Worked for Dad's business all during HS and College and also worked for a local farmer walking beans (when that meant actually pulling weeds and not spraying them), cleaning out bins, etc. Both were cash jobs, so no W2s. Immediately after college started for a large mainframe computer company, pretty much IT stuff ever since.
What was your first job?
- Thread starter The Tradition
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I worked on the boat docks in Clayton, gassing up boats, selling bait and oil, aiding drug transactions and staring at tittays.
Pumped gas at a DX station on Hickman Rd for my first job.
In college for two summers I traveled eastern Iowa washing the insides of lighted gas station signs from a truck lift. That was kinda fun, spending the nights in motels all week. Filthy job though.
In college for two summers I traveled eastern Iowa washing the insides of lighted gas station signs from a truck lift. That was kinda fun, spending the nights in motels all week. Filthy job though.
Oh yes! He loved to tell us tales of the river monsters he said were in the area around Clayton—aquatic raccoon people—that guy was a character.
Mowed a lot of lawns as a kid. One summer I had 6 lawns that I did, not including our own. I think the most I got paid for one single lawn was $8 per week. It was a big lawn, front and back, and they wanted the front done with the push mower. And they had a small dog that pooped all over the yard. I had to go around and pick up the poop before I mowed. It wasn't worth $8, but they were friends of my parents so I couldn't not do it.
Detasseled for a few summers too. Detasseling was great because I made more money in two weeks than I did in an entire summer of lawn mowing.
Detasseled for a few summers too. Detasseling was great because I made more money in two weeks than I did in an entire summer of lawn mowing.
All my family, except dad, worked at the Litehouse in Clayton, so I had an “in”, haha. $3.40/he plus tips. Free food. Sometimes my buddy (Sarge’s son, mentioned later)would come down and we’d hang out and try not to die smoking a cigarette. Had a ton of beer given to me; I was 13 but looked 16, which is legal drinking age in small town Iowa. I hated beer though, so it went in the bait fridge and one of the regulars would come slam them and then head back up to the bar. It was an awesome job!
Classic. I was really good friends all through elementary/junior high with his oldest son. So there were plenty of times where I had to take orders from the Sarge, haha. He was one of a kind!
Does having your older brother place bets on horse races when you are 15 count? If not, McDonalds when I was 16.
Corn still has tassels, so those have to be removed from the female rows to create hybrid seed corn. Can't have those females self-pollenating, right?
To be serious, there are machines to cut or otherwise remove tassels, so some companies use those and follow up with humans to get what those miss, but detasseling by hand is still widely used.
Ah, the owners. I don't recall, as they weren't in the store much. Don't recall ever meeting either one. My boss was Jim and the store manager was Dick, who used to utter a pervy chuckle when a cashier would call over the store intercom: "Dick, come to the front."
Jim Anderson and Dick Lane. Stan bought out Kenny. Stan eventually moved to Wapello and Kenny went to Hamilton IL. You from NL?
I got a F- in botany so I am glad to be educatedCorn still has tassels, so those have to be removed from the female rows to create hybrid seed corn. Can't have those females self-pollenating, right?
To be serious, there are machines to cut or otherwise remove tassels, so some companies use those and follow up with humans to get what those miss, but detasseling by hand is still widely used.
I just wondered whether the wizards in agri biotech had come up with hybrids that didn't need that stuff done. Someone from Monsanto once told me that today's corn has little resemblance to corn from the 1980's.
Yeah, think it's genetically modified, but still produced the same way in the field. All I know is I still see fields with female rows and male rows all the time, so those are seed corn fields.I got a F- in botany so I am glad to be educated
I prefer the females selling sweet corn but I get your drift. As a scientist, I should pay more attention to these plants!
Jim Shull. Yes, I graduated from New London - you know me. You were a year ahead of me. We played basketball together - well, you played. I rode the pine. Do you remember who you saw and talked to when you came out of the restroom at the Orange Bowl vs. USC in 2003? (This is starting to sound creepy.) You probably know me better as Drew.
