Shortly after my sixteenth birthday my father took me to apply for a Social Security card. Today all children need a Social Security number for their parents taxes but at that time you got a card when you were old enough to get a job. My Dad then told me "time to get a job". There was no option here. My Dad came from the "you don't work you don't eat" culture and he felt the best way to prepare me for life was to push me into it. I was born in the midst of the "baby boomer" years. This meant that there were hoards of teenagers competing for jobs. College graduates were working as busboys and bagging clerks. I found a part time job my junior year at the Sun Drug store 2 blocks from my house. Sun Drugs is still there although now it is a CVS pharmacy. My starting wage was $1.60 an hour! Big money to me at the time. I was envisioning all the wonderful things I could buy. I worked 2 nights a week, Tuesday and Thursday 6 to 10 and Saturday 1:30 to 10. by my estimation that was 16 x $1.60 or over $25! We stocked shelves and manned the front register. My Dad picked me up every night I worked. I told him not to come in to the store. It was "too embarrassing". Big mistake. After that he waited for me at the corner outside the drug store, right under the street light so I would for sure see him. Then he would call out my name in a goofy voice as I left the store or wave at me furiously. Sometimes he would wear a goofy hat, fake mustache or worse yet this awful hugh trenchcoat. He would squat down and do this goofy walk where he looked like a dwarf all the two blocks home. My work friends thought he was hysterical. Me? Not so much. No wonder anymore where my son got his off the wall goofy sense of humor. Not funny then but It has given me lots of happy goofy memories of my Dad since.
At some point someone must have been taking money out of the register because we all had to take a lie detector test and were questioned by the police. Looking back at that I would think, for sure now and most likely then also, it was probably illegal to do that to minors without even notifying their parents, let alone without legal representation. But what did we know? Here comes the real "crime". My first paycheck. I couldn't believe it! Where was my $25? I went home in a huff to show my Dad who I was sure would straighten it out for me. Wrong again. "Taxes", he said "for the government and the state". Then he informed me a certain percent went to the church, a certain percent went to savings for college and he had me sign my check, give it to him and he handed me a lousy five bucks.
Life lesson learned. Welcome to working, tax paying America.
Love you Dad,
At some point someone must have been taking money out of the register because we all had to take a lie detector test and were questioned by the police. Looking back at that I would think, for sure now and most likely then also, it was probably illegal to do that to minors without even notifying their parents, let alone without legal representation. But what did we know? Here comes the real "crime". My first paycheck. I couldn't believe it! Where was my $25? I went home in a huff to show my Dad who I was sure would straighten it out for me. Wrong again. "Taxes", he said "for the government and the state". Then he informed me a certain percent went to the church, a certain percent went to savings for college and he had me sign my check, give it to him and he handed me a lousy five bucks.
