Summer jobs build character, bank accounts

It’s that time of year when those who survived their first year of college must now turn their attention to ways to pay for a second year of post-secondary education. They’ve ridden as far as their freshman year scholarships could take them and they’re feeling a new financial pinch from which they seek relief, hopefully without having to take on student loan debt.

Been there, done that, and I’m still living it four decades later as I try to avoid spending any more of my retirement savings on educating my college freshman and sophomore students. One of the least favorite responses I give my kids (just ask them!) when they ask for college financial or homework help is, “I’ve already done enough of my own college assignments and payments, so it’s time for you to do the same.”

They reply with one of MY least favorite responses, “But college is harder now, Mom, than back in the day,” ignoring that every dog must have its day.

College is harder? Do they have to personally walk all their written assignments (which were typed on a Sears electric typewriter on erasable typing paper that didn’t erase worth beans, thus had to be supplemented with either use of a marginal erasable typewriter ribbon or later use of a tab of then-revolutionary Correctype) to their respective instructors on the day they are due? I think not. Back in the day, there was no emailing said instructor clarifying questions about assignments or faking Internet transmission failure. Remember, it was the Dark Ages before Internet.

Aside from those minor historical, technological and logistical issues, I’m sure college is much harder today for my kids than it was for me. Yet, I managed to wade through the educational Everglades and to graduate without a crap-ton of student debt. How did I accomplish that? Through earned scholarships, parental matching funds, personal persistence and summer work in addition to the requisite dislikable character-building jobs I worked while going to college.

Summer break may mean a break from school, but not a break from reality, with its pesky requirement of having to pay your way in the world – if you want to persevere educationally and see the through the degree goals and plan you’d felt confident about and bragged up to everyone in the thank-you notes you sent out the previous year following the unofficial investment they made in your future through the checks they placed in the giant graduation card-holding box that was on the table next to the “congratulations” cake at your graduation from high school open house (I double-dog-dare you to diagram that sentence!).

It’s one thing to talk or write a good game, but it’s another to play it. What’s a person to do? The Silhouettes nailed it back in 1957: “Get a job . . . Sha na na na . . . sha na na na na . . . ”

Of course, many young people today who are in search of a job have some interestingly inflated standards. The current coming-of-age generation is looking not for just any summer job the way their predecessors did at the same juncture in life. I’ve observed this with my own kids. They want fulfilling jobs with convenient hours, good working conditions, sane managers and a living wage – even though they are still living off parents.

There’s a tendency to believe they should have all that and a bag of chips, although their only previous experience was selling chips at a school wrestling tournament concession stand. C’mon. Get real. I want better than that for the summer job newbies I know.

The “best” I wish (non-facetiously) for them is procurement of the WORST SUMMER JOB EVER! Why? Because having to report daily to a dirty job with crappy hours, slacker co-workers, a sleazy boss, impossible work conditions and an overwhelming workload for minimum-wage is the best preparation for full-fledged adulthood.

It also makes for better stories to tell your own kids during their summer job struggle stage.

 

Packing considerations for one’s life journeys

Perhaps the only gift of divorce is that it’s helped many a child and parent become better suitcase packers. It’s an important life skill to be able to quickly scan one’s room for relatively clean articles of clothing that will cover all the bases and body parts and be suitable for most occasions one might expect to encounter away from access to one’s closet and underwear drawer.

Over the years, my kids have learned to pack lightly, sometimes too lightly, for wherever they go in life. This often amounts to being a jacket short for the weather and mosquitos. My greatest hope as a mom is that I’ve sufficiently drilled into them the concept of packing just enough and the art of wearing a basic t-shirt Day #1 of a trip that then becomes a nightshirt for the remainder of their journey (unless they’re staying somewhere that requires actual sleepwear for decency reasons).

If only I could teach them to NOT take my daily grooming items with them when I will not be traveling along. Our family does a lot of unofficial (aka “non-permissioned”) sharing of personal care products, with the exception of the person-specific overpriced tubes of beard wash and feminine hygiene supplies.

