Jobs were tough to find when Boomers were growing up. There were few temporary or summer jobs in the retail trade because most workers were full time and many had been on the job for years. There were no fast food jobs because there was no such thing as fast food. There was some part-time clerical work available in the summers, and of course, lawn mowing and baby sitting opportunities, but real jobs were hard to come by.
My first real job – and was it ever a REAL job – was as a farm hand on an angus cattle farm in Greenbrier County in West Virginia. Our neighbor, Houston Moore, owned the farm and needed an extra hand the summer after my freshman year in college. The starting pay was $22 a week, and the hours were from 7 until 5 (or later if we baled hay) and Saturday from 7 till 1 PM (later if we baled hay). But I was delighted to get the job.
The problem for an eighteen-year old young man with a farm job was that of burning the candle on both ends, meaning getting up at 6:45 ( I always waited till the last minute) and partying till midnight and beyond. I remained that summer in a perpetual state of exhaustion. Continual tiredness plagued my body. And this was tough work.
Our mornings began with a walk through the chicken houses where Houston raised young fryers from chicks. Our task was to pick up and dispose of any dead chicks while filling the water and feed troughs. At the end of every eight weeks we had to shovel out all the chicken *#*! and spread it across the alfalfa fields.
After the chickens were seen to, the real work began. We had to dig post holes, by hand, and string barbed wire. We had to paint wooden fences – miles and miles of of wooden fences We had to pick up rocks and boulders in new hay fields, and West Virginia has lots of rocks. Our main job, however, was to bale and put up hay in the barns.
I came to find out that a bale of hay with a little moisture weighed about 95 pounds and we had to toss the heavy bales to the top of the hay truck, some 20 feet or more. I weighed about 125 pounds dripping wet, but I finally got the hang of using my knees and forearms as leverage and could heave the bales to the top row of the truck. By the end of that summer, I had muscles I never thought could exist.
Other fun things we did around the farm included castrating steers, sticking our arms up a heiffer’s behind to see if she was pregnant and decapitating, scalding and picking the 8 week old chickens in preparation for the market. All of this for $22 a week.
But you know what? I had more walking around money that summer than I believe I have ever had before or since.
My only expense was gasoline and date money. Gas was about 27 cents a gallon and I remember a few gas wars that summer when the price dropped to below 20 cents. Movies were 50 cents, so you could take a date, buy a couple boxes of popcorns and two cherry cokes for under $2. Drive-in movies were a dollar. A frosted mug of root beer at the drive-in restaurant was 15 cents, fries were 20 cents and a cheesburger was a quarter. So I was rolling in the money and in the best physical condition I have ever been.
Some of us Boomers learned the hard way about hard work, but I don’t any of us ever regrets putting in a full day’s work and earning our pay.
