By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist
On the way to enjoying my careers in teaching and now writing, I held many temporary jobs. All were important transitional moves in my life course that led where I wanted to be, but invariably I was thankful that the temporary tag was on each.
Those jobs gave me valuable life experiences as well as needed financial support; looking from my current perspective, I’m glad for them.
As a child, I raised fishing worms in the family basement and sold them to people driving along Licking Pike by my home in Claryville. As mentioned in a previous column, the business was good but I quit the enterprise when the shame of selling such small worms started bothering me.
Steve Flairty at McDonalds, Southgate, in early ’70s (Photo Provided)
I picked strawberries for the local Schneider Orchards company when I could find time away from working in the family garden or tobacco crop. At the same time, I threw hay bales around for a family neighbor by the name of Ted Woeste, wearing short pants in the stifling heat and paying for it with itching and residual scratches.
Dad got me a restroom cleaning job at the Alexandria Fair one Labor Day Weekend and I can still see the broken beer glass I picked up. And I should not forget the first “real” public job I got, which was working at a McDonalds in Southgate, near Newport, about 13 miles from home. Country boy, meet the city life.
During summers in college, I worked with the Campbell County School system doing maintenance in all the schools—unskilled maintenance, to be sure. That included scraping gum off desks and scrubbing floors.
I did similarly in the summers while teaching with the Clark County Schools, along with once doing the overnight custodian job for a week at the central office. The money helped, but it also reinforced the notion that there’s something dignified about most kinds of work, and people from all walks in life should be respected in doing them.
I decided to check up on some others’ experiences, too. Here are only a few of the many interesting ones I found, limited by space.
Keven Moore, Lexington, a columnist for KyForward and a safety and risk consultant for the Roeding Insurance Company, took a long and circuitous path to where he works today.
“Growing up, I was taught that hard work was the only way forward and was delivering newspapers in my community at age 13,” he said. “I often worked two and sometimes three jobs at a time even while in college.”
Interestingly, he once held two food service jobs simultaneously, working as breakfast cook for McDonalds and delivered pizzas in the evenings.
“The last half of my college career, I spent my time catching shoplifters at a local department store after classes, and then go sling boxes at UPS at night. Sleep became a commodity to me back in those days.”
It took him seven years to graduate from the University of Kentucky on that work schedule, but “those formidable years of my youth prepared me for my career,” he noted. “Today, I am able to sit across the table from a local business owner, CEO, or president and convince them to employ the necessary risk control solutions to better control their losses and protect their employees and customers…but then go down the hall and train the custodian or their disinterested minimum wage employee.”
A couple of career registered nurses, Bettie Ockerman, Lexington, and Jan Hovecamp, Versailles, entered the world of labor far from the realm of treating medical patients.
“At age 18, just out of high school, I was cashier at Hubbard and Curry Drug Store, on the corner of Lime and Short,” recalled Bettie. “Mr. Curry was there every day and he was a sweet man. I met a lot of businessmen and women who ate there every day, including attorneys, judges, the owners of Keller Florist, and a Mr. Hitchner who owned Merit Furniture Store. The cook was Harriet and the food was wonderful.”
Then she said with a smile: “My weekly check before taxes was $37.50.”
Jan worked a while at a veterinarian clinic artificially inseminating farm animals, as well as carrying out her duties for 34 years as a registered nurse.
“I typed my way through college typing insurance policies at Kentucky Central Insurance Company,” she said, “and also worked in a department store in Ashland in the pre-teen department, (and) the ladies’ department. It’s been a great ride!”
Rich Dailey and wife Cindy
Over in the far western part of the state, in Wickliffe, Sandy Hart directs the Kentucky Veteran & Patriot Museum, a volunteer passion she embraces that gives tribute to American military personnel for their sacrificial service. She actively promotes, raises money, and plans the future for the outreach—a challenging endeavor. Much of her early training revolved around being service-minded, in those days around St. Louis.
“My brother used to let me shine shoes with his shoe-shine kit when we walked around the block so I could earn my own dime to buy my mom a small potted plant for her birthday and Mother’s Day,” she noted.
