# Your summer job



## Cornhusker (Mar 20, 2003)

I didn't want to hijack a thread that was already off the rails, but a post got me to thinking.
What did you do for a summer job when you were in grade school, high school or college?
At the risk of dating myself, I started working on a hay crew when I was about 10. Dad would take me with him, and I'd either mow on a Super C with a 9 ft.sickle, or scatter rake on an old Ford 9n.
When I was 14, I could hire out to the better paying crews up in the Sandhills. I spent 3 summers living in an old International bus with 4 or 5 other kids working 6 or 7 days a week. We got up with the sun, washed our hands and faces in a pan if ice cold water (sometimes had to break the ice) and then ate breakfast. While waited for the dew to go off we serviced our machines, sharpening and replacing sickles busted rake teeth cracked sweep teeth checked oil, etc.
At lunch, we'd sit in the shade of our tractors and eat whatever the cook had packed.
We drank water from Clorox jugs wrapped in wet burlap.
When it got too dark to work, we'd head back for a shower and supper.
When we weren't at hay camp my brother and I raised potatoes, usually just a half acre. We'd sell them around the start of the school season for $3.00 for a hundred pounds then Grandma and Grandpa would take us to Denver to get some school clothes and supplies.
After my junior year in High School, I worked in a factory. I didn't like it as well as putting up hay, but it paid a lot better.
The summer after my senior year I put up grain bins and steel buildings.
Other summers were filled with working the heating and AC business, repossessing cars and other things for a credit bureau, detailing cars for a dealership and working construction on a railroad roundhouse.
Seems like I worked my whole life.
Anybody else have jobs in the summer?


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## nchobbyfarm (Apr 10, 2011)

I started driving the tractor getting up square bales before my legs were long enough to reach the pedals from the seat on the international tractor. I could stand and mash the clutch to knock it out of gear before repositioning to apply the brake.

At 15 through 17, I began working at a marina that dry stacked boats. I was also the mechanics test driver when they took a boat out they were working on. I drove Reggie Fountain's personal boat a few times while they serviced the engines in the 1980's. That was a treat.

I also began filling in for the mates at 16 on charter boats when the full time mate called on sick. (Usually hung over after a good tipping charter the day before)

At 18, the real world began and summer jobs were a thing of the past.


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## mreynolds (Jan 1, 2015)

I was kinda spoiled for that era. My cousins who was 8 and 10 were driving an 80hp tractor doing bushhogging, feeding the cows and such. Their dad took the seat out so they could see over the wheel standing up. 

I started with my dad when I was 11 working construction. Worked free until I turned 13. Then he paid me 4.25 when minimum wage was 3.35. I was in hog heaven. By the time I was in high school I took a building trades class. We built an entire house from the ground up. Before long the teacher was asking me how to do certain things. 

But mostly in the summer when I wasnt doing that I was in the garden and we had a few head of cows too. We had about ten acres total that we sold at the farmers market or canned or gave away to neighbors. Friday and Saturday I was so tired I couldnt move so I didnt go out and get into trouble like some of my friends (that may or may not still be in prison).


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## mreynolds (Jan 1, 2015)

nchobbyfarm said:


> *I started driving the tractor getting up square bales before my legs were long enough to reach the pedals from the seat on the international tractor.* I could stand and mash the clutch to knock it out of gear before repositioning to apply the brake.


Are you my cousin?


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## nchobbyfarm (Apr 10, 2011)

mreynolds said:


> Are you my cousin?


I would claim you as kin!


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

I had a paper route, delivering a daily paper, walked or rode a bike 6 miles each day when I was 12 and 13. Picked cherries and strawberries during the summer. Mowed several lawns, with a push mower, no motor. Washed cars at a car dealership before I had a driver's license. When I was 15, I worked in the Christmas tree plantations. With a 18 inch wood handled knife, I'd put the cone shape on Scotch pine and Blue Spruce, by the thousands. Long hours, 7 days a week, but minimum wage was great for my age. Traveled around the state, sometimes camped out for a week, hundreds of acres of Christmas trees. Weekends in the fall, spray paint the pine trees or cut them down with a bow saw and feed through a tree wrapper. During the school year, I took a job in a factory attaching small parts onto hooks that dipped the parts and baked the finish and then we shook the parts off as they cooled for shipment to an automobile factory. Worked from 3:30 to 10:00 and then walk home and do my homework. Stacked hay bales in a barn's hay mow, but baling hay was weather dependent, so that was sort of hit and miss. In the winter, after school or weekends, I'd shovel sidewalks and driveways in the neighborhood. My Dad's BIL operated a dairy and my Mother's dad operated a beef farm and both gardened, so I helped out there in the summers, too, but mostly when I was 10 or 11.
By the time I was 18, I was attending High School, part time at a Community College and after graduation, working, full time, midnight shift at a factory, full time college student and doing contract work in the Christmas trees, cutting and selling firewood.


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## Oregon1986 (Apr 25, 2017)

Like every other teenage girl,I babysat.


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## mreynolds (Jan 1, 2015)

Oregon1986 said:


> Like every other teenage girl,I babysat.


 That's a worse job often than hauling hay. Depends on the kids of course.


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## Oregon1986 (Apr 25, 2017)

mreynolds said:


> That's a worse job often than hauling hay. Depends on the kids of course.


Yes that is for sure. I remember watching kids and thinking,"I'm never having any".


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## Teej (Jan 14, 2012)

I also did a lot of babysitting year round not just summers. With 4 older siblings who started having kids when I was 7 there was never a lack of jobs. Until I was 13 or 14 I had to watch them at home with mom in attendance. Detassled corn one summer. Worked in a friends dad's machine shop another packaging fishing reels. From the time my dad was big enough to do chores he was sent to stay on a family friend's farm to work. He never wanted us kids to have jobs, he wanted us to be kids but he didn't mind us girls babysitting...too much. The other jobs he really fought against but usually lost the fight.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

nchobbyfarm said:


> I drove Reggie Fountain's personal boat a few times while they serviced the engines in the 1980's. That was a treat.


I used to love hearing those boats running up and down the river by Whichard's Beach.
On a still day you could hear them half a mile or more.

For those unfamiliar with Fountain Boats, imagine cruising on the water at 70+ MPH to the hum of twin 454 V8 engines:


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I grew up on a farm so the summer jobs were nearly the same as the winter jobs. Milk cows, clean barn, bring in fire wood and keep moms range box full. Pump water water critters penned in the barn (calves and the bull.) and bring it in the house fill the boilers on the sides on moms cook stove.

After I was 8 I mowed hay with a Minnie Moe sickle bar mower, raked it with a IH side delivery rake and towed the wagon with the New Idea hay loader behind it till 1963 when we got out first hay baler a old wore out IH T45.
Then about mid August we combined the wheat (could only do so many acres then.) oats. Dad Had a old International model 5 combine cut a whopping 5 feet at a round, Always bag the grain hauled to the grarinery drug them inside and dumped.

