Summer Jobs

Is there a teenager laying about your home wasting the summer months away without any thoughts of employment? Once upon a time I was that child.

Unlike like my son (currently employed as a bat recovery specialist for the Salem Avalanche), much of my youth was spent skirting work of any kind. My typical day began at the crack of two in the afternoon, followed by lunch, followed by a nap. In the vernacular of the time I was a "bum."

At the age of sixteen, my father took me to his place of employment, a dress factory in lower Manhattan, with the promise of a days pay. How hard could working in a dress factory be anyway, especially for a strong young man like me? Following nine grueling hours of lifting and stacking forty-pound rolls of fabric I had my answer. I had never worked so hard before in my life! On the way home, dad, always one to lighten the situation, explained that not only would I be paid in full for my work, but I was to be offered a position for the rest of the summer as well. It was at that very moment when my childhood gasped its last breath and died.

For two summers I toiled in that city sweatshop. No air-conditioning, no open windows, and a ninety minute one-way commute beginning at 5am. If Satan's underworld featured Hispanic radio blasting nine hours a day, I might have compared my workplace to hell. There were, however, two positives derived from this experience: 1) the respect I felt for my father and mother grew ten-fold. Witnessing and realizing what lengths my folks went to support our family was quite illuminating. 2) I got a "B" in Spanish the following semester.

Jobless again the following summer, my friend Neil and I were parentally pressured into finding gainful employment. Following a few weeks of lackluster search, the State of New York presented us with two opportunities to join the work-force in tandem. The first position was a high paying job filling pot holes on the Robert Moses Causeway; the second was a lower paying gig working as ushers at the Jones Beach Amphitheatre. Hmmm, shoveling hot tar on a road crew in the unforgiving heat or a helping elderly people to their seats at a breezy sea-side theatre? Neil and I consulted for a full three seconds before we decided to go into show business.

Jones Beach Amphitheatre is an eight thousand seat outdoor venue which sits right on the ocean. In the late seventies, the theatre featured revivals of Broadway hits from yesteryear. In 1979 I would experience a unique type of torture upon viewing seventy-two straight performances of "The Sound of Music." Even the indomitable Maria Von Trapp herself might have "climbed every mountain" and leaped off the highest peak after first forty or so shows. The cast was comprised of several long in the tooth actors and actresses who had not been on stage since dinosaurs roamed the earth. One night Captain Von Trapp's uppers slipped from his mouth right in the middle of "Edelweiss." I'm talking old.

The next year's production was "Damn Yankees," a musical starring former gridiron star Joe Namath. The best thing I can say about Joe's singing is that it was only slightly better than his running ability. The poor guy could barely walk. As ushers we were required to wear Yankee baseball uniforms, complete with cap. For a lifelong Mets fan (like myself), this was a truly repugnant. If the Yankees played ball against the Taliban I would gladly grow my beard long, wear a turban, and heckle Derek Jeter in Persian.

In 1981 the final season of stage plays were performed at Jones Beach Theatre. Barry Williams, known to most of world as Greg, the oldest son on the television show "The Brady Bunch," played the lead role of "Tony" in "West Side Story," and yes, it was as bad as it sounds. His best years behind him, Barry showed as much charm and stage presence as a broom handle with a smile painted on it.

Presently, the theatre hosts a concert series featuring Boston, The Allman Brothers Band and Journey on consecutive nights in August. From old time musical revivals to rescuing acts from the "where are they now" file, one can see a kind of symmetry forming their scheduling format.

In retrospect, I am glad that my father pried me from the couch long ago. Pops often told me "Work builds character, and it is better to have character than be a character." Still, I walk a tight-rope between stability and eccentricity daily, balancing my life as a hard working goofball, with perhaps a dash of character mixed in.