet sexy blonde, 16 years old like myself. I had to stand by her side the first week and learn the art of cashiering. But she never once mentioned the incident in all the time we worked at the A&P and neither did I. Gradually, I discovered that she was quite honest with a good heart.

I worked five days a week that summer then every Saturday during my senior year of high school. Saturdays were by far our busiest day. One Saturday as I walked from my cash resister to the office to get change, a woman suddenly dropped her bags of groceries on the floor in front of me. She was voluptuously built with a few of her top blouse buttons undone. As she bent over to pick up the groceries most of her bosom became exposed as well as her legs.

Immediately I turned my gaze away trying to be modest. But the truth was, my interest in women were like so many other things in my life, late blooming. Lo and behold, Mr. Robbie happened to be walking right behind me and saw the whole thing. To my astonishment he angrily blurted out:

Don’t look away from her. There’s nothing wrong with looking at a woman’s body!

My favorite moment at the A&P occurred on a Christmas Eve. Just before closing, the management and some of the workers began drinking alcohol. The cashiers couldn’t because we were in the public eye. Then, several of the cashiers drifted away from their registers. When the store officially closed I walked up and down the aisles making sure all customers were gone. In the corner of the store was another cashier swaying up the same aisle I was walking down with a glassy look in her eyes. I had always liked her. She was a sexy Italian-American.

Merry Christmas! said I to her.

Merry Christmas, she replied, then gave me a full-lipped Christmas kiss on the mouth.

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In those years if blacks were hired at grocery stores, and few were, it was to pick up grocery carts from the parking lot and sweep floors. There was a young black guy by the name of Will who was hired shortly after me. We were both the same age. He was a big strong kid with a pleasing personality and everyone liked him. Will brought in carriages, swept and mopped floors and spills on floors, bagged groceries for us cashiers, helped customers carry groceries to their car. Once in a while he stocked the shelves.

I remember Claudia and a few of the young female cashiers complaining among themselves that Will should be given the chance to be a cashier. They were right. But even in Connecticut in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s blacks were hired much less frequently than whites and mainly for menial jobs.

I never had any contact with black people up to that time having grown up in a small town that was considered in the country in the 1950’s. As I got to know Will I came to like him and completely forgot he was black. He was just one of us.

One day a customer at the store needed help with her groceries. I told her Will would help. He was out in the parking lot at the time so I was trying to point him out to her and what he looked like, when suddenly it occurred to me that he was black. I had forgotten that fact for months. This sudden realization jolted me and I never forgot it. It taught me a wonderful lesson in the equality of races and peoples.

Two houses away from us on Juniper Lane in Riverside, Connecticut were the Donlevy’s. They had two girls, Patty and Colleen. Although I didn’t see them much, Colleen developed a crush on me. I was so unaware of girls at the time that I never realized it. I was into nature and sports and reading.

Colleen’s mother shopped at the A&P and occasionally came to my cash register. When she did she usually invited me over to their house. I said yes but never went. I eventually realized it was to visit Colleen but I wasn’t interested. Although I was developing an attraction to girls, I was uncomfortable around them. I always felt I had to act different than who I was in order to keep their interest.

One Saturday at the A&P Mrs. Donlevy invited me over to their house for the umpteenth time. When I said in an unconvincing tone of voice, OK, I’ll come over, she slammed her keys down on the counter in anger. That woke me up. In fact it shocked me, although she did apologize. She pinned me down to the date of my visit but later I forgot about it. I was never invited again. However, I did take Colleen to my Senior Prom and we had a good time.

Many years later while looking at the 1970 prom movie pictures of us together; taken by my father on a cutting edge Bell and Howell super 8 mm movie camera, I instantly noticed that 15- year old Colleen was quite pretty and sexy! Although I was 17 at the time I never noticed it then. I was an awful late bloomer.

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An older man named Nick, probably in his late forties, worked in the aisles at the A&P. I really liked him. He was a fast, hard worker, mellow and low-key. He had a habit of saying a silly phrase over and over throughout the day to relieve stress and boredom; although it took me months to realize that. The first time he said it I took it literally and was completely confused. Eventually I caught on and adopted the phrase, repeating it to other employees: Are you working today?

