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Idle Minds and Hands...
“Idle minds and hands bring trouble into many lives,” is a quote I remember hearing quite a bit while growing up. Lately, I’ve been trying to reminisce about the things I did to keep busy over the years…
As an eight-year old living in Pittsburgh, I wasn’t content just getting an allowance. It wasn’t the money that I was after as much as it was the job itself: selling tickets to a magnificent puppet show that my sister, two friends, and I were putting on in my friend’s living room. It didn’t matter that the puppets were stinky, worn socks from our fathers…with buttons glued on to them.
...Or the time my best friend, Barbara, and I picked all of the neighbor’s flowers and created little bouquets with ribbon stolen from our mothers’ collections; then proceeded to try to sell them for a hefty profit…and a hefty scolding!
Hustling free travel brochures in shoe boxes was fun…as was gathering sea shells from annual trips to Atlantic City (painting them with magenta pink nail polish while gluing pearls around them) and selling them as Christmas gifts, provided excitement…for a spell…in my youth.
Selling Girl Scout cookies, soaps, and cards proved extremely frustrating for me. I think it’s because I received no profit for my blood, sweat, and tears. I thought selling this stuff to be quite boring…probably because it was rote selling…and no fun, really. It didn’t bother me that the sash around my green outfit had few badges either.
Approaching the age of thirteen, I babysat five children all under the age of ten every Tuesday evening, so their parents could bowl. Each child was fed the casserole waiting for me to dole out. Baths were also expected. Once I read the bedtime stories, I could hardly wait for “Alcoa Presents” and “Dobie Gillis” to come on television. Television rights aside, I received a whopping fifty cents an hour.
Babysitting continued through the years…and the rates barely changed in my favor.
I started my junior year in high school waitressing at a pizza joint on an island off the New Jersey coast... thirteen blocks from our house. I walked to the job in my white uniform and black apron…always ironed, of course. Afterwards, I walked the thirteen blocks back home again. Skinny was me indeed!
During college, I had a short stint of ironing shirts for a few of the guys, as well as writing and typing their educational papers. Often, my “jobs” kept me away from studying and any ironing of my own. Besides, most classes I had were scheduled for the dreaded eight o’clock AM…no problem for me. I just rolled up my pajama bottoms, pushed up the sleeves of my pj tops, zippered my overcoat, and off to class I rushed…a female "Columbo."
During the summer months I continued working at the same pizza joint. The owner was a skinflint for the most part, and when I almost electrocuted myself while reaching for two milk shakes at the same time, I received no sympathy. My cousin, Rick, soon joined me as main pizza man and grill guy. We did have a lot of laughs…especially creating six-inch- piled-high steak and cheese hoagies, and milkshakes that one could hardly stick a straw into…practically breaking the motor on the machine. “Serves the skinflint right,” we would mutter to one another. After quitting “The Joint” around midnight, a bunch of us would then head up to a diner four blocks north of where we worked, eating a very early breakfast of greenish eggs…yes, that was the color…don’t ask me about this as I have absolutely no answer.
Because the college kids quit right and left with this job, I was soon asked to work double shift, which my Dad thought was wonderful in instilling good workmanship in his oldest daughter…that is until my paternal grandmother madly chased him across the main boulevard with her cane, warning him that I was old enough to find my own job at the age twenty!
I found a wonderful job. It was at a sundry/beach shop two stores away from where my Dad moonlighted as a realtor during the summer when he was not at the high school. I started selling bobby pins and eased my way up to the front cash register. I was asked by the very nice owner and his lovely wife to pitch and sell their Florida aloe products…something that I did not want to do particularly. To make matters worse, my Dad would often come in, grin, and announce to the salty/sandy-crusted crowd standing in a long line waiting to be checked out, that he was not sure that that particular line of suntan lotion was as good as I was making it out to be! Gaining my composure and knowing that I had fully inherited his sarcasm, I gave it back to him full force. Yep…he was proud of me.
Two summers later, I was frantically pushing buttons on a cash register at a large food store…and babysitting the six children that lived next door to me (by the way, I was still skinny).
I can only say that it was a major thrill to finally graduate from college knowing that I would not have to serve another pizza, scrub another greasy grill, sell another product, bag another grocery, or feed and put to bed another screaming kid! How on earth could my Dad have known that I would feel this way anyway?
My first year of teaching, I had a class of twenty-eight fourth graders in Basking Ridge, New Jersey…and I loved them all.
From there, I got married and we lived in North Bergen, New Jersey, while I taught kindergartners. My class was International to say the least. I tutored on the side and kept busy for a few years…until I became pregnant with our oldest son…ooops, more screaming kids ahead of me!
Subbing was my next job…for several years. I won't go any further with this... (:
While living in Virginia, a good friend, who entertained children as a clown, invited me to join her in her wacky adventures on the weekends. Adventures we did have! I didn’t want to bother with the clown gear….make-up, costume, etc. Instead, I became “Lady Amuck” Storyteller. Before long, I was doing my shtick for birthday parties, schools, hospitals, churches, hotels (Raffles Hotel in Singapore was indeed my most memorable time…I performed for a leukemia event), expat affairs, etc.
At another time, a friend of mine and I started a movie review show on local cable. We both were able to get free passes to many movies so we could review and then discuss on our “show.” Unfortunately, after we taped two shows, my husband was sent overseas and I had to leave, duly upsetting my friend, I know.
While living in Savannah, GA, I wrote a series of books for children. I spent more time trying to market them than I wanted, but I truly gained the thickest skin from this challenge in my life! I also met the nicest folks. Neither my husband nor I truly wanted to ever retire.
However, both of us work part-time and/or we volunteer our time nowadays.
We both will always take to heart the warnings of “idle hands and minds”...sprung from “The Greatest Generation’s” powerful work ethic and value system… instilled in our very own minds and hearts.
Ps….I’m not skinny anymore!
Until next time,
Pam
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