While I was in high school, I decided maybe I
would like to be an electrical engineer.
My guidance counselor told me to take German because all the best books
for that were written in German – so I took a class in German – big mistake. The teacher had such a strong German accent,
I didn’t know if he was speaking English or German. I dropped out after only 2 months.
I then thought maybe Civil Engineering would be
it. I knew 2 guys who had graduated a
year before me who were going to Manhattan College for Civil Engineering. They said to go out of state for
college. They had to wear a jacket and
tie to class and, since there were no girls attending Manhattan College, there
was no social life. Plus, since they
lived at home, their parents expected them to get a night job to help pay for
the school.
I wanted to go to college with a buddy of
mine. I applied to 4 colleges and was
accepted to all. He only got into one,
in West Virginia – so that’s where we went – another big mistake!
When we got there, they wanted to know which of
their 2 majors we would be choosing. If
we took liberal arts, we would have to take a language. After my experience with German, and the fact
that I was also terrible in English, we decided to take business. One year of that college was enough for
me. My friend flunked out a few months
later.
I had another friend whose family lived in
California. They worked in the state’s
largest lumber company and we were promised a job if we went West – bigger mistake. We drove to California. Somewhere in Missouri, the car engine let
go. We spent 2 days there having the
engine rebuilt. I had sold my car and
now I spent most of the money having this car fixed.
When we finally arrived in California, we
stayed at his family’s house. We went to
the lumber company the next day. At the
interview, they asked what our draft status was.
We were both 2S. They told us that meant we were students and, if we didn’t go back to school full-time, we would be 1A. They didn’t want to spend time and money training us and then have us get drafted.
We were both 2S. They told us that meant we were students and, if we didn’t go back to school full-time, we would be 1A. They didn’t want to spend time and money training us and then have us get drafted.
I went out every day looking for work. I even took the test for the California
Highway Patrol and I passed with flying colors.
At the interview, they told me they couldn’t hire me until I was 21 – I
was just 20. I said I would work
cleaning bathrooms and locker rooms until I was 21. They said they used to do that, but, since the
recession was so bad in California, they had many more men taking the
test. They could pick and choose who
they wanted. From there, I went
job-hunting all the way down to dishwasher. I couldn’t get anything. It seemed that since California was such a
transient state, no one would hire anyone who wasn’t bonded – you couldn’t get
bonded until you were 21. I was still
20!
Unfortunately for my Grandmother, she passed
away – fortunately for me, she left me a $250 war bond. I ran right down to the bank and cashed the
bond. It wouldn’t have matured for
another 8 years, but I got enough money to buy a plane ticket back to NY.
HI MOM!
Your Prodigal Son is back. I was
home about a week and, one Sunday afternoon, my godfather showed up for
dinner. He lived in Pennsylvania and was
a superintendent for John B. Kelly Brickwork Co. (owned by Grace Kelly’s father). He was on his way to Connecticut to start a
big contract building a State Mental Hospital.
He asked me what I was doing.
When I told him I was working in a supermarket at $1.11 an hour, he said
if I came to work for him, he would pay me $2.65 an hour. I was to be a Mason Tender. I had no idea what that was, but I found out
pretty quickly.
In case you have an interest, a Mason Tender
keeps the cement flowing into the mason’s cement pan, one pan per 2
masons. A freight elevator could not be
set up until the masons were up to the second floor. My job was to fill a 5-gallon bucket with
cement. There was a rope coming from a
pulley on the top of the first floor. I
would hook the rope onto the 5-gallon bucket and pull it up to the first floor
where another mason tender emptied it and sent it back to me. By lunch time, I could only pull up ½ a bucket
of cement; by 4PM they were lucky to get one shovelful in the bucket. I was so tired that first day, I had to use
my hands to lift my leg so I could push the clutch down to drive my car – bad
choice again!
I worked almost a year at that job and, as the
project was winding down, John Kelly, Jr. showed up to estimate how much time
and material would be needed to finish the job.
My Uncle introduced me to Mr. Kelly (he looked just like his sister,
Grace). He offered to sponsor me to
learn how to be a bricklayer. My Uncle
said, absolutely not! He wanted me to go
back to college and get a good job, not a back-breaking one.
One day he called me into his office and told
me this job was ending. He said he had
talked to his brother (another Uncle) who was the Director of Personnel at
Charles Pfizer Pharmaceutical Co. He
told me to apply for a job there. It was
a better job with good money and benefits and maybe a future for me. My Uncle had worked there for 47 years. So, off I went to Pfizer. How long do you think I lasted??? Hey, at
least I didn’t go home between jobs this time!
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