Imagine my confusion as a 16- year old when he first said that to me at work? But before long I couldn’t stop repeating the phrase, just like Nick. He would say it to me when it was real busy; like on a Saturday afternoon as he bagged groceries for me so I could check customers through faster. Sometimes it caused me to burst out laughing!

Once an elderly man whose groceries I was checking through and accompanied by his wife asked me if I knew a cashier named Robin. I told him I did. She was the only person at the A&P I didn’t like because she was pushy and aggressive even at the age of 16. Then he asked me what I thought of her. Innocently I told him that I didn’t like her for those reasons. He then told me he was her grandfather and his wife was her grandmother.

I worked at the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company the summer of 1969, Saturdays during the next school year, the summer of 1970 and the following Christmas vacation from college. After a while I began to feel I was in a rut again like my paperboy job. It seemed endless and unfulfilling. I finally never went back after Christmas vacation. The summer of 1971 I cut lawns in Greenwich for spending money.

CHAPTER 3

WETSON’S

IN THE SUMMER OF 1972 after my sophomore year at Boston College I took a job at a fast food restaurant named Wetson’s. It also was in Riverside just down the street from the A&P. For the most part I flipped burgers, occasionally waiting on customers at the window. It definitely was one of my minor jobs and the main image that sticks out is two good looking girls.

I was only in the job about six weeks. I was 19, without a clue as to what I wanted to do with my life, other than a vague desire to become a writer. That year I began taking any entry-level job I could get. A pattern that has lasted all my life.

After spending so much time on the other side of the counter as a customer it was interesting to change places and be the one taking orders and flipping burgers. The major benefit to the job was that I got to eat all the burgers and French fries I wanted. But when I saw the large amounts of white lard we dropped into the deep fryer to cook the french fries in, I cut back on the fries.

The manager was 21 years old, a young kid from Vermont; but of course I didn’t think of him at the time as a young kid, he was two years older than me. I liked him. He was blonde, good-looking, with charisma. But what stands out in my mind are two girls who came down from Vermont to visit him. One was his girlfriend, the other her friend who also knew him. They were a couple of the sexiest girls I had ever seen! Tanned, shapely, with long blonde hair and bare midriffs. I gladly would have gotten down on my knees and kissed their tanned stomachs for one hour! But of course I didn’t. The agony and ecstasy of being 19!

After several days visit the girls went back to Vermont, the manager with them. Demoralized by their disappearances I quit Wetson’s a week later.

CHAPTER 4

MANPOWER TEMP

MY PATTERN OF QUICKLY TAKING then leaving jobs had begun. The next employment offer came from the giant temp firm Manpower. I vaguely recall that the economic climate wasn’t good in 1972 so I answered a Help Wanted ad in our local newspaper from Manpower; whose office was in Stamford, Connecticut, the rapidly growing small city next to Greenwich.

I still remember the crowded scene of that office filled with job-seekers, the long application form to be filled out, the wait, the quick interview, then the comment: We’ll call you in a few days. Amazingly they did! I was offered a job at a book warehouse in Stamford packing large boxes with books and a shipping order then sealing and stamping the boxes. I worked at the job through the late summer of 1972 until early spring of 1973, about seven and-a-half months.

Several images of the place are still with me. Most of the workers were older black men and I still recall that while they worked on the boxes they liked to joke and laugh among themselves as they talked to each other and me about women.

Another memory is of a book I came across on the shelves. It was entitled: The History of Burlesque and it caught my eye in a big way. There were many black and white pictures of strippers in the book and I couldn’t get enough of looking at them but only quick glances could I take while at work. I thought about this dilemma for a few days then solved it. I would take the book home but return it in a week or two. The next evening at 5:00 p.m. I smuggled the book home underneath my jacket. Soon I had every picture memorized but never returned the book. I meant to, but the alluring pictures of nearly naked voluptuous women overruled my ethics. I must have held on to that book 20 years before it fell apart.