If I’m in the shower and my daughter’s bar of complexion soap is handiest, I’ll use it instead of the communal bar of Dial. The same goes for my when my eyes are closed and the bottle I snag when I reach for shampoo ends up being my son’s 3-in-1 cleaner, deodorizer and conditioner. The fast-lowering levels of some of my personal care products indicate they do similar product “borrowing.”

However, use of my razor is a different story. I would prefer my daughter stick with her own and that the bearded one not even make eye contact with it. If asked, both kids deny ever touching it. But that doesn’t explain why the blade I just replaced (and cut myself on during my initial shave with) has become relatively dull by my second use of it. Hmm. Is some weirdo with a razor fetish breaking into our home and using Atra II while I’m at work? According to my kids, I should not rule out that possibility.

Recently, the pair journeyed nearly five hours north (depending on who was doing the driving) for a family reunion and on their dad’s side of the family. My son prided himself in being packed “way ahead of time” – which translates to not shoving things into a duffle bag walking out the door. He then rode his sister’s butt over her not yet being ready and announced the time every five minutes.

What makes this especially funny is that on a typical morning of going to work, my son usually runs back into the house for something he forgot – basics, like shoes or car keys – and sometimes more than once. He regularly neglects to put his work phone on the charger overnight and absent-mindedly drives past the gas station on his way home from work only to drive too fast (on fumes and a prayer!) for gas the following morning after announcing his fuel gauge is on “E.” Which rhymes with “Really?!”

So on those rare occasions of his getting ready “way ahead of time” my son becomes highly sanctimonious.  “I can’t believe it’s taking you so long to get ready to go, Mom,” he will say, standing in the doorway, watching as I clean up from a meal his only role was to eat, equally oblivious to the wet towels he left on the bathroom floor. Grrr. In my book, I don’t care how ready you think you are – you’re not truly ready to go until after you’ve picked up after yourself and finished phone, house and vehicle maintenance. Any fool can (and frequently does) throw on clothes and declare himself ready to go.

Eventually my kids got on the road. In getting myself ready that morning, I discovered they had “borrowed” a few personal care products of mine, ranging from a special snarl-busting comb, to toothpaste and my bottle of Clear Eyes. Clearly, our next life lesson must focus on packing your own items only for your life journey.  

Decades of baseball tunes signal love of game

When I was tracking down a piano version of John Fogerty’s 1985 classic baseball song “Centerfield,” I stumbled upon a website for The Baseball Sheet Music Project. None of the songs dated back to 1839, the year Abner Doubleday (arguably) created the American version of the game, but the many old and obscure pieces of sheet music reminded how baseball has been around longer and a part of everyday life more prominently than we realize.  

As was noted on the website, “The intersection of baseball and popular music is a rich component of the sport’s history and significance in American popular culture. Although baseball’s contemporary soundtrack spans a number of popular genres, the sport’s intersection with popular music originates in the late-19^th century Tin Pan Alley publishing houses . . .” In fact, the song “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” from that era is still sung.  

I learned “The Baseball Hymn,” written by Jim Davis in 1912, wasn’t exactly the stuff of church hymnals, but was meant to be sung to the tune “Home of the Range,” starting with, “Don’t let the game be called by the rain. The sun is still shining for all. Get that tarp off the field. No need a rain shield. The umpire sings out PLAY BALL.” 

Now, I’ve known “Home on the Range” since kindergarten and there’s no way those lyrics fit that tune. The chorus wasn’t much better, “Hit the ball tall way over the wall, over the fence and some more. Our opponents with retch at a ball they can’t catch. And we’ll add to our score.”  

Clearly, the writer of the music was more musician than lyricist or baseball player, as his words lacked cadence and meaningful insight into the game. They also seemed a few leaps of faith shy of the reverence expected from a hymn. However, from a sophomoric sense of humor standpoint, I appreciated the rhyming of “retch” with “catch.”

