My first Job

     Like any young kid I wanted things that cost money but money was not easy to come by in the 1950's . Unlike some kids I did not get an allowance although sometimes an Uncle or Grandparent would slip me a nickle or dime to buy candy. Brother Pat and I tried mowing lawns , we would get $5.00 for a lawn but Dad stopped us when it cost him money replacing blades and other repairs to the mower. We sometimes collected coke bottles and turn them in for their deposit of three cents each.
     My big chance came when Dad got me a job as a sack boy at C&S Food Store where he worked. Everything was new to me and as Dad's son I had to be on my P's & Q's. Basically I worked weekends, holidays, and school vacations, I was paid fifty cents an hour. I rode to work with Dad, worked till he was done then rode home with him except for occasional side trips to Grady's place on the river.
     My primary job was to bag groceries at the checkout counter, back then we had only paper bags and customers were picky about how the groceries were put into the bag. Don't make the bags to heavy for the women, be sure the bread is on top, and double bag all items that might generate moisture and fall through the bag.
     When things were slow I was taught to stock the shelves, put out fresh produce, restock the dairy case with eggs and milk, I also unloaded and checked in new stock then learned to run the cash register - the old kind with all of the buttons that had to be individually punched. I had to know how to do math ( in my head ), how much one can of peas cost when the price was three cans for sixty six cents and when the customer handed me thirty dollars to pay their bill of twenty three dollars and forty eight cents and the machine didn't tell me how much change to give, I had to figure that myself.
     This was my first real exposure to the adult world and working side by side with adults and dealing with the general public. I worked with some great people, met and even got to know some real characters of the general public.
     The owner of the store was a guy named Pat Sanford, he was the "S" in C&S, I never met the "C". Everybody called him Pat, he was a veteran of WWII, I understood that he was in B-17 bombers in Europe and had to bail out at one point. He broke both of his arms in the bail out and they never set right so he walked around unable straighten his arms.
     Charlie was in charge of the stock, he made up the stock orders each week then restocked the shelves, he was also the assistant manager. Charlie wood come to work every day wearing a suit with bow tie and fedora hat, he would go into the back room and remove his jacket and hat put on a white apron and a paper hat which was supplied by Colonial Bread and had their name on it, the hat was shaped like the ones soldiers wore. Charlie was very mild mannered and had a beautiful wife named Mamie.
     Wayne and Dickie were two guys in their early twenties, Wayne started in produce and Dickie started in stock. These two guys were best buddies, when work was over for the day they left together and went on double dates together, got drunk together and came in the next morning hung over together. Dad took a liking to both of them, they became his fishing and drinking buddies, the three of them seemed to get into some sort of mischief  on a daily basis. Dad trained both of them to be butchers and they were quite good.
     As with any business there were employees who would start work but wouldn't last too long. One of these was a butcher who was Dad's assistant, his name was John. John was quite the character, in addition to being a good butcher he would spend his off time fishing for turtles, actually fishing is really not the correct term, he didn't use a rod and reel he used his bare hands.
     When the streams and creeks were swollen and overflowing with muddy rain water the turtles would crawl head first into holes in the banks and wait for calmer waters. John would come along and stick his hand in the hole and grab the turtle by the tail, pull it out and throw it on the bank. Most of the turtles were snapping turtles that could easily chew a boat paddle in half  but there were some soft shell turtles also. John would butcher the turtles and eat the meat which everybody says taste like chicken .
     John gained notoriety when the local newspaper ran a story about him complete with pictures. There was John standing in front of his fireplace with eight to ten highly polished shells hanging above the mantel, they ranged in size from six to eight inches in diameter with the largest being at least two feet in diameter.
     I never knew why but John didn't last too long, he was fired, rumor was he stole steaks and other meat products.
     Then there were the customers, they came in all shapes and sizes and from all walks of life, some were steady customers while others just happened to stop by on their way to wherever.
     Elmer Craig was a Major in the Tennessee State Patrol, was the only Major in the Tennessee State Patrol, he was also the Governors body guard and went everywhere with him. Back then Governors could hold the office for one term then step down and wait for the next Governor to finish his term so they could run again. There were two Governors who held the office in that manor for some years, when Elmer's Governor got into office Elmer would take over the bodyguard position as a Major, when the other governor was in office Elmer would be sent back to patrol duty as a Captain.
     When the Governor was in town Elmer would stop in and have Dad cut several T-Bone steaks two inches thick for a barbecue at the Governor's mansion. Elmer retired as a Major a few years later and went to work at a bank where I went to work, a few years after that he committed suicide, we never knew why. An intersection at Lebanon Rd. and Stewarts Ferry Pike is now called the Elmer Craig Memorial Intersection.
     There was this Lady who was one of Dad's customers, she had been doing business with him for years, nobody could cut meat for her but Dad. She was a caterer and would fill two grocery carts with food for her catering jobs. Every year for as long as Dad worked for C&S she would bake him the most delicious coconut cake, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without one. Linda developed her taste for coconut cake when she lived with my parents while I was in Vietnam, her taste for coconut cake continued til her passing.
     There was this one customer who would come into the store every now and then even though he had been told to never come back. The guy was a little strange, sorta nerdy looking. He would walk into the store, pull a grocery bag from a checkout stand and start walking around filling the bag with groceries he would then walk out the front door without paying. He was caught several times and even turned over to the police but he kept coming back. Ya gotta admire his perseverance.
     Late Friday and Saturday nights brought out all kinds of strange people, people we would see during the week as ordinary often became extraordinary on Saturday night. The store had posted hours of operation but Pat wasn't one to pass up a dollar so as long as there were customers in the store we were open. It was strange to see men and women stagger in about three sheets in the wind smelling like a brewery on Saturday night then see these same people dressed in all their finery on their way to Mass at the Catholic Church behind the store on Sunday morning. No need to worry though, after confession, three Hail Mary's and four Our Father's they were ready for a new week. This not to say that such behavior on Friday and Saturday nights was solely a Catholic thing, there were some Baptist, Methodist and Church of Christ mixed in also.
     There was a young boy of about eight or nine who came in several times one summer and bought ice cream for himself and a friend, he paid for them with Indian Head Pennies which were rare and collectible. Who ever was on the register recognized the pennies and quickly swapped them for the Wheat Pennies of the day. One day a man came in to talk to Pat about his son who was buying ice cream with Indian Head Pennies, He begged Pat to please get the pennies and hold them, turns out the boy was his son and had been into Dad's coin collection.
     People would come into the store and gather up several items in their hands then discover they didn't have enough hands or Moms found out that one of their little ones had placed something in the cart that was not needed so they would stick  these unwanted items wherever they could find a spot. We were always finding things out of place. One night a man and his wife or girlfriend came in, the man was not in a good mood and at some point the lady had picked up a half gallon of milk. When the man saw the milk he was for some reason upset, instead of taking the milk back to the dairy case he just grabbed it and threw the carton in the air, it landed in the meat case and burst. Dad's assistant John was manning the meat dept that night and got so ticked off he started yelling and the couple ran out of the store. Milk in the meat case made a hell of a mess.
     My first time in the adult world was quite an experience , I learned a lot which I feel helped me later. I guess the first job was sorta like the big fish, first date, first kiss - some things you just don't forget.