Was a long time before dad had a gravity box and grain elevator. Was after us boys had been drafted and dad was doing a lot by him self.

When I was in High school I washed dishes at a resturant from 4:00PM till 11:30PM week days and worked at a car wash on week ends, ran the steam gun in the winter there.

 Al


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## Scott SW Ohio (Sep 20, 2003)

I started delivering newspapers at age 10. My route had 120 customers, and I spent two hours a night delivering and several hours on Saturday collecting. I also mowed lawns, raked leaves, shoveled snow, sold Christmas cards door to door and worked with my dad remodeling houses. I saved a third of what I earned, gave a third to my parents and had a third to spend. I remember as a 12-year old (1971) earning $25 or $30 a week when my friends got an allowance from their parents of a few dollars. Boy was I rich!


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## Texaspredatorhu (Sep 15, 2015)

I grew up on a dairy farm and when we moved to town it almost killed me so I worked nights at a corporate dairy and then pulled wrenches on over the road trucks through trade school. I guess none of it was just summer work though.


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## Irish Pixie (May 14, 2002)

I never babysat, not once. I worked on a horse farm from age 12 to 16, as a trail guide, teaching lessons, working horses, general chores, haying. I had my own business from 16 on a small breeding operation, working, buying, and selling horses. I also had to help on the family dairy farm from 16 to 18. 

At around 21 I decided there were easier ways to live and sought an education. An education doesn't have to mean just college either, it can be votech training, apprenticeship, etc. It was college for me tho.


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## Farmerga (May 6, 2010)

I worked on our Broiler/beef cattle farm for as long as I can remember. I would hire out to other farms to put up hay. I also worked one summer installing AC units (worst job ever!!) In college, I worked on the University hog farm then worked in a research lab. I also hired out to AI dairy cattle.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

Until I was 20: delivered newspapers, delivered medicine for a pharmacy, stocked shelves and work a register, pulled weeds, did drywall demo, cleaned yards, cleaned houses, worked at a beer distributor, worked at a catering hall, worked at restaurants, cabana boy, delivered flyers, worked as part time florist


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## catsboy (May 14, 2015)

Had a paper route from 10yo - 12yo at 12 I worked at a nursing home washing dishes and also filled in as an orderly on weekends. At 13 my dad opened a truck parts and repair shop where I did my summers working 60 hrs a week for $60 a week, at 16 I was up to $200 a week and free gas for my car. Which of course I took advantage of and would drive 200 miles some Friday and Saturday nights. So then it was 1 fill up a week. Did this every summer until I joined the Marines.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

I was thinking "a dollar an hour, ouch!" but then I recalled that I only made $1.25 and hour and that was in the 80's.


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## GTX63 (Dec 13, 2016)

Sold Grit newspapers door to door to people who had never even heard of the rag.
Detassled corn. Hopped on a school bus at 5 am rode for an hour, worked until 6 pm rode an hour back home.
Watched as the high schoolers dropped off one by one until by mid harvest all that was left were the ones who wanted to work.
Earned my money one dollar at a time.


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## oneraddad (Jul 20, 2010)

Paper route, mowed lawns/pulled weeds, flipped burgers, bagged groceries, joined the military but I was always a hustler and making money ever since I can remember. I'd ride my bike to the store before school and buy Apple sticks, watermelon sticks and all the other flavors and resell them to kids for their lunch money.


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## GTX63 (Dec 13, 2016)

Summer out of high school worked as a dishwasher for a restaurant called "Sambos". Don't think that company would be in business today....
Worked 3rd shift cleaning up after the drunks, listening to the cat fights over tips between waitresses and watching the cook hit on each on of them every night.
Hardest job, even moreso than detassling, was as a sorter for UPS during Christmas season. Picture I Love Lucy during the "Chocolates on a conveyor belt" episode. All size boxes and multiple zip codes that had recognized, grabbed off the belt, sorted and loaded on each drivers truck.
Get a wrong zip code loaded and that driver came looking for you with blood in his eyes after his shift.
Semis had to be unloaded in less than 60 minutes or don't come back. Great money for a kid, hard work and deep sleep.


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## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

Started a paper route at 11. That also lead to customers for snow shoveling and lawn mowing jobs along with a few other odds and ends. Also stopped by the a breakfast place after delivering papers and traded them an extra for a cup of cocoa or tea so I could hit the building contractors up to clean there job sites or other odds and ends.

Worked one winter at the ski area busing tables at 13. Hoed beets for my uncle and stacked hay for another one at 14. By 15 the farmers were trying to hire me as a full time hand. 16 worked the summer at a fish hatchery as a summer intern. Then started pumping gas through the school year and working for ranchers in the summer irrigating, haying, and fixing fences.

I could always find a job and if there wasn't one available I'd create one.

WWW


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## oneraddad (Jul 20, 2010)

GTX63 said:


> Summer out of high school worked as a dishwasher for a restaurant called "Sambos". Don't think that company would be in business today....
> Worked 3rd shift cleaning up after the drunks, listening to the cat fights over tips between waitresses and watching the cook hit on each on of them every night.
> Hardest job, even moreso than detassling, was as a sorter for UPS during Christmas season. Picture I Love Lucy during the "Chocolates on a conveyor belt" episode. All size boxes and multiple zip codes that had recognized, grabbed off the belt, sorted and loaded on each drivers truck.
> Get a wrong zip code loaded and that driver came looking for you with blood in his eyes after his shift.
> Semis had to be unloaded in less than 60 minutes or don't come back. Great money for a kid, hard work and deep sleep.



I cracked eggs and made omelets at *****'s for a couple weeks before I joined the Navy


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## GTX63 (Dec 13, 2016)

I thought I recognized you.


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## whiterock (Mar 26, 2003)

Cotton field, grain sorghum, hay, beef cattle. Had a hoe with the last 18" of the handle cut off to fit me when I started hoeing cotton. Summer job was walking out the back door and doing what needed doing. Went on through college. After I started teaching, I still came home on weekends and holidays and "vacation" to help on the place. Favorite job was working cattle. Hated shredding grain sorghum stalks even worse hauling them to use as poor hay in drier years. Always shrank in the bale so the bales would fall apart just as you got them over your head.


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## MoonRiver (Sep 2, 2007)

When I was in elementary school, I delivered my neighbors mail (picked up at PO), had a TV guide route, sold used golf balls, sold pop bottles I found along road and after carnival and country fair, collected and sold used newspaper, sold vegetables at yard stand, and made a bunch from winning prizes at county fair for vegetables, art work, stamp collection, fossil collection, and arrowhead collection.

I've been slacking off ever since.