“Let’s Go Out To The Ball Game” (1949), featured on Philadelphia Phillies’ radio broadcasts, musically encouraged American employees to play hooky to catch the action of their hometown team: “It’s a hot day today – and what do you say – let’s go out to the game. It’s a very nice day – and the boss is away – let’s go out to the game. Let’s go out to the ball game. Let’s take the afternoon off – it looks like a mighty fine game today. . .” 

The song seemed patterned after the athletic-spectating juvenile truancy incited previously in the 1910 kids’ song, “I Can’t Miss That Ball Game.” Sketchily written, the song details the fate of a school-skipping student: “Now Jimmy Jones, the teacher said, You lied just yesterday. You told me that your Ma was ill, and home you’d have to stay. But you went to the game instead. And just because you lied, just take your slate and rule, and stay after school.” Busted!

A quarter century later, the 1934 “Tigers on Parade” fox trot in the key of G was dedicated to Baseball Hall of Famer catcher/manager Mickey Cochrane and the Detroit Tigers: “Hear all the drumming, something is coming! What can it be? Hear all the cheering, something is nearing. Oh gosh! Oh gee! Here come the Tigers! Here come the Tigers! Say, can’t you see The Parade, the Parade, ‘cause the Bengals made the grade.”

Of course they made the grade – because they weren’t skipping school or work to be at the game. And the music must have worked its charm because in 1934 the Tigers compiled a 101-53-0 record and danced their way to a first-place finish in the American League. They didn’t lose their roar until bested 4-3 in the World Series by the St. Louis Cardinals.

Speaking of dancing, an upbeat 1950 tune, “The Baseball Polka,” gleefully enthused, “Let’s all sing the baseball polka, it’s the game that I love the best of all. How I love to listen to the cheers. When they yell ‘kill the umpire’ it’s music to my ears.”

What can a 2021baseball fan possibly say?! Inspired by this historic musical motivation, “Put me in coach, I’m ready to play today!”

Summer jobs build character, bank accounts

It’s that time of year when those who survived their first year of college must now turn their attention to ways to pay for a second year of post-secondary education. They’ve ridden as far as their freshman year scholarships could take them and they’re feeling a new financial pinch from which they seek relief, hopefully without having to take on student loan debt.

Been there, done that, and I’m still living it four decades later as I try to avoid spending any more of my retirement savings on educating my college freshman and sophomore students. One of the least favorite responses I give my kids (just ask them!) when they ask for college financial or homework help is, “I’ve already done enough of my own college assignments and payments, so it’s time for you to do the same.”

They reply with one of MY least favorite responses, “But college is harder now, Mom, than back in the day,” ignoring that every dog must have its day.

College is harder? Do they have to personally walk all their written assignments (which were typed on a Sears electric typewriter on erasable typing paper that didn’t erase worth beans, thus had to be supplemented with either use of a marginal erasable typewriter ribbon or later use of a tab of then-revolutionary Correctype) to their respective instructors on the day they are due? I think not. Back in the day, there was no emailing said instructor clarifying questions about assignments or faking Internet transmission failure. Remember, it was the Dark Ages before Internet.

Aside from those minor historical, technological and logistical issues, I’m sure college is much harder today for my kids than it was for me. Yet, I managed to wade through the educational Everglades and to graduate without a crap-ton of student debt. How did I accomplish that? Through earned scholarships, parental matching funds, personal persistence and summer work in addition to the requisite dislikable character-building jobs I worked while going to college.

Summer break may mean a break from school, but not a break from reality with its pesky requirement of having to pay your way in the world – if you want to persevere educationally and see through the degree goals and plan you’d felt confident about and bragged up to everyone in the thank-you notes you sent out the previous year following the unofficial investment they made in your future through the check they placed in the giant graduation card-holding box that was on the table next to the “congratulations” cake at your graduation from high school open house (I double-dog dare you to diagram that sentence!).

It’s one thing to talk or write a good game, but it’s another to play it. What’s a person to do? The Silhouettes nailed it back in 1957: “Get a job . . . Sha na na na . . . sha na na na na . . . “

Of course, many young people today who are in search of a job have some interestingly inflated standards. The current coming-of-age generation is looking not for just any summer job the way their predecessors did at the same juncture in life. I’ve observed this with my own kids They want fulfilling jobs with convenient hours, good working conditions, sane managers and a living wage – even though they are still living off their parents.

