As I do every morning, I was browsing – and sometimes reading – the articles in your Denver & the West section.
Colorado Voices columnist Michael Koenigs’ face stopped my browsing. What could a young man, looked like a teenager to me, have to tell me?
I read the article and felt a burning in my heart. Surely a teenager today could not connect with me, who was a teenager in the ’40s.
I graduated from high school in 1941 at the age of 17. I had been adjusting to the freedom from more school and the headiness of feeling grown-up.
Early one morning while having breakfast with the family, my dad looked at me with his piercing light- blue eyes and asked, “You like eating here?” Knowing something of my dad’s personality, I knew this demanded an answer. “Yeah, Pa,” I answered.
“Well, if you like putting your feet under my table three times a day, you better find a job, and soon.”
In those days we did not receive any help in filling out resumes or practicing interviews. I panicked for a moment. Where and how was I going to fill the demands my dad had made to me? There was no question of my leaving. I couldn’t leave the loving mother who still made my bed every morning, or leave my father’s provision of a good home and three squares a day.
Later, I cried on my mother’s shoulder, and she said, “Now, now. You’d better do what your father wants.”
I can’t quite remember how I found out that there was an opening in an optometrist’s office in the neighboring village. This meant a bus ride and walking on unknown streets. I went. I made the bus ride, I walked to the little shop, and I met and talked with the “man.”
I got the job! Now I could stay at home! This meant the bus rides, the six days a week at work. I received a white uniform starched to perfection. I got a desk in the front part of the office, a typewriter and instructions of what my job entailed: the daily cleaning of all the lenses, the dusting of the office, and sweeping the floor. I also was a receptionist to the clients, typed forms, received customer payments, and answered the phone – all for $50 a month.
My Dad had his hand out when I came home with my first paycheck. “Now that you are earning money, I have decided that you can pay room and board. I’ll take $12 and you can have whatever there is left after taxes and Social Security deductions.”
When a favorite aunt of mine was to be married on a Saturday, I couldn’t go – my job demanded I be there. I was very disappointed, but that was not the first time in my young life that I felt the sharp sting of helpless disappointment. The customers still had to be served, the lenses still had to be cleaned, the front-window display still dusted, etc.
I was reminded that if you had an obligation, you met it. No whimpering or whining or carrying on. You want to be grown-up, don’t you? You want the paycheck, don’t you? Remember the beautiful dress you have on layaway that needs another payment? You don’t want to disappoint your Dad, do you?
Michael had a character-building experience with his first paying job. I doubt his father had given him an ultimatum to get a job or leave home. I also doubt that my father would have turned me out. But I didn’t know it at the time.
My dad had worked since he was 14 and brought all his money home. He came through the Depression with no job for a time. I remember him pacing the floor because we had no money, and him breaking out with boils from despair.
My first job started my character-building, which has stood me in great stead throughout my life.
Keep up the good work, Michael. You are on the right track.
My family includes children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I would gladly include Michael.
