The Amazement Park

(Update: Congratulations to Happy Girl @ Being Happy for winning my Un-birthday Kiva Giveaway, and to Lauri @ Living to Die Well for being first runner-up! Details to follow)

There are reasons I never took my kids to an amusement park.

After leaving for my freshman year of college, I never really went home. I spent three out of the four summers during my college years working at an amusement park located on Lake Erie in Ohio. One summer I stayed near campus and worked at a McDonald’s. It was McDonald’s, and my experience there was exactly identical to that of anyone else who ever worked at any other McDonald’s, just as the burgers sold at one restaurant were exactly identical to every other one sold nationwide. The only notable memory of that experience was being introduced to a new menu item being added that summer—the chicken nugget. I thought they were disgusting and figured they would never catch on. My experience of working at McDonald’s was merely something to be endured and not worthy of its own blog post.

The amusement park recruited heavily for its seasonal jobs among college students in Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Working there seemed an ideal arrangement. The park offered on-site housing, beach access, uniforms, a paycheck, and unlimited admission to the Midwest’s finest amusements

 I was hired to work in the traffic department, which meant I stood for eight hours a day in a blistering hot parking lot, or pouring rain, trying desperately not to get hit by a car. Other duties included parking, and inhaling fumes of, tour buses; collecting parking tolls and driving the tram which traveled between the parking lot and the park’s main entrance. If I tried hard enough I could probably recite word-for-word the tram spiel I was required to give while shuttling customers through the parking lot. But nobody wanted to hear it back then so I’m sure nobody reading this does either.

Most days I worked a split shift which meant I directed traffic for four hours in the mornings as enthusiastic customers arrived for a fun-filled day of adventure, and I returned for four hours in the evening to direct cars exiting the lots. Daily my co-workers and I yelled, “Watch your doors!” as enthusiastic customers flung theirs open into oncoming cars. Daily I saw customers limp back to the parking lot, sunburnt and exhausted, having spent too many hours standing in long lines and too much money on greasy food and cheesy amusements. At the end of each day, customers seemed considerably less enthusiastic.

Those of us in the traffic department wore orange and yellow jumpsuits, orange visors, white gloves, and brown sneakers with ankle-cut socks. We looked a little like ducks. Because of the many hours spent standing in the sun I always had a great tan at the end of my amusement park summers, except for the abnormal-looking white hands and feet which were covered by the socks and gloves. After baking my skin for four hours during each morning’s shift, I naturally went to the beach to bake my skin some more. I’m beginning to suspect that the damage I did to my skin those summers could keep Mary Kay’s skin-care line in business for years to come.

Each of us was issued a whistle and flashlight for directing traffic at night. On paper, I’m sure it sounded like a good idea to stick a bunch of college students in a parking lot at minimum wage to manage traffic for the park. Few of us really knew what we were doing. I know for sure I caused at least one accident when a driver couldn’t interpret my flashlight movement and hand gestures. And, more often than one might suspect, customers who had enjoyed a few too many beers in the park seemed to think it would be great sport to try to plow down a college kid who was dressed like a duck and standing in a parking lot.

Traffic was light on days when there were thunderstorms in the forecast. Many of the rides had to be shut down when there was danger of lightning strikes. With little traffic to direct, many times I got pulled out of the parking lot after a storm to test-ride the roller coasters. I’m guessing the insurance liability was greater if brakes failed while paying customers were riding a coaster than if a load of employees plummeted to their deaths. When I first started working at the park, I was terrified of riding what was then billed as “the world’s largest racing coaster.” After riding it a few times, not knowing whether or not the brakes would work, the experience became a huge yawn.

Most of the glitter and appeal of the amusements wore off quickly. I flashed my employee badge at the park’s entrance merely to walk through on my way to the parking lot, blocking out most of the sights and sounds of the attractions. The one sense I couldn’t block was that of smell. To this day, when I think about amusement parks, I immediately think of the smell of rotting garbage.

I earned very little during my summers at the amusement park. Housing expenses were deducted from my paycheck, and I also had to pay for food. I think I survived on Tab, apples, yogurt, cereal, and fruit roll-ups. In addition to being very tan, I was also very thin each year when I returned to school. I was, however, able to save some money toward my college expenses. Each week I mailed my paycheck home to my parents to deposit into my bank account, back in the day before online banking existed.

