WHAT DID YOU DO AS A KID TO EARN $$$ OR REWARDS?
WHAT DID YOU DO AS A KID TO EARN $$$ OR REWARDS?
When we were kids we would try to earn some money or gain rewards by doing jobs that we could do, whether it was mowing lawns, delivering newspapers, washing cars, shoveling snow, walking dogs - whatever a kid could do. What did YOU do?
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What I did was deliver New Liberty Magazine.
When I received my supply I would get on my bike and ride around delivering them to the people who signed up for them. Most ot them were friends of my parents or parents of my friends. I don't remember earning actual money, but the distributor gave me prizes. By the time I was 16 I would work durng school vacations in my father's factory, and there I would punch my card and earn hourly wages just like the other employees.
The kid in the picture has a couple fistfuls of hundreds. Got to be a dope dealer or a You Tube star.
Althoiugh it looks like a calculator, if that were a cellphone sitting in front of him maybe he has a web site with a lot of followers and is able to sell advertising on his site. We didn't have that opportunity back in my day.
Or else he has a spot on ONLY FANS.
(No, on second though he's too young for that).
When I was 13 and a freshman in Catholic boys high school I worked in the cafeteria in order to get some knocked off the tuition.
From the age 10-13 I was an altar boy. While you dont get paid for that there was some opportunity to do weddings and funerals, and the families involved did give the altar boys a little something. Maybe ten bucks each.
Ten bucks could buy a lot of candy back then. I just remembered that when I was a younger kid I spent my summer vacations at my grandmother's cottage at Burlington Beach, and I would collect emply pop bottles left on the beach, cash them in at the local variety store for 2 cents each and buy candy with it.
At the age of 12, I picked strawberries and made 10 cents per basket. My mates and I walked 4 miles to the Wompler Farm and were lucky to get $2 dollars for a day's work.
I delivered newspapers. Man, did I screw that up? I was always forgetting to take my account book when I called on my customers for collection. I was a day dreamer, and to this day, still am.
I gave up the newspaper business and, at the age of 13, set up pens at McCook's Bowling Alley, in Dayton, Ohio, right down the street from Parkside Homes, where my Mother and I lived.
When the bowlers finished, they generally tossed a quarter down the alley, and on rare occasions, two.
In high school at John H. Patterson, we went to school for two weeks and worked for two weeks in 1959 & 60.
I used my money to buy cars for $30, washed and cleaned them up, then sold them for $135.
I lived in public housing, along with a lot of kids who had parents injured in WWII and Korea.
It was a fantastic place to live. When my drunken father ran off with his "ho", he divorced my Mother, and shoved my four sisters into four different locations and moved in with his drunken tramp. I never saw him again until I was in High School, and then I never wanted to. He wanted to borrow money. I told him the same thing, over and over again, "Go fuck yourself", and don't come back.
My mother and I moved into PARKSIDE HOMES for families that lost loved ones in WWII and the Korean War.
We were seen as the "Poor Kids"; we were not. Many of us went on to college in 1959-60s.
Parkside had a lot of free activities for kids and teens to do.
A softball field, basketball hoops, swings, cookouts in the summer, and a community room for dances, with stacks and stacks of comic books.
You bought cars for $30?
In 1958. I wanted to make money from cars in the 30's, 40s, and early 50s, so I could buy a car for myself.
Finally, I bought a beautiful green Oldsmobile for $350, which blew all my money when the engine fell apart.
I got out of the car business in 1959, my junior year in High School.
I just can't remember cars being that inexpensive back then. In 1953, when I was 16 years old, there was a 1939 Packard limousine sitting on the gas station lot around the corner from where we were living with a for sale sign on it.
I fell in love with it and wanted to buy it - the price was $600 and I had the money, but my father wouldn't let me do it, and instead bought a used 1950 Ford Custom Coach to be shared by my older brother and me. The point I'm making is that it seems to me that 30 bucks is a ridiculoiusly low price for a car that still runs, even back then.
When I was a kid we saved any money we got to buy baseball cards which we traded-- or "flipped". That, and saving up to buy a "Spaldine". (That was a little pink ball that had the word "Spalding" on it). We used it to play handball, stickball, or "Stoopball".
There were two types of those balls. The genuine "Spaldines" had that printed on them and cost 25 cents each. They were supposed to be better in some ways then the regular pink ones which had no word on them and cost only 20 cents each.
