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On the Skids

The COVID 19 pandemic has unceremoniously left millions of Americans jobless and in the lurch with uncertain futures, at best.

Many will never return to jobs that have disappeared as they face unwelcome retirement while their careers come to an unexpected, resounding thud rather than a loud crash.

It’s a very hard pill to swallow for the millions who have worked their whole lives and whose lives and value have become intertwined with their work. For many, they are defined by their work and without jobs, they can feel empty, rudderless and without worth.

Like many of my generation, I was always working, whether it was as a kid trying to collect enough money for a new model airplane, during summer college breaks or later as an adult or at least a reasonable facsimile of one.

The first job I can recall was selling personalized greeting cards. I sold mainly to family and relatives and they were largely supportive of my venture. The personalized cards came in the mail and I then delivered them to the customers. I felt like a semi-successful businessman. I think I used the proceeds to buy a heavy, canvass tent that I used once.

There was a brief period when I delivered Life, Look and Time magazines. Newspapers are light, magazines are not. I carried the heavy magazines in a canvas bag that I wore across my shoulder while trying to keep my bike from falling. It was a challenge, especially in the rain.

I did the obligatory lemonade stands, lawn cutting in the summer and clearing driveways of snow in the winter. The small houses were always the best tippers and the owners of the big, fancy houses were the cheapest skinflints around.

One summer I worked as a dishwasher and busboy at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant, which has since gone out of business along with all the HoJos except for the one in Bangor, Maine.

I burned my hands a few times while removing dishes from the dishwasher and did not relish sticking my fingers in the tiny, dirty glass creamers, to remove the cigarette butts that piggy customers left. Rather than quit, I saved face by saying I had to leave because I was going to fight in Vietnam. I didn’t go to Vietnam but it got me out of Howard Johnson’s.

A summer, outdoor house painting job was the worst. Going up on a tall ladder was bad but doing it in the sweltering heat of summer was terrible. The odor of paint in the burning summer sun is not a pleasant thing, especially when it gets in your eyes and up your nose.

I worked in clothing stores for a while. One was Robert Hall, which went out of business in 1977. Another clothing store was at the Willowbrook Mall. I was pretty gung ho and hoped to be named the assistant manager. The promotion went to another saleswoman who kissed up to the manager. That was OK as selling clothes was not my thing.

In high school, I helped my wrestling coach deliver morning newspapers before school. The coach was called “Skull” because his face looked like a skull. His car smelled like gasoline and made me gag, even with the windows open in winter. I quit and soon after I punched the gym wall in anger at being eliminated from a game of bombardment. My hand was broken in three places and when I told the wrestling coach about my season-ending injury he nearly swallowed the phone and was never quite the same with me.

I worked as a laborer very briefly one summer. My job was to shovel the construction debris out windows and into the dumpsters below. Again, the heat was oppressive. I worked for about a week before I found a small kitten at the site and left to bring him home, never returning to the work site.

In college, I worked at the area McDonald’s at night. I don’t know if the manager was dumb or just didn’t care as I loaded up burgers and fries for college friends who I charged $2 for a $10 order. After the shift, I brought the unsold burgers and fries back to the dorm where I became one of the more popular students there.

Another summer I worked at a toy store in Teaneck with a few other college kids. I did mostly stock work but the fun began after the store closed at night and we played with the wind-up toys and tiny instruments, including, my favorite, an African sanza. After work, before going home, I would regularly stop in at the bar next door where I ordered one Courvoisier brandy with a splash of Grand Marnier.

While in college, I worked at the school newspaper and then applied for a stringer’s job with the Hartford Courant’s Winsted bureau. I met with Joe O’Brien, the bureau chief, and I was fascinated as he typed his story on a manual typewriter, ripping the paper out every time he wanted to start again. The floor was littered with crumbled wads of paper and something about the chaotic atmosphere was appealing. It whetted my appetite for what would become a lifelong career in journalism.

I was assigned a few puff piece stories which I wrote very poorly as O’Brien gave me his unvarnished opinions of the incredibly amateurish work. O’Brien went on to a long and award-winning career before he died of cancer in 2004 at the age of 76.

After graduating college, I lied about my experience and was hired as a reporter with The Herald News in Clifton. I covered Passaic and often was at municipal meetings until midnight, went home for a few hours sleep and returned to write the story for the morning deadline.

It was way before computers and the reporters used manual typewriters which were later replaced with IBM Selectrics which worked with a little ball that contained all the letters and numbers. Ford Baker, the city editor, read the stories, circled and otherwise noted errors for the reporters to fix and then put the finished copy on a spike on his desk, ready to be collected and sent to the linotype operators.

After a year, I applied and was hired as a reporter with United Press International. I was in way over my head and after three months was told that I didn’t pass the initial trial period. My boss was a likable, thin man with a goatee who was later the UPI bureau chief in China. That was OK as I really didn’t like arriving at work in Newark at 5 a.m. every day and sitting across from real reporters who were writing real stories and never had time to talk to a novice like me who they sensed was in way over his head.

Then I sold lawn furniture at a Treasure Island store where my friend also sold lawn furniture. He actually did pretty well as he wanted to climb the company ladder. I did poorly, selling little and often telling potential customers that they could find the same patio set at another store for less money. I fancied I was like the Santa in the 1947 holiday classic, “Miracle on 33th Street,” who sent Macy’s customers to Gimbels for better sales. In the movie, the customers were so grateful for Santa’s honesty that they came back to Macy’s and bought stuff even if it was more expensive. That never happened with me at Treasure Island.

I worked as the spokesman for Jerry Goldman, a two-term mayor of Passaic, whose third wife was his secretary. Goldman told me the politician’s first and most important responsibility was to get re-elected. I did not like trying to write press releases and speeches for a person who seemed so shallow.

One of the more colorful people I met while working for Goldman was Joseph “Joey the Lip” AKA “Joey Butch” Lipari, who owned a restaurant, The Golden Coin, and a sausage company in Passaic and who was later elected mayor and then was convicted in 1992 of extortion and income tax evasion. Lipari was 82 when he died in January 2019. Lipari would give me free sausages before he was elected mayor.

My next job was with the Daily Record and the rest is history, at least to me.