After my first summer at the park, I swore I would never return. I thought the work was brutal, and that I was poorly used and severely underpaid. The truth was, I missed being home for the summer, imagining my friends had all returned from college to resume the childhoods we had once enjoyed together. In reality, going home was never quite the same. The work I did in each of my summer jobs was hard, and quirky, and strange sometimes.  I shake my head thinking about some of my experiences, but they provided some great stories. And all the while I thought I was earning money toward paying for college, I realize I was learning about how the world works and how to manage life in it.

All of it was education.

I will be posting the name of the winner to my Unbirthday Kiva giveaway this afternoon, This is the final post in my series about summer jobs. Links to other posts:

• Summertime--And the Living is Brutal
• A Hot, Hairy Mess
• Start Spreading the News

Sometimes the Lines Blur

The pastor’s son returned to his home church to get married. He’d grown up, gone to college and seminary, and moved away to become shepherd of his own Midwestern flock. He came home to marry a local girl, a daughter of the church. They’d grown up together, although several years apart, and when they announced their engagement the general response seemed to be, “Why, of course.”

The couple’s story echoed those of Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe, or of Marianne Dashwood and Colonel Brandon.  After years of praying for a godly wife, it seemed the groom’s eyes were opened to the beauty of his friend and he realized, “Why, there you are. You’ve been right here all along.” I guess the romantic in me sometimes blurs the line between fiction and reality.

The event felt like our church's own version of a royal wedding. There was beautiful music, there were stunning flowers; there was a radiant bride. And there was the groom’s father, doing his job. He preached the Word, exhorting the bride and groom to cling to their redeemer and to one another. He, by the authority vested in him, proclaimed that two had become one. He, as a happy father, embodied gratitude for God’s goodness and covenant faithfulness to his family.

During the course of a simple marriage ceremony, the lines blurred between the work of pastor, of a church and state official, and of a faithful, loving father. All the years of biblical study, all the hours of prayer, all the effort expended in paying the bills, supervising homework, and making sure the trash was taken out merged into one single duty: proclaiming the good news of the kingdom.

Jesus told his disciples to proclaim, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 10:7, ESV) There is work to be done as we wait for the fulfillment of that proclamation, and some of the work is hard. There are bills to be paid, children to be raised, thorns and thistles to be raked from the ground. There is music to be made, beauty to be created; there are stories to be written. We wait, we pray. We long for the return of our bridegroom, sometimes growing weary in the waiting.  Yet all the work we do during the waiting is holy, and at some point the lines begin to blur between our varied tasks. All our work is preparation for the one big marriage feast.

And on a day when beauty and celebration and joy were everywhere present, the lines blurred between the kingdom that is at hand and the kingdom that is yet to come.

Joining Laura:

And Michelle:

Start Spreading the News

I remember the sense of pride I felt when I was handed my very own canvas newspaper delivery bag.  With it, I also received a ring of cards identifying each subscriber on my route, as well as my own paper punch for keeping track of customers’ payments. I had a paper route and had been entrusted with the responsibility of daily delivery of The Sharon Herald.

Each day after school and on Saturday afternoons, I waited for the call from Mr. Karfes. In his thick, old-world accent he announced, “The papers are in,” and off I pedaled to his newsstand. Sometimes, due to printing or delivery problems, the other carriers and I waited at the newsstand for the papers to arrive. Several times, we were out delivering until well after dark. While we waited, we filled up on junk food charged against the tab old Mr. Karfes kept for each of us. Many bottles of grape pop were charged to my account, but I was thrilled to be earning my own money which I could spend freely on my guilty pleasures.

When the newspaper truck arrived, Mr. Karfes counted out papers for each of his carriers. We re-counted each of our stacks, smearing grimy newsprint all over our hands, making sure our count was neither over nor under. Nobody wanted to be short a paper at the end of the day’s delivery and then have to walk or bike all the way back across town to get another.

Wednesday’s papers were heavy and thick, filled with advertising circulars, and impossible to roll for delivery.  I wonder if some of my middle-aged back pains might not trace back to a canvas sack loaded with Wednesday newspapers. Sometimes I rode my bike to deliver papers, loading them into the saddle baskets on the rear of my old, second-hand Schwinn. When the weather called for rain or snow, I packed my papers inside black plastic trash bags in an effort to keep them dry. This method rarely worked, and many a customer received a soggy paper.

