Over the course of my time here on this blog, I’ve written much about books and shared some of my favorites. And I’ve told many a time about where that love of books originated when my mom gave me the gift of getting me my first library card. If you read  my recent post about one of my favorite books, you may recall me mentioning spending my hard-earned money to catch the bus to go to town to go to the library and that, yes, even at nine years of age, I was already working to earn that bus fare money. That too was a parental gift, not from mom, but from my dad. And what a gift it turned out to be.

Mom and Dad on their wedding day. Other than the gift of life, these guys gave me two other great gifts: a library card and a work ethic.

But surprisingly, at nine, I had already been working for three years, since I was six. In this day and age, that might be against the law or considered child abuse. What many may not know, though, is that way back in the day, it was a given that children worked to help the family survive. In the 19th and early 20th century, especially in the heartland of the country where there were huge farms, a mom and dad would have many kids, and as they grew, they would take on work responsibilities. My dad did grow up on a farm, he and his one brother did their share of work as they grew up. His putting me to work, however, had nothing to do with survival. And we didn’t have a farm. Dad delivered newspapers.

It was certainly an exciting experience for the young kid I was. He had a morning paper route, therefore the papers had to be delivered overnight. So around midnight, we’d go to the site of the printing press and wait until our papers were printed. While there, I was allowed to wander around the building and actually go into the press room and watch the huge press spit out the papers. What a blast that was! And once our complement of papers were printed, we’d throw the bundles in the back seat and in the trunk and hit the road.

There were fifty papers to a bundle and we’d have twenty bundles because we had 1000 papers to deliver, one of the largest routes there was in the area. Prior to my going to work with him, dad had had another route of around 750 papers before moving up to the big time. It was really simple work, which some might find boring. But not me! Dad would put a bundle in the front seat between us. Using my left had, I would roll the paper long-ways into a cylindrical shape, and dad would pull up to the paper chute and I’d slide it right in. I learned how to do it without him even having to stop the car, one box to the next. What was the most fun was when I’d get to put a rubber band around the paper and just throw it as we rolled by the customer’s yard. And so it went until about 6:00 in the morning when we delivered the last paper. Then it was home to bed for a well-earned sleep. You can only imagine how special I thought I was, getting to stay up all night at that age. All my classmates were in envy of me, many of them begging for a chance to go with us some night, as if their parents would have allowed that. Later on when my brother was bigger, he joined in the fun.

Friday was a tough one, though. That was collection day. Dad had the route split into four sections for that. On Friday we’d actually go door-to-door to collect payment for a month’s delivery of papers, one section each week on a rotating basis, roughly 250 houses per week. And back then, believe it or not, it cost $1.25 a month to get the paper seven days a week. But we’d deliver the Friday morning papers overnight, go home and sleep till about noon, then do the collecting. After that, we go home, grab a bite and then hit the sack and take a nap before time to start all over and go deliver Saturday morning’s editions. Still, no matter how tough  those Fridays were, they were special to me because it was the payoff to a week’s work; that’s when dad would give us our ‘salary’, as he so quaintly called it. The summers were the best for me because I got to work the entire week, but when school started, I just got to do the Saturday and Sunday morning deliveries, which cut into my ‘salary’!

Later on, dad changed professions and went to work for a major distribution company, stocking the health and beauty section  shelves in grocery and convenience stores. We’d either pick up the goods, deliver and stock, or they would be there waiting on us when we arrived. That’s where I learned how to rotate stock, putting the newest in the back, moving the oldest to the front, which even to this day has taught me that when I shop, always get what’s on the back of the shelf to get the freshest. And so it went up until my early teens. The only thing I ever requested is that I be off the first Tuesday of each month so I could go to Chilton’s Newsstand and buy my MARVEL comics, especially Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, then go to the library.

But when I was 14, it all came to a screeching halt when my dad became ill. He’d been a type 1 diabetic since he was nine, and at the age of thirty nine he was diagnosed with chronic renal failure; the diabetes had destroyed his kidneys. Dialysis was new at the time, and though he was young, his health wasn’t the best and he wasn’t considered a candidate for the treatment. So they did what was available, which wasn’t much, and he was gone within three months. All of a sudden, at the age of 14, I was head of the family.

I started high school three weeks after he died but continued working, mowing yards and such, doing whatever I could to earn money, for then it truly had become a matter of survival. At 16, I got my first public job at a hamburger joint which I did until graduation and then went out into the real world of work, getting a job at a knitting mill, the first of four mills I worked at till they shut the doors, moving overseas. Still, I learned a lot, becoming a knitting machine mechanic and was promoted to shift supervisor at one of the mills.

I’ve also worked at a blanket manufacturing plant and I actually managed a Putt Putt Golf and Games for almost ten years. But over all these years I have never went one day without a job. And no matter the job I had, I always moved up fast, just by being a good, responsible worker, practicing the work ethic I saw my dad display every day. A lucky man I have been. And for that, I have my dad to thank.

My working persona of the last 20-years. The company calls me a Maintenance Technician IV, most commonly known as a maintenance man. Me, I’ve always preferred to call myself a fixer-upper type-of guy. And by the way, I do promise that I clean up real good when not at work.

Though it was never stated or shared with me, I later came to realize that the purpose of putting me to work so young was a learning experience; dad wanted to teach me and my brother how to work and how to do a good job. A good day’s work was important to him and he wanted to pass that on. Maybe he knew deep inside that he wouldn’t be around long enough to see me and my brother into manhood, and he wanted to instill a work ethic into our mentality, which he was very successful in doing. Another great thing about us getting to work with him was that we got to spend so much extra time with him, instead of just seeing him in the morning and then when he got home in the evening.

Going to work with dad was bonding at the ultimate best, seeing him in a way that most kids never get to see their dads, and coming to know him in a way that most kids don’t ever get to experience. So  thanks, dad, for all the important lessons, the super special father-son friendship, and of great importance, for showing that it’s more important to earn a ‘salary’, as opposed to just getting an allowance.