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Lemonade Stand
Posted at 4:47 AM on October 29, 2009
by Dale Connelly
(19 Comments)
Welcome to the last day of the member drive for Fall '09.
Thanks to everyone who made a contribution in support of Radio Heartland.
Let's finish it up today!
A couple of late posts on yesterday's blog got my attention.
Actually, if Bubby wants to expand his work to cleaning out basements and garages... A friend and I tried to start up a business like that one summer (out on their farm, and we'd run out of canning jars) with this ad in the local rag: "Tired of tripping over all those old jars in your basement? Call Barb and Jan's Canning Jar Removal Service..." Doesn't make nearly as good an acronym as SLAYER, tho' -- or CODGER, TGITH, made me laugh out loud.Posted by Barbara in Robbinsdale | October 28, 2009 12:20 PM
My thanks also to That Guy In The Hat (TGITH) for CODGER (Cleaning Of Debris and Grunge for Elderly Residents). It's a great acronym, but BAJCJR isn't bad either, Barb. Looks exotic. Turkish, maybe.
And then there was this:
When I was in 4th grade (30+ years ago) my elderly widowed neighbor offered to pay me to rake the leaves in her yard.She was the "candylady" on our dead-end street, so I didn't think to squabble over the amount. We used to come around and ring the doorbell at the side of her house for a chance to choose a piece of unwrapped sugar-coated jelly candy from the old tin she kept on her fridge.
I spent 2 or 3 days raking the leaves into piles, and even enlisted my mom's help to drag the heaviest piles on a tarp into the woods. When I was done, I got a $5 bill.
A few days after the job was done she called me over to point out that more leaves had fallen since I finished. This was my first (but unfortunately not my last) lesson about the importance of written contracts when doing business--even with people you know.
Years later when I was a young adult I stopped back to talk with her, and she sat me down and had me listen to a personal finance program on public radio.
Thanks for reminding me of Mrs. Abbott, her candy tin, and her radio-listening habits! Here's wishing you all a 4th-grader willing to rake your leaves (perpetually) for $5!
Posted by Flapper Jane in Lindstrom | October 28, 2009 4:08 PM
Thanks for that story, Flapper Jane. I guess Bubby's not so far off the mark after all. So what if she's your kindly old neighbor? Get it in writing.
Every time I hear a futurist say something like ... "Medical science is knocking down the barriers to immortality. The first person who will live to be 150 is already on the planet today!" ... I think of the poor kids who live next door to that medical miracle. They might wind up being locked into their first employment forever. That $5 perpetual leaf raking, garden weeding, plant watering, dog walking job can never end if Mrs. Abbott won't go on to glory.
In a world of immortals, where the brilliant bargains we make as 12 year olds routinely last into our own twilight years, I would still be caddying for Ed Kaufman Jr for 3 dollars a round. Of course Ed would have to spend a lot of time sizing up his next shot while I trudged, wheezing, down the fairway.
What was the first job somebody actually paid you to do?
Comments (19)
oh man, Dale - this ought to be an interesting topic!
at 12 years old, more out of my mother's need to have me out of her hair than my need for employment, i began my babysitting career. i had charge of three little kids - one in diapers! i was responsible for feeding them lunch, washing dishes, and generally keeping them safe and entertained (although there was no contract) for 8 hours/day during that summer - all for the grand sum of $1/day (12.5 cents/hour). but i had an evening babysitting job that i often get paid in the woman's old jewelry, so a dollar looked pretty good. although i don't remember actually having any dollars in my fist. hmmmm.
good morning, Al!!
Babysitting for the grand sum of 50 cents per hour. As an 11 year old I took care of the 5 kids next door. The oldest was in second grade and they were naughty.When I think of how careful I was in choosing babysitters for my son I am amazed at the risks leaving me alone with these kids posed. Even more amazing nothing bad happened to them!
Have a great day in the Heartland!
I can't remember any payment that I got for doing a job up to the time I took a job working at McDonalds after graduating from high school. I wasn't a babysitter, although I was asked to do that once and don't remember any payment. I did some chores at home and got an allowance, but this wasn't really a payment.
I guess the best work experience, which didn't include any payment, was helping my Uncle on the farm for a few weeks when I was about 11 or 12 years old. I helped with milking, making hay, and even did some work on a tactor disking a field. T was very proud that I was able to do this work and that was more than enough payment.
I learned to pull the tricky old mower with the tractor. When my Dad came to the farm he wasn't as good as I was at pulling the mower and he ran it over a gate post.
Babysitting, for sure. I hadn't figured out yet at the time that "boy's work" was often easier and higher paid.
Went to the "Asleep at the Wheel" concert at The Cedar last night, and the show was nothing short of amazing. Especially loved Elizabeth McQueen's vocals. She sang "What a Wonderful World" beautifully.
What interesting version of "What a Wonderful World" do you have in the library for this fine Thursday?
Have a great day, all!
My first paid employment was as an envelope stuffer. My dad had a retail clothing store and once a month bills for the charge accounts were sent out. My dad's partner's kids and I sat in the office above the main floor and stuffed for 25 cents an hour. I don't remember how old I was but surely was grade school.
As an adult working for my father I advanced to $2.50 an hour...but it was always work available to save for college, Europe, whenever I was home for any extended period of time.
Greetings! I remember getting an allowance. Sometimes Dad would offer an extra quarter for washing the car or shining his shoes, so we usually jumped at that.
Like most girls, I did babysitting. Some bratty kids, some good kids. Mostly, I judged how good a job was by the snacks available for me after kids were in bed! Then I would watch late night scary movies until parents came home. One time, I watched a very sad movie and was crying my eyes out just as parents came home.
That was embarassing ... trying to explain why I was sobbing while trying to see how many bills they were paying me ... they were really nice people, though.