Newspaper delivery was expected regardless of rain, sleet, snow, or blazing summer heat. If I were going to be away on vacation, I was responsible to find and train a substitute to deliver my papers. One time when I had a nasty case of the flu and was unable to find a replacement I stretched out on the back seat of my father’s Pontiac, sitting up to direct him as he delivered my papers.

I was away at church camp during the week the biggest news story of my childhood broke. On the day President Nixon resigned from office, the substitute for my paper route missed delivery to one of my customers. She was terribly disappointed not to get her copy of the paper whose headline read, “NIXON RESIGNS,” in large, bold print. I’m not sure she ever forgave me.

Mr. Karfes billed each of his carriers once a month for the papers we delivered. We were expected to collect payment from our customers. Some paid weekly, some monthly, and I had to learn to manage my cash flow. At times when I came collecting, some of my customers hid, pretending not to be home. Others tried to get away with punching their own payment tickets, arguing that they had already paid me. Whether I was able to collect from my customers or not, I was responsible for paying Mr. Karfes for my papers as well as for the many grape pops I had charged to my account. I was surprised to learn that otherwise respectable adults would sometimes try to shortchange a kid working hard just to earn a little spending money.

Most of my customers did pay their bills on time, and many were very generous with Christmas tips. Through tips and my earnings, I was able to save enough to buy myself a brand new shiny ten-speed bicycle. Lacking saddle baskets and having skinny little tires, however, my new bike was completely impractical for delivering papers, especially in the snow.

I don’t subscribe to a newspaper now; most of the news, when I care to read it, I can find online. In my neighborhood, most folks who do receiver a paper have it delivered by an adult who drives a car. I wonder if newspaper routes are even still available for teens. Newspaper delivery was hard, dirty work and I was paid only two cents for each paper I delivered. In many ways, I think old Mr. Karfes got more work out of his army of delivery boys and girls than was probably either ethical or legal. As I look back on that experience, I shake my head thinking I was willing to work so hard for so little. But I was honored to have my own route and my own canvas delivery bag and proud to be able to earn my own money, even if I did spend so much of it on grape pop.

(This post is the third in a series I've been writing about jobs I had when I was a kid. I'm honored that David Rupert, who blogs at Red Letter Believers, featured these stories in his post at The High Calling)

A Hot, Hairy Mess

(Writing, on occasional Fridays, stories about summer jobs I had when I was a teen)

Maybe it would have been a good idea to ask my friend why she was giving up her job cleaning a local beauty shop. I was, perhaps, thirteen or fourteen when she asked if I wanted to take over for her. It sounded simple enough. I would get paid to sweep up hair, wipe off hairspray, mop down floors, and throw towels into the laundry. I pedaled my Schwinn across town, met up with my friend, and learned my new job. The hardest part, she told me, was remembering to point the spray nozzle down into the sink before turning on the water. I may have forgotten to do that a few times.

The job wasn’t difficult, and I enjoyed earning some extra spending money. I learned, however, that there are few surfaces to which hair and hairspray won’t stick. On occasion, my boss asked me to wipe down the steering wheel and interior of her car because it, too, was coated in hairspray. She complained that, after I said I had cleaned it, the steering wheel still felt sticky. I doubted there was a cleaning product known to man strong enough to cut through the build-up of hair product on the inside of that car. Perhaps a chisel might have been more effective. I picture that car, disintegrating in a landfill somewhere, layers of lacquer still clinging to the steering wheel.

One of my jobs was to look through hairstyle magazines, find pictures to cut out, and add them to a collage which covered a storage cabinet in the salon.  I guess I wasn’t very style-savvy because my boss usually pulled down the pictures I added to the display. I suppose it was important to have photos of attractive hairstyles on display, because I’m not sure my boss was her own best advertisement. She wore her hair cropped short and bleached straw-like, as though she had experimented on herself with a few too many chemicals.

One day when I arrived at work, my boss said she needed to go shopping for beauty supplies and asked if I wanted to go with her. I thought we would be going to an upscale beauty supply store. Instead, we drove to a discount warehouse where my boss stocked up on fruity green apple, strawberry, and tangerine shampoos. Her plan was to refill the expensive salon-quality bottles in her shop with these cheaper brands because, as she said, her customers wouldn’t know the difference anyway.