Yeah, I figured it would. It was just an amazing coincidence though. Seeing a friend from high school randomly at the Orange Bowl whom I hadn't seen or talked to in nearly 20 years. Then out the blue he walks out of a stadium restroom as I'm walking in.
It’s a New London thing. No need to show them the handshake @hawkeyeandy
I dunno, but I've always had the dream of being a business office/management person for a long-term care company so I could sit around all day, do nothing and post endless comments on Hawkeye Report.
My dad would tell us stories about how the paper boy from 1977 to 1981 had a girly arm on him!!
@hawkeyeandy At the risk of hijacking the thread, where are you these days? With Dad and Mary both gone now it has been a minute since I've been to NL. Still in contact with Pooh, Egg, Weenie, Porkchop, Leo, and a few others though.
Not counting mowing two neighbor's yards for $10 each... I was 14 and was a bus boy at Des Moines Golf and Country Club. I went to DMCC to get a job as a cart boy or something golf related. I filled out my application and I got a job as a bus boy. I had never been to a country club and it never occurred to me that they had a restaurant. I thought all of the jobs there were golf related.
After a month or so, I asked if I could go work on the golf side of things and I was told to go ask the pro shop. That was the quickest no I have ever gotten in my life for any question I have ever asked. Got to respect it but the guy in the pro shop looked at me, laughed and said 'uh no we don't have anything'.
Side note: playing DMCC on Monday's before noon was quite the treat for an EASTSIDER like me. One of the best rounds I have ever played (keep in mind I have shot under par dozens of times and in the 60's probably a dozen times) was a 73 (+1) at DMCC on the Senior Open course the Monday before the tournament. 4" rough. Greens at a 12-12.5. Crazy difficult.
After a month or so, I asked if I could go work on the golf side of things and I was told to go ask the pro shop. That was the quickest no I have ever gotten in my life for any question I have ever asked. Got to respect it but the guy in the pro shop looked at me, laughed and said 'uh no we don't have anything'.
Side note: playing DMCC on Monday's before noon was quite the treat for an EASTSIDER like me. One of the best rounds I have ever played (keep in mind I have shot under par dozens of times and in the 60's probably a dozen times) was a 73 (+1) at DMCC on the Senior Open course the Monday before the tournament. 4" rough. Greens at a 12-12.5. Crazy difficult.
My first job was working at Target, showed up at 4:30am to unload the truck and stock the shelves. We got most of our work done before the store opened so we could blast rock and rap songs on the store PA to make the time go by faster. Didn't get much sleep that summer but unloading the truck in the middle of summer and moving heavy boxes got me in shape for football season.
I'm back where I came from before I moved to NL - Southwestern Pennsylvania. I teach high school English. My folks still live on the farm south of town, but maybe not for much longer. My dad is 87 and neither he nor my stepmom get around well. They can't keep up the place. We visit at least once a year in the summer. Sorry to hear about your dad. I talked to him at a restaurant on one of my visits home quite a while ago (at least 10 years). I told him my name and I think he remembered me from being in his math class. Or at least he pretended he remembered - if you recall our experience in that class, I wasn't the best math student. The only person from my class that I am still in contact with is Darb, although I do attend our class reunions. I am in regular contact with Bob, my roommate from Iowa, who was with me when we ran into you at the Orange Bowl. He lives in Michigan and we get together every fall for a football game.
Afternoon route for the DM Register & Tribune, also Sunday morning route. I had a route same morning Johnny Gosch was taken.
He remembered you. He remembered all of his students. He once got pulled over by State Patrol. Turns out he taught/coached the guy some 40 years earlier when he was at Greenfield. 30 minutes later he pulled away with no ticket. I absolutely remember that class. Unfortunately over the years Dad must have lost his touch in the classroom. All 3 of my older siblings were straight A students in math. I was more of a C student. On a good day.
Planning on a booze crusie of some of the old SE Iowa haunts in the next summer or 2. I will let you know when/if it happens. Say hey to the folks.
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