From Thursday, May 28, 1970
Bud Guest, WJR’s Sunny Side of the Streeter, got me to thinking the other day about jobs I’ve had. I couldn’t top the number mentioned by a printer in Lapeer, but it was fun recalling some of the ways I’ve earned coin.
As you read this, maybe you’ll think back to some occupations you tried your hand at. If you do, why not jot them down and send them to me.
The first job I recall having was cutting asparagus. Had to cut those stems about six inches high starting a half-inch below the ground.
The first sales I tried was selling corn cobs for kindling. Some of us 10-11-year-olds would fill a gunny sack or two with corn cobs given us by Bancroft elevator and go door to door seeking a nickel for our product. Sales were few in 1936-37 and I can’t remember what I bought with the money.
To earn money, to buy some ‘goodies? at the free show I’d pick up discarded bottles along M-78 and turn them into cash. One day I worked as a corn husker and for a few days I picked potatoes.
While living in Owosso, I caddied at Owosso Country Club the summer of 1940, and that same summer three of us hitch-hiked to Traverse City to make a killing picking cherries. I never earned a dime.
I think of that trip often. I was 13. I wouldn’t think of allowing my son to do that. And, I wonder why my folks did. Probably times and people both have changed.
For a couple years I peddled the Owosso Argus Press for George and I. Evans Campbell, though I didn’t know them personally then.
I also mowed lawns at various times, clerked in Kaufman’s men’s store in Owosso, worked in a book store on campus and as a bus boy at the Burdick Hotel in Kalamazoo, while at WMU in 1943-44.
For a while I tried selling insulation door to door, but I quit after three weeks without making one sale.
Then, to the newspaper business, first selling ads and printing and now running the joint. I may have had more jobs, but I can’t remember them. It was fun thinking of them, though.