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## Texaspredatorhu (Sep 15, 2015)

Irish Pixie said:


> I never babysat, not once. I worked on a horse farm from age 12 to 16, as a trail guide, teaching lessons, working horses, general chores, haying. I had my own business from 16 on a small breeding operation, working, buying, and selling horses. I also had to help on the family dairy farm from 16 to 18.
> 
> At around 21 I decided there were easier ways to live and sought an education. An education doesn't have to mean just college either, it can be votech training, apprenticeship, etc. It was college for me tho.


And I bet you appreciate everything you had to work so hard for back then too!


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

I started working 20 hours per week or so, in my dad’s gun and gunsmith shop, starting around 10 years old.

My first job, outside the family, was working summers (when the gun/smithing business was slow) for a small-scale rabbit farmer down the road. Started that around 11 or 12. The job for the unskilled kid, during the harvest operation, was slaughter, and that’s not a job I’d recommend for any kid. To this day, no matter how badly my family needed the money, I’m not sure I could work in a production-slaughter type job. I can kill an animal without too much reservation, but a production environment- I don’t think I could do that again.

The gunsmithing stuff served me well, though. I ended up managing a Dick’s “Lodge” through college (two locations, when I transferred schools), and as an actual gunsmith for another firm after college- which led me to my first gunsmithing gig with one of the big manufacturers.

It’s paid the mortgage ever since.


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## Clem (Apr 12, 2016)

Worked in the tobacco field for 50 cents an hour. We always had suspicions, but no proof, that some of the folks were making 75 cents an hour. When the man that owned the farm got a call that "spots were running" he'd come down to the barn, we'd wrap it up and get on an old IH bus and ride down to Barnacle Bill's pier and spend the rest of that day fishing.

He used to come down the road about the time he knew we'd be getting near one end or another. Had a cooler full of Coca-Cola's and a bag of Nabs. Hard to say no to an ice cold coke after a mile in the blazing sun. He wrote it down in a notebook and took it out of your pay on Saturday. He told daddy he made more money selling Coca Cola than he did selling tobacco.


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## AmericanStand (Jul 29, 2014)

Oregon1986 said:


> Like every other teenage girl,I babysat.


I was often raised on an army base where it seem like babysitters were in constant demand. 
It is a job I hated so I simply set my rates at the same as I could make in the construction business about five bucks an hour. Considering other babysitters were making $.50 to a dollar an hour and I was charging five dollars an hour per kid I didn’t get much business. But the ones I did get tended to be monsters that nobody else would babysit. 
More than once there was a girl in the same house babysitting four kids and I was babysitting one kid she wouldn’t take and making more money than her.
Of course she was mad not only because I was making more than her but usually because she had used not taking the problem child as a way to get out of babysitting all of the kids. 
Weirdly enough after all these years I don’t mind babysitting and the problem kids are my favorites.


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## painterswife (Jun 7, 2004)

I started working for my Mom and stepfather at about 13 at minimum wage. I think it was $1.15. I worked in the restaurant doing everything from peeling potatoes and washing dishes to waiting tables and cooking when I was 15. I also pumped gas, sold bait and rented boats in the marina. It was a campground/marina/restaurant vacation spot. I never took a cent from my parents from 13 on except for room and board. I paid for my own clothes, school supplies and dues, bus fair, etc. They did pay for ski lessons in grade 9 and my graduation dress in grade 12.


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## GTX63 (Dec 13, 2016)

By gawd 31 posts and has a single one of us bothered to mention "...and we were thankful!"?


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## Nsoitgoes (Jan 31, 2016)

After school I worked at the Mom & Pop store across the street from me. That paid me enough to get stuff all young teens needed. During summer vacations I would go live with either an aunt who had a farm - chickens, pigs and a huge market garden; or an uncle who had a dairy herd. I loved both places. 

At the farm I collected eggs and helped feed the critters. I got to sell eggs out the door, and learned how to inspect them for the packing company. I worked hard in the garden. There is nothing like a fresh tomato still warm from the sun, eaten within seconds of being picked. Even now only about half my tomatoes make it indoors. I remember helping my aunt bathe the young pigs that were going to market, and putting them up in fresh, sweet hay. She was a great believer in good presentation. They always brought a good price. I loved my uncle's cows. Drinking milk still warm from the udder, making cheese and butter with his wife are some of my fondest memories.


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## Echoesechos (Jan 22, 2010)

I took care of the homeplace while my dad worked long hours. I loved hiring out to rake hay. I did a good job so was always in demand.


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## Cabin Fever (May 10, 2002)

I started my working career (ie, having a job where taxes and social security were taken out of my pay check) when I was in 8th grade (age 14). I started as a bartender at an A&W root beer stand.

I have received a paycheck every week or two since then. I have never been without a weekly or bi-weekly pay check for 50 years.

My favorite summer job as a young man was being a camp counselor/canoe trip guide.


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## oneraddad (Jul 20, 2010)

In the 74 I took my $100 tax return from bagging groceries down to the local Suzuki shop and used it for a down payment on a sweet 125 just like this. It was $700 and I paid $24 a month till I paid it off. I was 14 y/o


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## keenataz (Feb 17, 2009)

Clem said:


> Worked in the tobacco field for 50 cents an hour. We always had suspicions, but no proof, that some of the folks were making 75 cents an hour. When the man that owned the farm got a call that "spots were running" he'd come down to the barn, we'd wrap it up and get on an old IH bus and ride down to Barnacle Bill's pier and spend the rest of that day fishing.
> 
> He used to come down the road about the time he knew we'd be getting near one end or another. Had a cooler full of Coca-Cola's and a bag of Nabs. Hard to say no to an ice cold coke after a mile in the blazing sun. He wrote it down in a notebook and took it out of your pay on Saturday. He told daddy he made more money selling Coca Cola than he did selling tobacco.



Worked inb the tobacco fields of SW Ontario. In the fields at 6 am when plants were still nice and dewy. Then into 90 degree heat. Got covered with tar and nicotine. Breathed in god knows what chemicals. We had a quota to fill each day. First year would take to about 4 pm, by final year by 2 pm.

All for $50 a day which was a ton of money in 1976-80


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## keenataz (Feb 17, 2009)




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## cpnkrunch (Dec 6, 2014)

When I was 5, my Dad sat me on a JD B model with a hand clutch and told me "keep it out of the ditch" while he threw fodder of of a trailer to a bunch of steers. At 7 I started milking a couple of cows twice a day, b4 school and after school. Driving a hay trailer at 10. Folks sold the farm when I was 11, moved to town and opened a hardware/feed store. I minded the store when available so my brother could deliver or pick up feed. Mowed yards, shoveled snow, collected pop bottles. Went to the KC farmers market on Saturdays and sold eggs. And at the same time summers were helping my father in construction, poured concrete, roofed, laid tile, painted, drove nails. I took Electricity in 4-H so i could wire room additions ( and barns). Finally at 16 got a job after school pumping gas. Hired out to neighbors when not busy at home or job, bucking bales, building fence, been there, done that. Graduated HS, went to computer school, got a real job for a year and went to the air force. I flew a computer! And it paid my way ever since. Retired to the farm now and about as busy as ever.