I was in third grade in Arlington, Virginia playing with friends in the neighborhood when a man walked up to us and asked if anyone wanted to make some money and earn some neat things like a watch and comic books. Today, of course, someone would have pulled out their cell phone and called the police and that man would be behind bars for life. But I accepted the job selling greeting cards. I did get a watch, 12 comic books (!) and some cash. I was hooked on the door-to-door greeting card business for several years and I'm sure it contributed to my robust work ethic.
My dad worked for a Lutheran publishing company selling choral music (sheet music), hymnals, song books, and other liturgical related stuff. Once I was old enough to handle quick addition, subtraction and multiplication (and run the adding machine and its fabulous "ca-chunk" noises) I helped him out at some of the smaller church music conventions. I was paid in product(s). First earnings: a bright green song book that had "Morning Has Broken" in it...very exciting when you're 9 or 10 and it's the 70s.
My first cash jobs, though, were cleaning the bathroom weekly (I volunteered for that one since it involved playing with "scrubbing bubbles") and later the ubiquitous babysitting work.
Does it count when your brothers/sister pay you to go away?
TGITH - it counts only if you STAYED AWAY. if you took the money and came back again it was a criminal offense. (here we are back in Donna's topic :-)
i never got an allowance, but certainly was employed, as a non-voluntary volunteer, in cleaning, dishwashing, etc. at home by the time i was 7 or 8. Mom said she didn't get paid to cook, clean for us so neither would i. good lesson, i guess. except, in the norms of those times, my brother didn't have to do anything. (except get paid by me to go away; but he always reneged on the deal and came back for more quarters, the devil)
A "job" I had, during the summers and weekends while in high school, was helping my father build a house. This was another non-paying job, like the work I have already mentioned that I did on my Uncle's farm. However, it contributed to the family economy and indirectly helped my parents pay for part of my college education.
I learned some construction skills from helping with the building, the main one being how to do dry walling. Mostly I did manual work, such as digging a foundation and pushing a wheel barrow.
My Dad was very thrifty and I learned to do by hand things that other people might do with a machine including hand mixing concrete. I still don't use much power equipment and till my garden by hand as my father did instead of using a power tiller.
Anna, speaking of "Morning Has Broken" -- i always love hearing it...Dale/Mike, do you have Cat Stevens' version in the library? If so, please....tomorrow, perhaps...as morning breaks. And in honor of it breaking earlier after this weekend.
I had a few early lawnmowing jobs, one which lasted into my early college years was to mow my grandmother’s lawn, for which she paid me $5 each time, a sum I’d gladly take if I could still do it today.
My first job in which I actually got paid with a CHECK was assembling and packaging wood duck nesting boxes – I was in junior high and got $1 an hour. I lived outside of town so never had a paper route, but my daughter does and it’s allowed her to earn some money in excess of what I ever did at her age.
Barb - Well, if you're being paid to stay away (and the implication is, of course, to stop bugging your beloved siblings) that's the deal...and my siblings were never shy about reminding me of that. However, there always tended to be a ~slight~ discrepancy as far as how much 'pesky little brother free time' the funds would purchase.
As I recall, my siblings believed that a quarter should have purchased an entire morning, afternoon, or evening. They selected this time frame only because they our folks wouldn't let them stipulate "their entire lives."
My proposed fee was a quarter for a half hour. The reasoning behind this was that (at the time) I could purchase three comic books for a quarter and I could read them in half an hour. This reasoning seemed perfectly logical to me but, as with a lot of us in our professional lives, you can be right but still wrong.
Barb, I can imagine a brother getting away with not helping with house chores when there was a daughter to do them. It certainly wasn't fair, but I guess housework was considered women's work at that time. There were no girls in my family, so I was expected to do some cleaning and other work of this kind
Good tales, all! My first job was walking beans for my dad. As soon as we were as tall as beans plants are in mid July, and strong enough to pull or chop sunflowers and cockleburs, employment was ours. Dad paid pretty well, better than babysitting, so it must have been around $1/hr.
More fun, though, was dressing up with cousins and putting on skits at family gatherings. We charged 5 cents and the relatives who weren’t playing cards or sleeping (ate/drank too much) paid cheerfully (they were acting, too.) I had a joke book that we used for ideas. I remember one where I dressed like a boy – a baseball cap was the only prop necessary (narrow hips). With mascara smeared around one eye, I strutted across the stage (front porch) facing the audience. My cousin’s (Cindy Lou's) line was, “Wow! Who gave you that shiner?”(black eye). My line was, “Nobody GAVE it to me. I had to FIGHT for it, buster!” Cindy learned after our dress rehearsal (practice) not to stand too close because I said the word “buster” with such emphasis, that saliva (spit) sprayed out of my mouth at the same time. I ask you – where else could anyone have gotten that kind of entertainment for a nickel??
Oh MAN, you mean I could've paid my little sister to leave me alone???
Probably babysitting also, for first payment, but what I took some pride in was when I was 12, helping my dad tabulate some test scores - he was a guidance counselor, and had these mountains of papers; he'd read them and I'd mark something in columns...
Man, I think I missed out on a potential cash cow by not offering to take "little sister protection" money from my brother to bug off for part of a day...I just got told to go away a lot. Who knew there was money to be made?
And I'm with Cynthia (now that I've created the ear worm for myself) please, can we hear "Morning Has Broken" sometime? Thanks!
When I was around nine yrs. old, I sold Christmas cards to "earn" my first clock radio. I usuallly had a transistor radio attached to my belt and was ready for better sound quality. My off-white plastic clock radio with back-lit dial arrived weeks later, and I was in heaven! At eleven I began babysitting, and at thirteen I detasseled corn. Maybe you could play "Walkin' the Beans" by Greg Brown?
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