On our way home, my boss said she wanted to drive past her boyfriend’s house, where he lived with his wife. Having grown up in a fairly sheltered, conservative community I knew, theoretically, that married people sometimes had affairs. This was my first experience finding myself smack-dab in the middle of one, as an accessory to my boss’s tawdry love triangle.

We drove past the boyfriend’s house; my boss blasted the horn, and sped away. She drove around the block, and then did it again. I felt as though I were looking down on myself, trapped inside some weird soap opera or television movie. I just wanted to get home without being arrested.

I didn’t learn much about the beauty business that summer, but I did learn a few valuable life lessons. I learned that business owners don’t always act with integrity, and that adults don’t always behave like adults.

I told my boss I wasn’t going to be able to continue working once school started in the fall. She found someone to replace me and I trained her, showing her how to point the spray nozzle down into the sink before turning on the water. As for the rest of her responsibilities, I figured she wouldn’t believe me if I told her.

Summertime--And the Living is...Brutal!

Hope you’re keeping cool in here, I said as the teen girl handed my dry cleaning over the counter.

Not really, she said. They won’t let us turn on the air conditioning anymore.

My first inclination was to think of her boss as sadistic, brutal, and mean. Then I remembered the new taxes which had just kicked in, causing business owners statewide to turn off air conditioning and trim costs wherever they could.

I also started thinking back to some of the summer jobs I had when I was the same age as that young lady.

I remember my dad coming home one evening and telling me there was a Help Wanted sign downtown in a local pizza shop.

You should apply, he said.

I knew next to nothing about filling out job applications and even less about making pizza. Still he was my dad and he told me to go downtown and apply for a job, so I did.

The pizza shop was run by a Greek family, some of whom spoke no English. It took me weeks to figure out who was married to whom and how each was related to the other. The owner sat in the dining area and chain smoked. He said little, but often stared at me with his dark, scary, Greek eyes as I was trying to figure out how to do my job.

I was trained by a college student whose boyfriend delivered takeout orders to the nearby campus. She taught me how many slices of pepperoni to place on each pizza and the correct number of meat slices to fill a grinder. My trainer seemed to find perverse pleasure in pointing out everything I got wrong, grabbing orders from my hands, huffing and saying, How many times have I shown you how to do this? I overheard her asking the owner how she was doing in training me, assuring him she was being especially mean to make sure I got it right. Several weeks later, she and her boyfriend were fired when the owner realized they were skimming money off delivery sales.

Although air-conditioned, the heat in the pizza shop was brutal. With my back turned toward industrial-sized pizza ovens, the air conditioning provided little relief. Usually only one oven was fired up at a time, unless there was a special event in town or on campus and we knew demand would be heavy. The town’s local street fair was one such event, and it usually fell during the hottest week of the summer. I remember emptying one of the ovens, filled with searing hot pans full of pizza, just as a crazed, knife-wielding street fair patron chased a woman into the shop, past the ovens, through the kitchen, and out the back door.

I did all of these things for less than minimum wage, paid in cash.

Being Greek, the shops owners celebrated a number of Orthodox Christian holidays. I worked alone the weekend of Orthodox Easter as the family observed the holiday. Running low on pepperoni, I went down to the basement freezer to get more. As I opened the freezer door, I found the two blue eyes of a goat’s head staring directly back at me.

I guess goat is a traditional Eastern Orthodox holiday entrée.

Gradually, I got to know the owner and his wife. I worked hard, and they became friendly. The wife and I usually split a pizza during each of my shifts. She joked with me about my high school boyfriend being one of their best customers during that summer, referring to him as “Mr. Pizza.”

I trained another teen girl to take my place before I left for college in the fall, trying very hard not to frighten her. I knew the owner’s dark stare would be intimidating enough. When I came home from school on break, I always stopped by and ordered a pizza or ham grinder for old times’ sake. My pizza shop served the best pizza in town.

The shop has been gone for a number of years now; it burned down when the hot dog shop next door caught fire which spread.

My son has a job this summer, mowing a hayfield in the blazing heat. I think about him and I think about the young woman working without air conditioning at the dry cleaner’s. I smile and give thanks that I’m not a teenager anymore.

But every time I make a pizza, I count the pieces of pepperoni as I place them.

Next week: Cleaning the beauty salon

(Just for fun, I’ve decided to spend a couple of summer Fridays reflecting on jobs I had as a teenager. How about you? Any fun summer job stories you’d like to share? Any you’d like to forget?)