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## Evons hubby (Oct 3, 2005)

Farm laborer. Lots of square hay bales to be stacked, ditches to be shoveled, fields to be hoed and irrigated.


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## Cornhusker (Mar 20, 2003)

oneraddad said:


> In the 74 I took my $100 tax return from bagging groceries down to the local Suzuki shop and used it for a down payment on a sweet 125 just like this. It was $700 and I paid $24 a month till I paid it off. I was 14 y/o


I did the same thing with what I saved out of a summer's wages, but mine was a Kawasaki KE 100 or 125, I don't remember which.
Paid $600 cash for it, brand new.


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## Clem (Apr 12, 2016)

Y'all just lucky. The way it always was, not just for me, but for everybody in my socioeconomic peer group was that if you were old enough to work, you were old enough to pay part of the bills. And if you were old enough to want money, then you were old enough to work. 
A vicious cycle designed by parents to keep the kid down!!


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## mreynolds (Jan 1, 2015)

Clem said:


> Y'all just lucky. The way it always was, not just for me, but for everybody in my socioeconomic peer group was that if you were old enough to work, you were old enough to pay part of the bills. And if you were old enough to want money, then you were old enough to work.
> A vicious cycle designed by parents to keep the kid down!!


Yeah I keep threatening my family with a Dr Phil visit.


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## painterswife (Jun 7, 2004)

mreynolds said:


> Yeah I keep threatening my family with a Dr Phil visit.


We couldn't threaten in my day. No Dr Phil and your parents could beat you.


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## Nsoitgoes (Jan 31, 2016)

Clem said:


> Y'all just lucky. The way it always was, not just for me, but for everybody in my socioeconomic peer group was that if you were old enough to work, you were old enough to pay part of the bills. And if you were old enough to want money, then you were old enough to work.
> A vicious cycle designed by parents to keep the kid down!!


Actually, whenever I earned money my parents insisted that I pay a percentage of it towards household expenses. I never thought that was wrong, and I still don't. When I worked on the farms I got my wages in kind rather than cash. Clothes, records, shoes, concert tickets, and once - a fancy record player.


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## Cabin Fever (May 10, 2002)

Clem said:


> Y'all just lucky. The way it always was, not just for me, but for everybody in my socioeconomic peer group was that if you were old enough to work, you were old enough to pay part of the bills. And if you were old enough to want money, then you were old enough to work.
> A vicious cycle designed by parents to keep the kid down!!


My parents let me keep what I earned. But, I had to pay for my own vehicles, including gas, maintenance, and insurance. I also had to pay my way through college, which I did, without a single loan.


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## Farmerjack41 (Jun 6, 2017)

Raised on a 1800 acre ranch, so started at early age. By the time I started school, would spend all day on a tractor, in the summer. Not big enough to hand start a 1939 model G , John Deere tractor so learned to parked it on a hill. We wintered about 350 head of cattle, so plenty of chores to do. Spend lot of time in the winter, on a cat plowing snow. By the time I was in junior high school was milking two cows to sell the cream for spending money. Seems like that brought in three or four dollars a week, good spending money in the mid 50's. By the time I was in high school did all the farming and my dad handled the cattle. That way we were not arguing with one another all the time.


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## Redlands Okie (Nov 28, 2017)

As a kid most of what we ate came from the garden canned or frozen and chickens, rabbits, hogs, cattle out in the barn. Meat processed at home. So before the bus ride to school you did chores, ate breakfast and after school you did chores ate supper and did not leave the table till homework was done. 
Summer was same chores plus helping with things like fence and barn repairs that you did not have time to do in the winter. Eventually mowing for cash added to the list then working in oilfield roustabout and rig crews or hauling saltwater. Had time for some fishing and horseback riding all those years ago. Now just one steady job and wondering what happened to all my “free” time. Lol.


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## snowlady (Aug 1, 2011)

I started walking beans when I was 12 or 13. I also babysat. Worked with neighbors mowing at a cemetery. Finally when I was 16 I got a real job waitressing at a neighborhood tavern. That progressed to cooking and prep work. My parents paid for necessities and never asked for payment. All summer we helped garden and can, too.


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## Redlands Okie (Nov 28, 2017)

Snow lady what is walking beans ? 
I suspect it a bit different than when I was in high school and we stomped or walked cotton into the trailors since compacting it allowed them to haul more. Was better money than some of the oilfield work. (The big bailers were just starting to be heard of).


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## mreynolds (Jan 1, 2015)

painterswife said:


> We couldn't threaten in my day. No Dr Phil and your parents could beat you.


It's a lot different today. A family of concrete finishers got fined because he had his young teen kids working with them. Ten years later all those "kids" have very successful businesses. People should really butt out as long as there is no abuse going on. I have heard some people say it's abuse to make your kids wash the dishes now. Even teen kids.


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## hardrock (Jun 8, 2010)

Lots of great stories that seemed to help make us who we are. Thanks.
It brings back a lot of memories.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

While I had the paper route, the newspaper had a partnership with a place like Publishers Clearinghouse. If I could get newspaper subscribers to buy a subscription to 3 or 4 magazines, then collect the extra 50 cents each week, above the newspaper cost, I could win prizes. The first year, I got a cheap camera, a gas engine model plane and a 3 day tour of Chicago. The next years I got tickets to the circus and a 3 day tour of Washington DC. When I was 7 or 8, I had a potholder maker and made a bunch of potholders in different designs. Then I went door to door selling them.
A factory a half mile from my house melted brass. When they unloaded brass shavings from train cars, some spilled between the railroad car and the dock. On Sundays, when the plant was closed, I'd take two 5 gallon pails down and gather up the brass shavings. Then walk home with a pail of brass in each hand. After I got a few buckets filled, over a span of a few weeks, I'd load the pails into a friend's dad's station wagon and we'd take it to the scrap yard.


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## snowlady (Aug 1, 2011)

Okie, walking beans is walking in the soybean fields pulling or hoeing out the weeds. It was 40 years ago so I guess herbicides weren’t as prevalent as now. In my mom’s time they walked corn to pull the morning glory vines out before they could choke the corn. Where I live now, the kids detassle corn in the seed fields.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

mreynolds said:


> It's a lot different today. A family of concrete finishers got fined because he had his young teen kids working with them. Ten years later all those "kids" have very successful businesses. People should really butt out as long as there is no abuse going on. I have heard some people say it's abuse to make your kids wash the dishes now. Even teen kids.


