Work Work Work

I have worked almost as long as I can remember.  My first job was collecting papers during the WWII. I would go around to my neighbors collecting papers and turn them in for about $10 every other week, which was good money back then!  Later I started delivering papers and cutting grass.  My paper route kept me busy 6 nights a week with about 100 customers.  When I turned over my paper route, I went to work at a dry cleaners for 2 years with my best friend.  We called the owner Uncle Normy because he always had some quick deals...quite the wheeler dealer.  He had a monkey in his house that my friend and I had to regularly clean up after.  He also owned several other shops and he would have us do the odd jobs and dirty work, getting them ready for opening day.

Our family had only one car growing up, and I had managed to save enough money to buy my very own car when I was a junior in high school.  It was a 1948 Plymouth convertible, yellow with an ugly red top. It was one of the first cars that had been produced after the war, and my friends and I enjoyed driving it around.  Because it had a choke and hand throttle, we were able to sit on the back of the seats and drive it with only our hands-no feet involved!  Probably not very safe, but a lot more fun than sitting on the seats!

Working so hard, I was also able to pay my way through college.  I attended the University of Buffalo and later Valparaiso University in Indiana, where I had other various jobs, the longest being at Tony's Pizza where I pretty much ran the show when the owner became ill.  My friends graduated in June, but I had to finish up by going to school in the summer.  When I was done,  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but since my draft number seemed to be coming up soon, I joined the Marines.  I talked to a recruiter who assured me that I could go to Officer Candidate School, which I was excited about.  As it turned out, because I wore glasses...which I was wearing that same day he told me I could go to OCS...and flat feet, I was not allowed into the school.  I trained in San Diego, was sent to Okinawa for a year, and then was assigned to Quantico, VA, where I stayed for my last 2 years.  I thankfully never saw wartime, and was quite happy when my service in the military came to an end.  It was at Quantico where I met my wife, Ann, and her two sons John and Ricky.  I got a job with an insurance company, we moved, my daughter Beth was born, and we never left Virginia.