There’s a tendency to believe they should have all that and a bag of chips, although their only previous experience was selling chips at a school wrestling tournament concession stand. C’mon. Get real. I want better than that for the summer job newbies I know, don’t you?

The “best” I wish (non-facetiously) for them is procurement of the WORST SUMMER JOB EVER! Why? Because having to report daily to a dirty job with crappy hours, slacker co-workers, a sleazy boss, impossible work conditions and an overwhelming workload for minimum-wage is the best preparation for full-fledged adulthood.

It also makes for better stories to tell your own kids during their summer job struggle stage.

Social convoy prone to untimely breakdowns

I’ve been feeling down and untethered this week. Next week will mark 30 years since my father’s death from lung cancer. It hardly seems that long, although at times it seems forever ago. But he remains a clear memory. Not sure if that makes things better or worse. Not much choice in the matter. It’s just how things are.

At 27 and in the throes of acute grief, I felt completely knocked off my square when he died. I couldn’t sleep; I didn’t feel like eating; I couldn’t focus; nothing appealed to me. It was two-fold awful: Not only did I miss him deeply, but I was temporarily non-functional.

But without really trying, each day I naturally began emerging a bit more from my cloud of mourning. While that was positive, it was alarming to notice I’d begun to have a few thoughts that weren’t about sadness and didn’t feed my grief. Did showing signs of returning to my regular routine – as routine as it could be without him – mean I hadn’t loved him enough? Gulp. Grief works in crazy ways on a person’s mind.

Another of my irrational beliefs was that sadness and tears somehow brought me closer to him. I also silently feared that stopping thinking about him so much would cause my memories of him to fade. I didn’t want that. However, my fears proved unfounded. As of this 30^th anniversary of my father’s death, he’s now been gone longer than half of my life, yet I can still picture him clearly and hear his voice distinctly (in a non-haunted way).

Although I’ve never been a cry-baby, I still occasionally cry from missing my dad and other people I have lost. And when I lose someone else close, it tends to remind me my dad is gone. Most people know how that works.

Last week I lost a dear friend my age with whom I’ve been close with since high school. Despite recognizing his time was short when I’d last visited him in May, I still was shocked at the news of his passing. We’d been mutually supportive right up until the end and longtime card-carrying members of one another’s fan club – something I didn’t want to lose. He was an integral part of my social convoy.

Social what? Convoy. Back when I was a teenager, I remember being a part of a group of high school sports fans that got together, decorated our vehicles and formed a convoy in which we drove in procession to a championship game to support our hometown team. It was exciting to be a part of purposeful strength in numbers.

What sociologists call a “social convoy” is similar – it’s our personal fan club or group of people that has accompanied us on our journey through life. As social creatures, we thrive and rely upon our close relationships and interactions, especially the most long-standing and secure ones.

In a June 30, 2018 article in Psychology Today titled, “Why You Need a Social Convoy,” science writer Lydia Denworth explained that whatever their configuration, convoys are purposed to protect those within them: “You might think of camels traveling through the desert, long-haul truckers, or navy ships banding together to ward off enemy submarines. But the concept can apply to people, too,” she said, “Your social convoy is the core set of supportive relationships – close friends and family – that move with you through life.”

I like Denworth’s descriptions, but visualize the social convoys as a wagon train, based on the “someone’s always got your back” principle. “Circling the wagons” describes how our social convoys function when there’s danger – whether physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually. Those who know us best know to close ranks.

The recent death of my friend wasn’t just an isolated emotional event. It was the death of a mutually-supportive, sounding-board relationship, intersecting life stories, laughter, gripes and prayers. No more talking one another down from “the ledge,” having dinner or exchanging sarcastic texts with someone you’ve known since way back when.

Lord, help me at work and in my personal life to help bridge the support gap for those who have experienced untimely social convoy breakdowns through death, as life keeps movin’ on.