Between the ages of 16 through 19, she ironed clothes in the evenings for ten cents each. Sandy also worked as a nurse’s aide, and then later gained valuable fund-raising experience when she led her children in a 1,200-mile walking project around Missouri in support of the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Foundation.
She offered this bit of advice about work in one’s life: “Love the work you are doing…(and) if you don’t, work at loving the job you’re doing.”
Retired teacher Laura Gray, Midway, is still involved in educational leadership activities, but she possesses a diversity of other work-related activities on her resume. She worked on her father’s root beer stand and later worked at a Perkins Pancake House, then at a small dress shop, and even at her local telephone company.
“Remember Lily Tomlin?” she asked with a grin. “That was me.” Laura also worked as a waitress at Embers Inn, Lexington, a receptionist at a doctor’s office in Paris, and sold pots and pans for the Rena Ware Company.
Ed Mize volunteers with his Versailles church’s “Backpack Ministry” involvement, helping pack food items for school children needing better nutrition on weekends. He retired from a whole series of paid jobs in 2007, including some interesting ones like Caron International, a knitting yarn company.
Later, at Square D, in Lexington, Ed had a design team that made changes to the products.
“We would buy our competitor’s products and take them apart beside hours and incorporate the best designs into our products.”
But growing up, he assembled toys for a dime store, hoed corn, and worked Saturdays in the local service station while at Leslie County High School in eastern Kentucky. He also worked at the Hasty Tasty drive-in restaurant chain, and taught high school a while in Laurel County.
Spouses Brenda and Robert McCray, together, have many interesting work gigs in their pasts. Brenda worked as a hotel clerk and mopped floors. She’s taught piano lessons to kids, played organ for a church, and taught school, both sub and full-time. She especially revels in the opportunity to help those who can’t read and the “opportunity to change the world…one life at a time.”
Robert sacked groceries, shoveled manure at horse farms, and had a stint at a Top Value Stamp store, where, he said, “I found that few Americans understood fractions and would argue more over stamps than money.”
Doug Sallee, Richmond, sold newspaper subscriptions successfully long before becoming athletic director at Madison Southern High School. Ruth Lature worked at a dime store, as well as a shoe store, before doing highly noted work in the area of dyslexic education. Christa Emerich, Shelbyville, worked at the Cincinnati Bengals Store during games before becoming a special education teacher, and Amanda Ellerbe, a former student of mine, was an employee of Lighter than Air Carnival and Balloon Company and is now a Ph.D. student.
Roger Garrison, Nicholasville, was a “do it all guy” at a summer work program in Wilmore and later taught music in Jessamine County and still leads church music in Lexington.
One of my favorite responses was from Rich Dailey, of Somerset. Speaking of his “temporary” jobs of the past, he said: “I always treated each job as an achievement, an end in itself, rather than a stepping stone. The reality was that they were indeed stepping stones to greater possibilities, and critical character builders.”
Rich’s first “paying” job, at about age 13, saw him sweeping metal shavings off his dad’s machine shop floor on weekends. He made $5 for about four hours work, but, he said, “I got the grit and smells of the industrial revolution under my nails.”
He also worked for an advertising agency that did promotions for Dairy Queen (and enjoyed the eating perks), worked at a boat dock and an electronic repair shop.
In perspective, Rich had this to say: “The temporary jobs led to my beautiful surroundings, my faith, my family, and memories of oily steel, ice cream, the sun glinting off of the lake, green pastures…and real permanence. I thank God for my temporary jobs!”
Steve Flairty is a teacher, public speaker and an author of six books: a biography of Kentucky Afield host Tim Farmer and five in the Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes series, including a kids’ version. Steve’s “Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes #4,” was released in 2015. Steve is a senior correspondent for Kentucky Monthly, a weekly NKyTribune columnist and a member of the Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers Bureau. Contact him at sflairty2001@yahoo.com or visit his Facebook page, “Kentucky in Common: Word Sketches in Tribute.” (Steve’s photo by Connie McDonald)