(We never figured out why the Spaldines were better).
The trading cards came in a pack with a small sheet of chewing which was horrible cheap stuff-- we threw it out but kept the cards.
That is one mighty fine lookimg car.
Classic!
Think of how it would look through the eyes of a 16 year old who wanted to impress the girls.
I liked having cash as a kid, as we weren't exactly wealthy back then. I would sometimes do my older brothers paper route to earn cash, I liked cutting(and smoking) grass at too young an age 10-11. Washing cars was not really a thing in my neighborhood, nor walking dogs, but I did make a killing shoveling snow in my neighborhood, and had my customers all locked in and waiting for my arrival. They were very generous to me, as most were elderly and would count on me to always come by, and I would. I was in very good shape as a teen and could tear through their walks and driveways pretty damn easy, but some of those 70's snow storms were DEEP, and I was wooped as it would take me all day sometimes, but when your 15, and my first elderly widow had an ice cold beer waiting for me at 7am, and a fresh $20, it was serious motivation. I'd clear at least a six pack of beer and between $75-$160 dollars for a half to almost a full day of back breaking work, but I had a back for it, and that was good money for me at that age, and the old ladies would pay me extra if I did their shoveling first. Nice old people they were. I also worked in a local AutoBody shop cleaning up after school, as well as labored for my old mans contracting business as well as his buddy, a local builder. Even did dishwashing for a short while, but only cause when I took the trash out, it was worth two six packs of ice cold Budweiser, ahh, incentive !
You did well.
Wow, you were rich then!
I never smoked grass until I was in college!
(But actually the first drug I did was in college-- we ate Peyote buttons. Pot came later).
I also remember that when we couldn't get Marijuana we smoked Oregano. When you burn it it smells a little like Marijuana (but IIRC it doesn't get you high-- all it did was make your place smell like an italian restaurant!
I didn't get turned on till my late 20s - I was already a lawyer.
I would deliver the Sacramento Union in the morning and in the afternoon I would clean the snack bar in a drug store. I would clean the griddle, the deep fryer, the ice cream machine, the counters and mop the floors. They would leave me $3 in the register every day.
Did you have any time for school?
School schmool. Who needs it? ha ha.
Yes, I was the class clown and got sent to the principal's office for a paddling, but I couldn't help myself. The first time in the seventh grade, when I said something out loud that made the class laugh, I fell in love with humor.
I did it all the way to HOLLYWOOD!
Later formed my own company, Actors & Artists, and produced events for Country Clubs, Department Stores, Colleges, and anyone who had money, but NEVER BARS. They always cheated the Musicians. "So, when they asked if I had some musicians", I always said the same thing: "Go Fuck Yourself", because they cheated every band in every bar out of their agreed-upon money.
In middle school I would buy packs of bubble yum and sell pieces for a quarter at school. It paid just well enough to provide me with free gum. Later in life I used the same strategy to provide myself with free weed.
Bubble Yum seems a little dear to me.
In summer, the farm supply store would pay kids $5 ta day to unload box cars of feed and fertilizer. Hard but fun and $5 was a lot then. one sometimes 2 cars a week.
I guess that would really heve built your muscles.
In the summer as a kid I would cut lawns-- and later also would do some "gardening" for neighbours. In the winter I shoveled snow for those same neighbours.
Later on I worked in a law firm-- basically organizing and fetching boxes of files from storage in the basement. A
After that I worked for a major Wall Street Law firm in their mail room.(Which was a fun job-- sometimes organizing things there, but often I hand deleivered or picked up) packages of papers from other Wall St. law firms.
In High School one of our neighbours ran a film company (commercial films). I learned to do a few things on a Moviola:
A Moviola is a classic mechanical device that lets a film editor view and cut motion picture film. Invented by Iwan Serrurier in 1924, it was the first-ever machine designed specifically for film editing, allowing editors to run picture and sound synchronously before the shift to digital systems.
Occasionally I went with them as an "assistant cameraman" to outside filming locations.The most exciting shoot was when we went to Belmont to film Secretariat winning the Belmont stakes in 1973!!!
At first I was assisting the camerman near the staring gate-- I must've been some 15 feet from Secretariat. Afrer the race was over we did some closeups in the winners circle!
I am unable to open your links. Please explain or describe them.