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I took that year off from college. Why? My mother died. My mother died on October 27, 1972 from cancer. She was 53. I was 19, two weeks before my 20th birthday.

In the spring I quit the warehouse and Manpower and spent that season and the summer cutting grass again in wealthy Greenwich. In the fall I returned to college for my junior year.

CHAPER 5

CALEB DIDRIKSEN

MY BEST LANDSCAPING CUSTOMER THAT summer and for the next 10 ½ years was a man by the name of Caleb Didriksen. He was one of the first to respond to my advertisements in the Greenwich Time and I ended up working for him, on and off, from the spring of 1973 to the fall of 1983. He died shortly after that at the ripe old age of 88.

When first I met him he had cut his own lawn, trimmed its bushes, weeded, raked the leaves, and carried a heavy ladder about climbing up it to the second floor of his house to clean out leaves from the gutters each fall then re-painting the gutters with linseed oil. He did all this alone up to the age of 78.

We hit it off and long after I left landscaping I helped him, spring through fall, with property and house-maintenance tasks. Even when working at various jobs in the Greenwich area I helped him on weekends. The spending money always came in handy because he paid well. I also liked Mr. Didriksen and wanted to help him.

Mr. D, as I sometimes called him, enjoyed telling me about his life. He was born in the 1890’s in Connecticut and grew up poor. His parents had emigrated from Norway. He received a full scholarship to Yale University and earned his spending money by operating one of the first city trolley cars in New Haven. He never forgot seeing a pedestrian killed by another trolley car.

After Yale Mr. D took a job with General Motors and spent 43 years working for them. It was his only job after college. A bit different from myself! He majored in accounting and rose to the number three position in the finance department at General Motors. He had an honest, straightforward and blunt personality that became his undoing, according to Mr. Didriksen. He did not rise higher than number three in finance because he ruffled feathers with his blunt speaking manner. He always seemed disappointed he hadn’t become head of finance at General Motors. But he retired with an excellent pension and threw his energy into maintaining his large, attractive house and spacious property in the Riverside section of Greenwich.

Mr. Didriksen possessed many qualities I admired. Whenever something needed to be done he did it right away. Even if it could be put off for a day or two or several weeks he accomplished the task immediately. Nothing was ever put off, procrastinated, or left hanging. Mr. D was also very honest, telling you exactly what he thought about everything in a direct manner. He was very hands-on and hard working; the epitome of the old fashioned, American-Protestant work ethic. He enjoyed working with me; helping, supervising, praising, criticizing.

He braced the ladder with his big body while I climbed up it to clean the gutters and paint them with linseed oil. Then he helped me carry the heavy ladder back to where it belonged. We gardened together; weeding, digging with the spade and shovel, removing boulders, etc. I was amazed at his strength and fortitude when he was well into his eighties. His wife always provided me with lunch and she was a delightful woman; very talkative, loved plants, very sweet. They had one daughter who was married with children and lived in Atlanta.

Mr. Didriksen was like a favorite grandfather dispensing wisdom, teaching by example, generous. He adored the town of Greenwich and lived in it over 50 years. He would never live anywhere else. Mrs. Didriksen was after him for many years trying to get him to move to Atlanta to be near their daughter. He refused. He loved Greenwich passionately and his house. They were his for over 50 years along with his wife.

Several months after finishing another season of sporadic work for him in the fall of 1983 I was shocked to discover his obituary in the Greenwich Time. I wrote a letter to Mrs. Didriksen and she wrote back a very nice letter telling me she was moving to Atlanta. I heard she lived with her daughter and family for five years before dying there in her late eighties.

When I think of Mr. Didriksen now, so many years later, I recall him with affection. Those were good years working for him. I was young and vibrant. He always had a lot of energy and optimism. We worked well together and I enjoyed working for him. He was like a third grandfather and provided me with much needed money when I was in-between jobs. If he didn’t call me I could always call him to see if any work needed to be done so I could earn money. Almost always he found work for me. And his personality was always upbeat, optimistic, energetic, alive. He is missed.