But, see, to the kids whose parents coddled them, gave them everything they wanted, and later went on to write laws and public policy, making your kid work at your concrete business IS “abuse”, and it becomes their _obligation_ to butt in.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

mreynolds said:


> Yeah I keep threatening my family with a Dr Phil visit.


They should be grateful it's not Jerry Springer.


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## Redlands Okie (Nov 28, 2017)

snowlady said:


> Okie, walking beans is walking in the soybean fields pulling or hoeing out the weeds. It was 40 years ago so I guess herbicides weren’t as prevalent as now. In my mom’s time they walked corn to pull the morning glory vines out before they could choke the corn. Where I live now, the kids detassle corn in the seed fields.


We called it hoeing. Thanks


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## mreynolds (Jan 1, 2015)

Bearfootfarm said:


> They should be grateful it's not Jerry Springer.


That could be an option too for my family. At least none of us will make it Maury though. We KNOW who the father is already.


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## dsmythe (Apr 21, 2013)

I got a paper route when I was 12. I cut grass and picked up pop bottles. I saved my money and had enough to pay for my first year of tuition at a boarding school that I was sent to. My parents moved to the town that the school was in. I became a "day student" but I still had to pay fees and tuition so I worked at the dairy and hog farm when the regular milkers would go home during vacation and holidays. I started a trail riding outfit and became the Head Wrangler. I worked for a gas station every Saturday washing cars, and the usual stuff that goes on in a full service station. I worked for a carpet company sorting out carpet and helping with installations during the week in the evenings. I worked full time at the farm during the summers. We put up a LOT of hay plus shoveled cotton seed hulls into a huge barn. I hauled cotton seed meal and citrus pulp stacking the bags in another barn. I worked there all during High School and one year of Bible college. I got married and had to get a REAL job. I have paid for all of my clothes and expenses since I was 12. If my parents needed money I would give them whatever I could, I did not feel that it was a burden. Those were the days. Dsmythe


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Dad:"Son, I want you to know you were adopted."
Son: " I knew it! Now I want to meet my birth parents!"
Dad: "We are your birth parents. You were adopted, they'll be here in a few minutes, get your clothes packed."


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## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

During summer vacation in high school I worked part time at the local radio and TV store repairing TVs and stereos and installing CB radios and antennas and SWR tuning them. In college during summer quarter I took a summer production line job at a plant in the industry I was training for. If my work schedule allowed , I also worked with my father and his hands with our livestock as I did during my after school hours.


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## HDRider (Jul 21, 2011)

I wonder what our kids will write when they get our age?

It kind of stirred me reading this. It made me proud of all of you. It is what gives us pride in ourselves.

Life's stories are great....


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

HDRider said:


> I wonder what our kids will write when they get our age?
> 
> It kind of stirred me reading this. It made me proud of all of you. It is what gives us pride in ourselves.
> 
> Life's stories are great....


But as we age, the characters in our story die. Soon there will be one around to share the memories and fill in the story with that bit of reassurance that it was real. The barns, orchards, fields, factories, all gone or unrecognizable today.
We all know little of what our grandfather's childhood was like, just as our grand children will know nothing of ours.


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## mmoetc (Oct 9, 2012)

HDRider said:


> I wonder what our kids will write when they get our age?
> 
> It kind of stirred me reading this. It made me proud of all of you. It is what gives us pride in ourselves.
> 
> Life's stories are great....


My kid will write of feeding the rabbits and chickens, helping to tend the market garden, hating picking beans but loving market day, starting work at the local diner washing dishes at 15, paying for her first car and all the upkeep at 17 from the tips she earned as a waitress while saving for school. She’s quite the gen X snowflake.


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## po boy (Jul 12, 2010)

My siblings and I all started doing chores as soon as we were old enough to walk. There were nine of us kids and we raised most of what we ate. I worked in the garden planting, hoeing and picking veggies in the morning. Afternoons were spent getting the veggies ready for mom to can (I have and still use her national #7 canner she got in 1938). Seeded pastures, took care of chickens, pigs, cows and horses. Put hay in the barn. Slaughtered hogs and cattle.


Picking and chopping cotton were the first paying job I had. Made a few cents a day and imagine I was 10 or 11. This was on a nearby farm and a sharecropper that lived there would cut our hair for a quarter. They didn’t have running water or electricity and the clippers were the old manual type. He pulled out more hair than he cut.


A 14 I went to work in the meat market of a Big Star Grocery. It was the old fashion type with over the counter service. During school I worked Friday evenings to closing and all day Saturday and took home $7.42 for about 16 hours of work. Worked full time in the summer and took home about $33. No idea how many hours I worked per week but it was a lot more than 40. My next job was at a Piggly Wiggly (sp) at $1.25 hour.


We were poorer than church mice and we were required to help my dad out.


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## Cornhusker (Mar 20, 2003)

haypoint said:


> But as we age, the characters in our story die. Soon there will be one around to share the memories and fill in the story with that bit of reassurance that it was real. The barns, orchards, fields, factories, all gone or unrecognizable today.
> We all know little of what our grandfather's childhood was like, just as our grand children will know nothing of ours.


Kind of sad when you think about it that way.
Maybe we should be writing this stuff down.
How great would it be to read your grandparents recollections of their childhood days?
Time marches on.


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## whiterock (Mar 26, 2003)

My maternal grandpa came to Texas on his own at 14. Part way on train and rest of the way by wagon. Last time he went to TN to see his brother, he was on a 747. He got there before we got home from taking him to airport.


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## M5farm (Jan 14, 2014)

My earliest memories I would clean hog troughs and walk electric fence every afternoon and Saturday and sunday . There was a little over a thousand head of hogs all separated by age in 1 or 2 acre lots the sows were in bigger pens rotating thru the farrowing house and then to weaning pens. As I got older I was driving the tractor to lay the irrigation pipe on the 400 acres of row crops and until I was big enough to graduate to get to unload the pipe. then I would grind feed everyday. And put out hay for the cows ,only had about 150 head so that was the easy jobs. I started breaking horses when I was big enough to saddle one by myself. I was a daylight to dark job during the summer . when I got a driver license I went to work at the grocery store PT and still worked my off time on the farm . It was a hard go but I would not trade it for anything.


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## Cabin Fever (May 10, 2002)

One thing I found interesting in this thread is how many of you grew up on farms and/or in the country. I grew up in the city, but spend much of my time, especially during spring/summers, at my grandparents dairy farm. For some odd reason, it seems like Mom, Dad, and us grandsons always "visited" grandpa and grandma during each hay cutting, as well as, during spring rock picking season. Hummmmmm.....


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## AmericanStand (Jul 29, 2014)

GTX63 said:


> By gawd 31 posts and has a single one of us bothered to mention "...and we were thankful!"?


Heck no ! They could’ve paid me 10 times that I would’ve still hated the babysitting job. 
I collected bottles along side the road as a business when I was about five years old but I had my first real paying job sometime in second grade when I discovered the neighbors would pay me a nickel bag to take the garbage down six flights of steps and a couple hundred feet away to the dumpster. 
I’ve been involved in the trash business ever since. 
Now those jobs I have been grateful for.