I just watched the Secretariat movie for the first time a few days ago. That finish 31 lengths beyond the others was unbelievable.
If the link to the Moviola doesn’t work for you you should be able to use your favourite search engine and find it.
Although at the time (1970s?) it was state of the art at this point it’s considered to be an ancient very obsolete technology. It was a machine for editing 35mm movie film. 🎞️
IIRC it had a a screen and a place to insert the film. The company shot movies on 35 mm film. After editing on the Moviola the unwanted film was cut out and dropped to “the cutting room floor.
I still remember the name of the motion picture camera used for shooting it was called an “Arriflex”. At the time it was probably the best type. I believe it was from a German company I think it was called the Arry company…?
Two unimportant bits of somewhat related trivia:
1. One of my uncles when young was a filmmaker. (He was an immigrant who with my aunt became a well known art dealer in NYC).
2. The film company I worked for (the one I was with when I went with them to film Secretariat’s victory) had their offices in 666 5th Avenue NYC, where they also had their Moviolas. IIRC there was a scandal much later on because Jared Kusher later owed it …I believe it was a gift from a Saudi who was seeking favors but I don’t remember the details.
It was amazing to watch.
People knowledgeable on the subject say Secretarian was the greatest race horse that ever existed-- its easy to see why,
Actually some people dispute that and says its a tossup between Secretariat and Man O' War.
I've watched some race horse muvies, such as Secretariat, Seabisquit, Dreamer and others, but I don't think there is a movie about Man O War.
Look up "Man O' War: Unleashed".
I swam with him
How did that go?...
as Shocking as it may have seemed, there were no negatives, and I'm positive cause i'm so well grounded..
So... I googled it:
Jared Kushner 's purchase of 666 Fifth Avenue in 2007 for a record $1.8 billion became a massive financial burden due to high debt, mistimed market timing before the 2008 recession, and departing tenants. Brookfield Asset Management rescued the property in 2018 via a 99-year lease, and the tower was later renamed 660 Fifth Avenue. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ]
Please describe or explain your google links - I'm unable to open them.
I bet that entire experience must've been electrifying!
Pretty amazing that you remembered all that from so long ago as those experiences were hardly current . . .
Not currently, for i am now neutral about the situation.
I started working in a law firm when I was 25, but then I didn't quit until I was in my 60s.
Of course there's was a vast difference in our experiences. When you worked at a law firm it was in a highly skilled position (as a lawyer).
I did is as an unskilled worker ("at the bottom of the totem pole". No desire for advacement-- just an ordinary relatively unskilled manual laborer looking to earn a small income)
Did you ever see the American TV show "LA Law"?
Did you ever see the American TV show "LA Law"?
(When the Internet first became popular, there was the expression "INALB" which eventually gave birth to the expression "INALBIPOOTV").
I know I watched more than one series about law although it's been more than 20 years ago so I'm not that sure about specifics. One of my actor clients, Harvey Atkin (who was also a close friend) was a judge on one of them.
I have no idea what those acronyms stand for.
I know what they mean but I actually googled them to see what came up. And it was one of those situations where its not of the first page that comes up! I kept getting items relating to the country of Albania. (Must be because of the ALB and also Albania's been in the news lately)
So will explain those acronyms in the next comment.
If you are engaged in a conversation in person, in addition to what they are actually saying there are other cues as to what they are communicating. Possibly tone of voice. Body language. Facial expressions, etc. Things that are not apparent in conversations that are only seen typed on the screen.
So in the early days of the Internet someone came up with the idea of typing TLAs ("Three Letter Acronyms"). Many died out, Some were changed. A few are still used (for example LOL). Also WTF, IMO ("In My Opinion"), etc.
Then some were lenghtened: "IMO" spawned IMHO ("In my humble opinion"). And even IMNSHO ("In my not so humble opinion").
Some were attempts at humor. Others were based on pop culture.
One popular one was "INALB" (meaning "I'm not a lawyer but").
Then in the 1980s there was a very popular TV show called "LA Law". (IMO one of the best TV shows off all time--- but what do I know-- after all INAL!
)
So naturally someone decided to lenghten the basic "INALB" to "INALBIPOOTV" ("I'm not a lawyer but I play one on TV")
Those were all typed letters.
There were also two other systems-- these used small graphics of faces. First came simple "emoticons" then "emojis".