CHAPTER 6

BOSTON COLLEGE DISH ROOM

WITH THE DEATH OF MY mother the family income was cut by one-third. To get through my junior and senior years with enough spending money I took a job in the college dish room three evenings a week. I still recall explaining that decision by saying: I needed the money. I was actually quite proud to say: I needed the money. I never had to say those words before in my life. Now I felt like one of the working class people! We were never rich but my father always had a good job, sometimes two, and my mother was one of the first married women with children to go back to work (as a teacher) in the early 1960’s. So we had enough money when I was growing up. But when my mother died many things changed.

The very best thing I got out of working in that dish room was meeting a guy who was to become my best friend – Barry Meehan – who I’m still good friends with over three decades later. I was a junior and he a freshman but we hit it off and became close. We worked together collecting the plastic trays filled with food; throwing the paper and uneaten food into a garbage barrel; the silverware, dishes and trays into the dishwashing machine.

The next best thing about the job was girl watching. Some of the girls brought their trays to our little opening onto the cafeteria. While accepting their trays we gave them a good look. Or we watched them while they placed their trays on the aluminum shelf through our open window; especially when they bent forward while putting their trays down. Gathering the trays together at the window was also a good place to scan the cafeteria for attractive coeds strutting about.

Another of our duties was to go out into the cafeteria and push a tall aluminum cart filled with dirty trays to the dish room opening, unload the trays, then push the empty wheeled cart back to its original position. It got us out of the hot dish room and let us stretch our legs.

After several months the student-assistant manager of our shift began losing control over us workers. A little while later he resigned. What always interested me is who they picked to replace him. It was the chief troublemaker! He was a year younger than me; a wise guy who was sarcastic but had a good sense of humor. He had directed most of his barbs at the assistant manager. Management approached him and asked him to take over. He agreed. I’ve always remembered that tactic. By co-opting a troublesome element you’ve neutralized at least one problem plus the new person has a better feel for the other troublesome elements in the rank. The new assistant manager was respected by us and had been the unofficial ringleader of our discontent. Management brilliantly pulled the plug on our dissent by making the ringleader part of management.

There was an old cook in the kitchen by the name of Chester. He looked capable of murder. Chester was probably in his mid or late fifties. He had a blunt, creased face like that of a retired prizefighter. I can still see him standing by a giant industrial cooking pot stirring it with a long metal spoon that looked like a weapon in his hands. He usually had a belligerent look on his face. I always steered clear of him.

There was a joke in the dish room that he used to spit into the giant pot. I wouldn’t have put it past him. His temper was legendary but he usually faked it to give himself a good laugh and scare the intended victim. I didn’t know him well enough to distinguish his bark from his bite. But I remember feeling sorry for him, wondering why a man of his age was still working in a school cafeteria. Thirty-four jobs later I understand the realities of life better.

CHAPTER 7

ASSISTANT GARDENER

AFTER MY JUNIOR YEAR AT Boston College I spent the summer working on an estate in north Greenwich. I was hired as assistant to the gardener of a large property on upper Lake Avenue in the horse country section. Mr. Pennell was the gardener. The owner of the estate was Mr. Evans. He worked on Wall Street.

Almost every day I mowed grass. When I wasn’t doing that I pruned trees, trimmed hedges and bushes, weeded. On rainy days I cleaned, oiled and greased the extensive array of landscaping equipment. It was a Monday through Friday job from mid-May through the end of August. I only missed a day-and-a-half that summer when I smashed my head against a loose board hanging down from an old shed on the estate and lost buckets of blood.

Pennell was a strict taskmaster. He was a middle-aged Yankee who was all business but we grew to respect each other as the days went by.

Evans’ estate was of several hundred acres; almost all of it grass, trees, and hay. Most of the time I guided a powerful, self-propelled lawn-mower which had two large wings giving it a great cutting span. It bounced off a few trees that summer. You had to be alert or it became unruly; like trying to control a tiger. Once a week I drove a tall, glassed-in tractor across a large side field owned by Evans, mowing it like hay. The machine