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## MO_cows (Aug 14, 2010)

I started "working" in junior high, the good old babysitting gig. Went to Iowa and worked on great-uncle's farm for a few weeks the summer I was 15. Walking beans, some tractor work, and a lot of gophering. Which I loved at the time because I didn't have a drivers license yet but he let me drive myself around. Very rural, all the kids did it up there. Then worked at a burger joint and a retail store. Was "lucky" enough to be in the fabric department during inventory. Counted buttons and other small stuff until my brain bled. Got an office job at 17, a wholesale liquor company and it was a great place to work. It phased into a full time job and then a career. The work, not the liquor!


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## keenataz (Feb 17, 2009)

HDRider said:


> I wonder what our kids will write when they get our age?
> 
> It kind of stirred me reading this. It made me proud of all of you. It is what gives us pride in ourselves.
> 
> Life's stories are great....



Well in SW Ontario the tobacco industry is a shadow of what it was and it has become increasingly automated. Growing up so many high school kids worked the fields that school opening was delayed 2 weeks until harvest was over. It is no more.

Unfortunately 2 of the 8 person crew I worked with have suffered early deaths from cancer and this is not unusual down there. We are allwondering if working those fields may have caused some problems that didn't show upfor some 20 years later.


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## emdeengee (Apr 20, 2010)

I started babysitting as soon as I turned twelve. I was not allowed to do so during the school year but was free to do so on vacations. Made a fortune at Christmas even though the rate of pay was just 50 cents an hour. And as I aged I was allowed to babysit on weekend days and evenings. The difference when I turned twelve was that I got paid for being with the kids. I have always loved kids and I guess I was like nectar to bees as they loved being with me. Don't know why this was but it was.

And the parents loved me because I just could not sit still once the kids were in bed so I did housework. Dishes, dusting, laundry, ironing etc. Also had plenty of time to read and watch TV as all of our staid and hard working neighbours became party animals when they got away from the kids. I never had to walk home alone as either adult would walk me home or my Dad would come to pick me up. Sometimes in his bathrobe and slippers because I woke him.

When we were in financial trouble I started babysitting again and could have done so every night after work and all days and nights on weekends. But then I was charging $5.00 an hour. It sure helped us to pay down our debts.

And because I did not like shopping all of my girl friends would drop their kids off on Saturday morning and disappear for the day. I never charged them but they brought me lots of chocolates and wine so it was a good deal for all of us. The kids loved it because what kid would not love a house with 12 cats, 3 dogs and 2 rabbits and free range in a fenced yard and the ability to sleep in a pile with the dogs?

And my animals just loved the kids even though they tortured them with so many hugs and kisses and brushings and hair bows and baths in the kiddy pool. And I made use of them. Would hide one of the cats and tell them that I had lost Zoe so we had to search the house for her. This of course involved pulling furniture and appliances away from the walls - "so we might as well clean behind there and since you are so small just crawl in there and get all those cat toys" and crawling under beds and putting the laundry away as we checked each cupboard and shelf. And just mention to a loving child that we needed to weed the garden in case there were bad plants that could make the animals ill and you get a pristine garden in about half an hour.

Even before I turned twelve I used to cut lawns, weed gardens and shovel snow for the neighbours. Sometimes this was work paid in money but often it was my Mom telling me to go and help someone as a good deed and then that would be without expectation of payment. But there were usually cookies or pies or fresh bread that appeared the next day and several times hand knitted scarves and mitts.

All my babysitting served me well when I was shipped off to boarding school in Europe at the age of 14. I disliked living in and found the school work as easy as back at home so got a job as an Au Pair to teach English and supervise the three boys after school. I lived out in luxury with a very lovely young and rich family. I attended classes but did lots of homework and projects as I got to travel all over with the family and even learned to ski with the two older boys on a six week vacation in the Alps. A bit humiliating as a 5 and 7 year old were on the big hill and would zip by me at a hundred miles an hour while I was falling on my face on the bunny hill and frustrating the ski instructor to the point I nearly made him cry once. That was fun.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

MO_cows said:


> I started "working" in junior high, the good old babysitting gig.


I guess I hadn't thought about the differences in boys and girls employment as children. My home town's main employer, 150 years ago, made silk thread. They employed hundreds of young women. Saturday nights, the area's farm boys would come to town to dance. Factory work was women, farm labor was men.
When my sons were in High School, they had jobs in home construction or a variety of back breaking, out in the weather jobs, while their girl friends worked as waitresses earning far more, with tips, than they could. Hard work, both, but quite a wage disparity, too.


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## emdeengee (Apr 20, 2010)

HDRider said:


> I wonder what our kids will write when they get our age?
> 
> It kind of stirred me reading this. It made me proud of all of you. It is what gives us pride in ourselves.
> 
> Life's stories are great....




Unfortunately many of the kids will write about how their parents failed them. Hopefully they will do what most generations do - the exact opposite of the previous one. And yet I don't think it is as bad as many think. At least not with the kids and young adults I know, many who are really impressive.

I think that once you start earning your own money and find out what this means and the freedoms it gives you then a lot of young people never go back. And of course for the young it is often the escape they seek from home.


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## keenataz (Feb 17, 2009)

emdeengee said:


> Unfortunately many of the kids will write about how their parents failed them. Hopefully they will do what most generations do - the exact opposite of the previous one. And yet I don't think it is as bad as many think. At least not with the kids and young adults I know, many who are really impressive.


But did their parents really fail them? Or did they just not do what the kids wanted?

Tough question, isn't it


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## emdeengee (Apr 20, 2010)

A child is a child. It is up to the parent to prepare that child for life. If you do not set standards then the child is not to blame. If you do not set good examples then the child will follow the bad examples. If you do not have expectations then expect nothing.


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## MO_cows (Aug 14, 2010)

At first thought, this thread made me remember work I got paid for. Now I remember other work I had to do, no payment just the "free labor" side of being a kid. My mom and stepdad had a small farm. One year he took a notion to plant several acres in potatoes. We walked those rows and planted potatoes for what seemed like days. Then the harvest, ugh. I think it was the first time in my young life I ever had a back-ache! I also remember a butchering session, mom set me and little sister to work plucking ducks, another chore that seemed never-ending. I don't think we did finish even though we tried. That was "visitation", at home I had a (wicked) stepmother who thought she had a maid. I had to do the ironing. Dad had 2,500 uniform shirts...or so it seemed on laundry day. Then since she had the slave labor, she decided pillowcases needed to be ironed and had me do other "luxury ironing" like hankies. It was my job to wash dishes. That wasn't so bad, but when I came home from a visitation weekend with my mom and found stepmom had piled up the dishes all weekend for me to wash, that chapped my hide! Then one time my dad found something stuck on a fork, so her way to make me more careful washing dishes was to empty out the cupboards and have me wash every dish we owned. After a few delicate pieces "accidentally" got broken, that session came to an early end. WS had me walk to the store if she needed something. It was over a mile each way. I remember one hot summer day where the blacktop was melting to my shoes, a neighbor saw me walking and gave me a ride. What was I sent after? Her cigarettes. I don't regret a bit of it, though, it all shaped me into who I grew up to be. And prepared me for the real world where things often aren't "fair" and nobody owes you nuthin'.