Many die off, but some of the more useful ones will continue. (I wonder if "LOL" or
will ever die out?
@ all 5 comments:
Thank you for the explanations.
This:
Jared Kushner ’s private equity firm, Affinity Partners, is planning a multi-billion-dollar luxury resort development on Albania's pristine Sazan Island and the protected coastal area of Zvërnec .
The project has sparked mass local protests—known as the "Flamingo Revolution"—over environmental damage to endangered wildlife habitats and alleged government corruption. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]
Please describe or explain your google links - I'm unable to open them.
What I find to be interesting -- unintentionally "humorous" or worse-- are those MLA's that had to be changed.
For example the MLA Microsoft created...and then had to quickly change:
In 2002, Microsoft had to do a little rearranging on the fly. It quickly and quietly changed its ribald "Critical Update Notification Tool" to the more family friendly "Critical Updated Notification Utility."
BTW, speaking of movies, have you ever watched "The Devil Wears Prada"? The are two versions. The original was released in 2006, then Part II wasn't released until this year (2026)!
Occasionally I went with them as an "assistant cameraman" to outside filming locations.The most exciting shoot was when we went to Belmont to film Secretariat winning the Belmont stakes in 1973!!!
It was an important race:
On June 9, 1973, Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes by an astonishing 31 lengths, securing the first Triple Crown in 25 years . He ran 1.5 miles in 2:24 flat, setting a world record on dirt that still stands today. [ 1 , 2 ]
I'll assume those links are okay.
All those preceding jobs were done for money of course. I also wanted to live on experiemental communities as a volunteer. Some charged you for the experience, but some let you live there for a fee...or you could live there and work to pay half (or none) of the fee.
Two of the most interesting ones I lived (and worked on) were two different kibbuztzim (communal farms) in Israel (one pioneered Drip Irrigation ).
And Yogaville, a Yoga Asram in rural Virginia.
(Here's our guru, Integral Yoga's H.H.Swami Satchadananda, at Woodstock):
HH Swami Satchidanana at Woodstock
Image: from video
Okay. I visited a kibbutz in 2000 in the north of Israel and had the experience of having to run to a shelter to escape danger from a kite bomb sent from Hezbollah.
Both times I visited (and volunteered on a kibbutz) were times of relative peace.
"Times of relative peace" include the odd kite bomb or balloon bomb sent from Lebanon or Gaza. I also witnessed a bus bomb on that trip, and on another trip saw the result of the "Passover Massacre" a couple of days after it happened. Israel may have experienced "relative" peace now and then, but it has NEVER experienced REAL peace.
I vaguely remember reading about that.
Was that the one in Netanya?
Yes, it was in Netanya at the Park Hotel. At that time I was the Director of Development for the Canadian organization supporting the Modern Orthodox Laniado Hospital in Netanya, and I was sent to Israel to tour the hospital and meet the medical/nursing staff and administration. Many of the administrative and medical staff were Muslims who were devestated and genuinly in tears about the carnage. It was then that I learned that notwithstanding the Muslim terrorists, there were also Muslims who were wonderful caring individuals. On Jewish holidays the hospital was rightly and willingly trusted and left entirely to the management of the Muslim administrative and medical staff.
I remember learning about those on the news (while I was in the U.S.),
But my experiences on both Kibutzim were long before those happened.
I could make $400 a summer putting up hay for neighboring farmers. I did that from the time I was fourteen until I was seventeen. I was driving tractors at fifteen running the rake, or the bailer. Mostly it was just picking up bales off the ground and stacking them on the trailer, then restacking the in the barn. I also spent two summers pulling railroad ties out of the ground for a guy that sold them. I got $4 an hour for that job. Eventually he decided it wasn't as profitable and moved onto something else.
Sounds like muscle-building work.
I could carry 100lbs feed sacks on each shoulder across the yard, run 25 miles without issues and I weighed 125lbs when I arrived at Army Basic Training at 18 years old.I couldn't do 20 pushups. 8 weeks later I weighed 165lbs and could more than 60 pushups in 2 minutes.
As a preteen I earned money from cutting yards. I did it at first with a push mower, and when my dad purchased a riding one, i was able to use that and get more yards. I think I charged about 6 bucks per yard. At 16 I wanted to be a veterinarian and wanted to get in the local vet. Only way he would let me in and be around animals was to sweep the parking lot every day and he would let me in to clean kennels. I made nothing doing this, but getting to be with the animals was pay enough.
