How to Work
As a retired teacher, I can't help but look back at the
changes that have occurred over the years.
Certainly, many things change naturally. They keep up with
social and technical developments. There's
not much need to drive a horse and
wagon loaded with ice through the streets of Philadelphia today. I can recall
when men did this. We really liked when the "iceman" would chip off a
piece of a block of ice and throw it to us on the steamy July days that seemed
to go on forever when we were kids. Hey, I can remember summers that seemed longer than forever, and they were great summers too! No, there's no icemen
around anymore, not around any place I know anyway. This is not particularly
bad though. We don't have to hunt deer with bows and arrows or throw spears or
rocks either. That's not bad either. The point is that we don't have to teach
it in school any longer.
This story is about
"work" and its meaning to a ten year old child - me.
The father of one of the students
in our fifth grade class died trying to save a little girl from drowning. He
had jumped in a lake or some river trying to save her and he drowned. I don't
know what happened to the girl, but I felt sorry for the boy in our class. He
now had no dad and the reason was that his dad had tried to save a little girl.
That was sad. It wasn't right somehow. So I decided to make an effort to be a
better friend to the boy. This was an introduction to the world of "work"
for me. Soon, I found myself working in
the same linoleum flooring store as my friend. We would clean up and sweep the
floor and carry rolls of linoleum flooring to the customers that lived around
the neighborhood. Some of those rolls got real heavy on the shoulder by the
time you got to the person's house. Occasionally, I would go to the store and
buy a cup of coffee for our boss, the fellow that owned the store. I remember
the smell of the coffee and the
paper cup in the bag just as if I was
carrying it down the street right now. "Work" had all kinds of twists
and turns and details you'd never expect. The best part of this job, was
getting paid on Saturdays. I think it was fifty cents for after school and
Saturdays. That was a lot of money for a kid. Two comic books at least. Candy
bars so you could chew on 'em and read the comic books at the same time. I also
bought a stamp album and I'd buy stamps and glue them in with these little sticky
transparent tabs. It was great fun for a ten year old. The ideas for all of
this probably came from our class at school.
We did other kinds of
"work" too. We sold pretzels around the neighborhood. Reisman's
Pretzels. There were prizes for selling the most pretzels. I think they still
do this. My Mom got all our relatives to
buy boxes of pretzels and I won a little flash camera. Gosh I miss that camera.
Later, at another school, I think,
we sold magazine subscriptions. I won a lamp for that.
It's amazing just how much
practical know how you can pick up as a child in school.
How to "work" is an
important lesson that I think needs more emphasis today.