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## M5farm (Jan 14, 2014)

MO_cows said:


> At first thought, this thread made me remember work I got paid for. Now I remember other work I had to do, no payment just the "free labor" side of being a kid. My mom and stepdad had a small farm. One year he took a notion to plant several acres in potatoes. We walked those rows and planted potatoes for what seemed like days. Then the harvest, ugh. I think it was the first time in my young life I ever had a back-ache! I also remember a butchering session, mom set me and little sister to work plucking ducks, another chore that seemed never-ending. I don't think we did finish even though we tried. That was "visitation", at home I had a (wicked) stepmother who thought she had a maid. I had to do the ironing. Dad had 2,500 uniform shirts...or so it seemed on laundry day. Then since she had the slave labor, she decided pillowcases needed to be ironed and had me do other "luxury ironing" like hankies. It was my job to wash dishes. That wasn't so bad, but when I came home from a visitation weekend with my mom and found stepmom had piled up the dishes all weekend for me to wash, that chapped my hide! Then one time my dad found something stuck on a fork, so her way to make me more careful washing dishes was to empty out the cupboards and have me wash every dish we owned. After a few delicate pieces "accidentally" got broken, that session came to an early end. WS had me walk to the store if she needed something. It was over a mile each way. I remember one hot summer day where the blacktop was melting to my shoes, a neighbor saw me walking and gave me a ride. What was I sent after? Her cigarettes. I don't regret a bit of it, though, it all shaped me into who I grew up to be. And prepared me for the real world where things often aren't "fair" and nobody owes you nuthin'.


ive done plenty for free but For the most part I was paid when i was old enough . 10 dollars a day till I was about 16 or so then it was 25 dollars a day until i was grown and own my own then what work i did after that was by the hour and that was what ever min wage was .


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## LittleRedHen (Apr 26, 2006)

bussing tables at area restaurants


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## Cornhusker (Mar 20, 2003)

We did a lot of free work too.
I remember blizzards when I was a kid, and the snow would pile up in front of the shop where we kept the loader and feed trucks.
My brother and I had the job of getting the doors open which meant shoveling snow so the doors could slide open.
Sometimes the snow would build up 8 ft or more, and once I remember being able to walk up the drift and the light at the peak was knee level. I think that was the storm we could walk over the barn.
After we got the loader free and warming up, we'd go to the house, change socks and head out to scoop feed bunks out so the guys could feed. They had an old Cat dozer and we found out pretty quick that if you got ahead of the dozer clearing a path for the trucks, you got to scoop those bunks twice.
Once, when we were in high school, we got the doors dug out and right in front of the loader was my brother's GTO.
Dad told him he had 10 minutes to work that loader to the front, or he'd push that car out with the snow.
We got it moved, but I think we had to move 4 vehicles a few inches at a time to do it.


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## farmrbrown (Jun 25, 2012)

1st summer job, working on a farm.
I pulled out tree stumps with a come-along for $20 a day. There were half a dozen of us out there from the football team.
I was 14.

Next year I worked at the drugstore in town, stocking and cleaning.

When I hit 16, I worked as dishwasher from 4-9 pm after school all year.

There were no "free rides" at my house, lol.


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## Teej (Jan 14, 2012)

I'm like Mo cows, I only listed paying jobs. Chores were expected to be done at home for no payment, not even an allowance. Dad had quit farming right before I was born and became an electrician and drove a school bus route. Mom worked at a nursery (garden variety not baby type) so us kids had CHORES. Every night during the week we had to clean the trash out of the bus and sweep the floor and then on weekends wash it. Large garden to take care of and harvest the veggies but mom did the canning herself. Mowing the yard was our job and when I was really little we only had a (dang, can't think what they were called but I'm sure someone on here will) hand powered mower that you pushed and it made the blades go around and we had a large yard (still lived in the country). Cooking and cleaning etc... By the time I was 10 I was the only kid left at home so thank goodness by then I had a riding mower to use, the huge garden went away although we still had a small one, dad had sold his bus, and mom had cut down to working part time. LOL All that but still plenty of play time. No pay but wasn't expected to give them money when I earned it nor buy my own clothes unless I wanted something they thought was too expensive to buy and dad always gave us the money we needed to go to a movie or ballgame when we became teenagers. I used to beg for Levi jeans and Converse tennis shoes. Didn't get my first Levis until I was paying for my own clothes but soon discovered Wranglers fit better. Still have never had a pair of Converse tennis shoes.


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## mreynolds (Jan 1, 2015)

HDRider said:


> I wonder what our kids will write when they get our age?


"I beat this video game in 48 hours."

OR

"I cured cancer with an algorithm and some DNA samples."

OR

"I hacked the Pentagon for kicks and they never knew."

Who knows but if we live long enough it will make for some entertaining posts.


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## geo in mi (Nov 14, 2008)

Shoveled hog manure for the neighbor, picked strawberries and tomatoes. Stacked hay and straw behind the baler in high school. Summer replacement labor in a rock wool manufacturing factory during college.

Drank a lot of water.

geo


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## keenataz (Feb 17, 2009)

mreynolds said:


> "I beat this video game in 48 hours."
> 
> OR
> 
> ...



"Why did you turn off the cable in my basement bedroom"

Or

"Can I borrow your car?"

Or

"thanks for being a great parent"

Or

"Thank you voters for giving the honour of leading our fine nation"

I am sure they all will come true depending on kid.


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## emdeengee (Apr 20, 2010)

For most of my childhood my Dad was gone for months at a time that lasted for years on massive engineering jobs and then he changed careers and for the next 10 years was gone from the beginning of April to the end of September. 

For the first few years it was deep into the northern wilderness but then it was across the entire prairies and British Columbia. Once he was working in relatively civilized areas my Mom would pack us into the car on the last day of school and we would drive out to where ever he was and spend the summer camping with him. I only recall a couple summers when we either stayed home or returned. Both because of things that happened in the first months of the season. Once when he was attacked by a grizzly bear and once when he had a ruptured appendix while stranded on top of a mountain in a huge snow ice fog storm. His friend and the helicopter pilot he used all the time literally risked his life to fly in and get him out.