First actual job was a bagger at Winn Dixie right about the time scanners were coming online.
In the movie The Shawshank Redemption, Red (Morgan Freeman) worked as a bagger in a supermarket when he was put on parole.
I did work around the neighboring farms for spending money. Moving cattle around, weed whacking, fighting Multiflora Rose hedges, helping carry and stack firewood (I wasn't allowed to use the buzzsaw). Usually worked on hay crews at 3 cents a bail.
Our family only had a 2 acre ranch but there was still plenty to do and I earned an allowance for doing it.
Our lives are so different now. And now wasn't it a good trip for a few minutes to think back to those times?
Our lives are so different now. And now wasn't it a good trip for a few minutes to think back to those times.
Well, perhaps nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower . . . ?
"We will grieve not; rather find strength in what remains behind."
Thanks to WW.
Normally I wouldn't expect many people to recognize the source of that quote-- but when I typed that I had you in mind (as someone who would recognize it).
IIRC you had mentioned that you were an English major?
Yes, English Literature. It focused mostly on British, Canadian and American literature.
And as well, after retiring from the practice of law I taught high school English at a private high school for 6 years, and then privately thereafter until I finally retired completely. It was not a road less travelled.
Hmm, well...at about...8 or 9 I started mowing lawns, graduated to delivering newspapers for the local rag, on a bike, with the cloth basket in the front, just like one would imagine. I actually got pretty accurate. 1983 I was a freshman and turned to flipping cars with my brother, who kept most of the profits because he had a serious weed habit he had to pay for, (and supply my two sisters). Sooooooo that's where I flipped the script. I had a buddy, "that knew a guy", so I could get stinkweed VERY cheap, which I would sell to my brother, (never did smoke the stuff until it was legalized in WA. a while back), while we flipped old beaters. I made a small fortune for a few years. Bought my own car, (a POS 1976 Fiat 128 that almost never ran properly). Then as soon as I graduated, I went in the U.S.M.C. My street corner pharmaceutical empire crashed to the ground.
I'm going to make a reasonable assumption that none of members who posted comments on this article have been women, and why is that? Did none of the female NT members ever do something to earn money or rewards when they were teenagers or younger? I wouldn't expect them to do snowshovelling or other tasks that take a lot of heavy muscle work, but what about, for example, babysitting? When we had young kids we hired the daughter of a restaurateur client of mine to babysit our kids. He was the one who lent me his vintage Rolls Royce limo to drive for a day that I've posted about previously.
i used to have a female friend, in her 60s, who supported herself by babysitting. When she first told me that I was surprised (because most of the babysitters I had known in the past were teenage girls from the neighbourhood (suburbia).
However this women was in Manhattan-- there were wealthy women in the area who wanted reliable babysitters and paid well.
Sounds like a few folks here have earned a "Workingman's PhD"...???
I thought you knew I cannot open a youtube. Please describe what it is or I will have to delete your comment.
Of course I know you cannot open a Youtube video. (As I have demonstrated on numerous occasions).
And that's why, in this instance, I wrote:
Sounds like a few folks here have earned a "Workingman's PhD"...???
I know you can't access Google but IIRC you are able to access Bing (?). Or if not Bing IIRC there's a Chinese search engine that works for you.
So here's what to do: open a search engine and search for "Workingman's Phd".
And if that doesn't work I can tell you its a video that basically glorifies physical labour (IMNSHO it portrays hard physical labour as at least equal to {if not better than} purely mental work.)
FWIW IMNSHO is a MLA ("Multi-Letter Acronym") meaning "In My Not So Humble Opinion".
Its derived from IMHO ("In My Humble Opinion") which is derived from a TLA (IMO "In My Opinion").
FWIW IMNSHO is a MLA ("Multi-Letter Acronym") meaning "In My Not So Humble Opinion".
Its derived from IMHO ("In My Humble Opinion") which is derived from a TLA (IMO "In My Opinion").
Some folks would say that using the Internet is great fun!
Thank you, Krishna, for devoting your time to helping keep my articles up front, and for your great sense of humour that I have enjoyed for so many years. Although this article has attracted a number of comments that my articles VERY rarely reach I am locking it as it has been up for about a month and since I am limited to 5 articles on the Front (Home) Page it could prevent me from posting new topics.