“Good-bye–my paper’s out so nearly, I’ve only room for, Yours sincerely.”
It rained during the night, and the wind was fierce. One pine tree swayed so much I thought it would snap. When I woke up a couple of hours ago, it was still damp and cloudy. Now the wind has disappeared, the sun is shining, and the day is getting warmer. It’s a pretty Sunday morning.
Today is Palm Sunday. I remember my mother and a father had an old wooden crucifix over their bed and stuck behind it all year were palm fronds. Every Palm Sunday my mother would change the fronds after she’d come back from mass. The old ones were so dry their ends were like needles, and I remember being stabbed by a palm frond as I helped my mother.
I never worked when I was in high school, but I did babysit for extra money. It was easy. Once the kids were in bed, I could watch TV or read and get paid for doing it. It was so long ago, though, I don’t remember how much I got an hour, but I remember it was good money easily earned. My first real job was the summer after I’d graduated from high school and it was at Woolworth’s in Hyannis, and I didn’t like it much. I earned minimum wage and cleaned mice and hamster cages, worked the register and did whatever else I was told. The store was right on Main Street and was huge. It had a large souvenir section, and tourists could buy shells and star fish and snow globes from China. The store is gone now, replaced by a couple of different stores.
Every summer after that until I went to Ghana and every Christmas vacation during college I worked at the Hyannis post office. It was a great job for really good money. Christmas time I worked noon to midnight while summers I worked noon to nine. The job had little pressure, and all I did was sort mail or run letters through the stamping machine. We could chat and smoke as we worked. I was what was called a seasonal. Hyannis was, back then, a really busy post office, and all the cape mail was sent from there to Boston. Years later, Buzzards Bay became the hub and Hyannis became just another post office. I stopped in there last summer to get stamps, and it looked just about the same. People were chatting and sorting mail just as they had well over forty years ago. Only the smoke was missing.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: Hyannis, Palm branch (symbol), palmsunday, summer jobs
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April 17, 2011 at 10:55 am
The temperature rose to 62 when the sun finally shone through the clouds. It has been a wonderful day and I´ve cleaned the filter to my pond, very much needed I may say 🙂 🙂 🙂
I did work when I went to high school in a supermarket and I loved it 🙂 I needed money so I could get my drivers license and I continued to work there after school was over. I was planning on working a couple of years and then start studying to become a vet.
Unfortunately I started to work at Volvo and I sort of liked the paycheck and never started my studying I´m afraid. Stupid I know and today I would have saved a lot of money since it feels like I live at that vet station 🙂 🙂 🙂
The store I worked in is only half the size now days and I´ve heard it actually makes a profit, something it never did back in the days 🙂 🙂
Have a great day now!
Christer.
April 17, 2011 at 9:55 pm
Christer,
It was a lovely day until the sun started to go down then it got cold. Tomorrow should be almost as lovely as today.
My brother worked in a supermarket bundling groceries, and he never liked it much. I loved working in the post office.
I always told my students that delaying college wasn’t always a good idea. Once that paycheck starts, it’s hard to go back.
April 17, 2011 at 12:43 pm
I made it to St John Fisher Chapel in Auburn Hills for the first time in…well since all this nonsense. As is my tradition I crafted a cross from the palms and placed in with the picture of my Mother where it will remain for the next year.
Palm Sunday is important to me and so is the Chapel
April 17, 2011 at 9:57 pm
My Dear Hedley,
I am so glad you were able to make it to the Chapel and keep the tradition.
My grandmother used to keep her palms behind the picture of Saint Cecelia, which was my grandmother’s name. I still remember those palms. My sister has that picture now.
April 17, 2011 at 1:33 pm
One summer while in high school in New York City I was a Good Humor ice cream man for a couple of weeks. Every morning my two friends and I would ride the bus to the plant which was a few miles from our neighborhood. We rode a tricycle ice cream freezer. We would fill the freezer compartment with ice cream and two blocks of dry ice. Then we would don our hats, jackets and change device and pedal back the few miles to the shopping area to stand on the sidewalk and sell ice cream for five hours at minimum wage in the summer heat.
The worst part was peddling that heavy freezer tricycle back to the plant in the afternoon.
April 17, 2011 at 10:00 pm
Bob,
I remember those bicycles with the freezer in front, but not from my town; we had Johnny and his truck. I probably remember the bikes from visits to the city. I remember the front with the freezer always looked as if it would topple the bike so I can imagine how heavy it was.
April 17, 2011 at 10:27 pm
I can still recall living for a short time in a small place with my folks when I was 4 or so. There was a fellow on that side of San Angelo who had an old, broken-down horse and a car-tired wagon with a top and windows out of which he’d sell ice cream. I was captivated by this contraption. It must have been tough on the horse.
April 17, 2011 at 6:17 pm
The summer I got out of the Army I got myself a job at the Post Office carrying mail, just until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. 35 years later I finally realized what I wanted to do,,,,, retire!
April 17, 2011 at 10:01 pm
John,
As a summer job, it was great and I made good money. I never though about retiring until they offer early retirement then the countdown started. It was a great decision.
April 18, 2011 at 7:08 pm
Rick,
It seems like such a Texas ice cream man!
April 23, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Well, that was 1948, so there were definitely people trying hard to make a living, not having totally gotten free of the Depression. The war made some rich, but left far too many behind in dusty poverty. I also recall several handicapped folks begging on the streets back in that era. I was short. They were the only adults down on my level. It was a little scary to happen upon them. The street corners with highways were still free of folks with signs at that time. The only folks I saw with signs were hitchhikers out on the highway road side.
April 23, 2011 at 8:32 pm
Rick,
I was only a year old in 1948, and I don’t have memories of people begging. I do remember the rag man and his horse. Little kids don’t forget horses!