Basically from the age of nine I worked as a note keeper for him sitting up all night or at least until I fell asleep. No pay involved but as I grew into my teenage years I continued to act as a note keeper for others on his crew and what an adventure that was. Still no pay but I got to do and learn things that most young girls of my generation just never got the chance.


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## AmericanStand (Jul 29, 2014)

M5farm said:


> ive done plenty for free but For the most part I was paid when i was old enough . 10 dollars a day till I was about 16 or so then it was 25 dollars a day until i was grown and own my own then what work i did after that was by the hour and that was what ever min wage was .


Lol that seems so weird once I had a income I had to pay rent till I moved out. 

Found out later that it was supposed to be my college money but my folks had to use it to keep from losing the house so I didn’t see it again.


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## ErinP (Aug 23, 2007)

My first summer job, like so many girls, was babysitting the neighbor kids. Then I moved up to working at the local grocery store (it was part time during the school year, and full time in the summer). 
And later it was working on a detassling crew. Walking first, then later, moved up to a cutter tractor.



HDRider said:


> I wonder what our kids will write when they get our age?


I don't know about anyone else, but my kid will say, 
Hired hand (cattle work, mechanic, etc.) on a neighbor's ranch from 13-15, city groundskeeper/maintenance guy when I was 16 and feedlot flunky til I left home. 
My other kid is still in the babysitting-the-neighbor-kids stage


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

haypoint said:


> We all know little of what our grandfather's childhood was like, just as our grand children will know nothing of ours.


I’m sorry you got to spend so little time with your grandfather. That’s very sad.

I know a lot about my grandparents’ childhoods. Being from a close-knit Appalachian family that tended to marry young, I got to spend a lot of time with my grandparents, and I learned early to hang on their every word. I still have one grandparent left.

At various times, I got to stay in the houses that all four of them grew up in, got to fish and swim in the streams they did, with them standing by to show me which holes were safe to dive into, and where the fish schooled up. Caves where they would hide from their parents. Even got to meet two of their first loves.

I no doubt know much more about my grandparents’ childhoods than mine will ever know about mine.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

GunMonkeyIntl said:


> I’m sorry you got to spend so little time with your grandfather. That’s very sad.


Sorry I wasn't clear. I spent a lot of time with my grandfather. But we talked about the present, not the past. Plus it is harder for teens that have little past to talk about anything but the future. Just as it is harder for old folk with little future to talk about anything but the past. But grandpa was an expert in Polled Hereford genetics and breeding. But his childhood? No clue.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

haypoint said:


> Sorry I wasn't clear. I spent a lot of time with my grandfather. But we talked about the present, not the past. Plus it is harder for teens that have little past to talk about anything but the future. Just as it is harder for old folk with little future to talk about anything but the past. But grandpa was an expert in Polled Hereford genetics and breeding. But his childhood? No clue.


That’s a shame.


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## oneraddad (Jul 20, 2010)

My grandpa was a sheep herder so we'd go to his sheep camp up in the mountains to visit and since they lived next door my grandma practically raised me. When my grandparents aged grandpa bought a bar where he worked till he died, grandma took him dinner every night and made him breakfast every morning.
While grandma sat at the end of the bar watching my grandpa eat I'd play with the shuffleboard, I used to think I was pretty good


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## ed/La (Feb 26, 2009)

Paper route,cut grass, pumped gas, ice cream man. City boy. That is what was available.


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## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

Clem said:


> Y'all just lucky. The way it always was, not just for me, but for everybody in my socioeconomic peer group was that if you were old enough to work, you were old enough to pay part of the bills. And if you were old enough to want money, then you were old enough to work.
> A vicious cycle designed by parents to keep the kid down!!


I didn't consider myself lucky regardless if I had a part time job, my $1O0 a week school bus chauffer job during my junior and senior high school years , The $150 a week driving the 70 mile route to and from the junior college after that or any other job I had like the occasional lawn mowing gigs.

Whenever I made a buck even working for my father , he figured my after overhead income and had me pay 20% of it as room and board. When I complained, he said I was lucky getting to keep 80 cents on a dollar because my grandfather made him contribute 50% in his youth.

I didn't like it but I had no choice if I wanted to chase the girls on the time I wasn't working part time so I did it as I grumbled at being shook down for a bedroom and meals.

When I got out of school and saved up enough for the first month rent , last month rent and security deposit and signed my lease for the apartment, later looking at it in the comfort of my spartanly furnished 900 square foot one bedroom apartment with water and cable included, I noticed that the rent equaled about a weeks pay of the plant job I had landed to upgrade from a bedroom and half bath to my first "house".

After figuring out my house cost me between 20 and 25 percent of my pay , I figured the electricity and gas to drive to work and some food would take a weeks pay and my third week pay would cover the rest of my food and incidentals and my 4th week pay would cover my savings to upgrade furnishings and entertainment.

As I sat on the couch on bricks with the lease in my hand, I was suddenly glad that my father made me pay room and board for all those years and I understood why he agreed that my choice of apartment and distance from work was a good choice.

I still remember seeing my neighbors my age getting evicted and coming to my apartment to bum a bowl of soup or stew before having to call their parents for help to avoid getting evicted, but that was one call I never had to make, but it did give me an idea to help a few neighbors and of course myself by getting a double eye hot plate to be able to cook more breakfast as I made bag lunches for us and had two crock pots to slow cook Monday through Thursday.

They paid our grocery bill and once a month I used my company paid Sam's membership to stock the freezer I had in my utility room and my pantry shelves. Friday Saturday and Sundays , some went out to eat and some of us grilled by our front doors or had cold sandwiches.

Two of us cut out our beer costs by making wine and homebrew in our utility rooms and drinking that instead of store bought beer by the pool.

There is nothing better than the life of a young bachelor living on a shoestring budget while still staking small steps forward to mess up their quality of enjoyment as they grow their quality of life for the next era of their life because a 35 year old cant enjoy the same things as a 20 something without looking weird to everyone else.


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## sammyd (Mar 11, 2007)

My summer job was the same as the rest of the year, the farm. I did get to help the neighbor make hay if we had ours in all ready.
The summer I graduated I worked part time mowing lawns for the nearby village. 24 hours a week at 3.25 and hour.....fat stacks of cash!


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## tiffanysgallery (Jan 17, 2015)

First job was on my grandparents farm mostly working for my grandmother, weeding, planting, and canning. I also babysat my older siblings children when asked. In HS, worked in the school office, and pt at an ice cream shop. During the summer worked a civil service job, learned how to drive a forklift and use a jackhammer. After HS, joined the military and was an electrician. During college, served in public office on the local level, and real estate.


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## Riverdale (Jan 20, 2008)

Grew up on a dairy farm and my uncle had beef.

Hay, corn, milking, building/fixing fence. Cutting firewood, cutting pulpwood, cutting cedar.

Oh, my older brother cut right of way for the power company. In my 'spare' time This was the job I got payed for.......


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