View Mike Repucci's profile

An Undesirable Juror by
10
(15 Stories)

Prompted By Jury Duty

/ Stories

Having been in federal law enforcement for most of my adult life, I was involved in many court trials.  As the investigator, I was aware of most of the facts on both sides of the case, not just the prosecutions.  Watching jurors during trial I have always wondered what it would be like to sit on a jury; to see what a case looks like from their perspective because very often the facts, whether from witness testimony or the admission of physical evidence, can be incomplete, presented in a disjointed order or lacking context leaving jurors to rely on the attorneys’ closing argument to put the bits and pieces together.  Even then, jurors must contend with, and reconcile, diametrically opposed explanations of what the same set of facts mean.

I have been summoned many times but have never been able to serve.  Usually, I don’t even get in the pool of potential jurors sent into the courtroom for jury selection. And when I do, I don’t get selected to go into “the box” as a potential juror to face voir dire, the questioning of potential jurors by the judge and attorneys to determine their competency to sit in judgement of another.

The closest I ever got was a civil case in which the plaintiffs were suing another party and their insurance company over an accident wherein the plaintiff’s car was rearended by the defendants resulting in many cases of whiplash and related injuries.  The trial became necessary because the insurance company suspected it was a fraudulently staged accident.  I was sent to the courtroom and was in the first group to go into the box.  I’d been here before but had always been “Thanked and excused” by the judge once I described my background.  However, that day, there were no objections by the judge or either attorney.  Then the defense attorney began his voir dire of individual potential jurors.  When he asked me if I could be fair, and base my decision only on the evidence presented, I answered I could, but I added I supervised several people who investigated Medicare/Medical fraud cases.

The attorney apparently had not been paying attention during the judges’ interview because the smug look on his face changed to a questioning one as he asked me what I did for a living.  When I said I was an FBI Agent, he, with a quick twist of his chair and a cartoon-like snap of his neck toward the judge, loudly demanded, “You, Honor.  We have to get rid of him!”

The grinning judge agreed, saying “That didn’t take long”.  I was then “Thanked and excused” – again!

What’s So Special About a Sunrise? by
10
(15 Stories)

Prompted By Dawn

/ Stories

My mother-in-law and her sister loved taking pictures of sunrises.  Both women shared many of them on Facebook or by email or text from their ipads; a very techie thing for a couple women in their 80’s.  They obviously felt sunrises are much more special than I thought them to be.  I’m more of a sunset person; you know that moment at the end of a day that says you’ve survived another one, now go celebrate with wine!  Sunrises were just a warning I was going to soon need to get out of bed!

My mother in law photographed a sunrise nearly every morning from her east-facing 9th floor balcony.  Many of her sisters were taken on a beach near Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  Many of them included her, with and without others, facing a new-born sun, posed with arms raised as if worshiping Ra – the Egyptian Sun God.  Ra, supreme to all other gods, was worshiped as creator of everything.  His daily path through the heavens represented the cycle of life, death and rebirth.  When he fell below the western horizon in the evening, he was believed to have died and entered the realm of the dead.  But, every dawn he was reborn and his majestic rising gave new light and life to everything on earth encouraging all to flourish along with him.

There were so many sunrise pictures I began to think of them much as Ronald Reagan once described the redwoods, claiming once you’d seen one, you’d seen them all.  The sunrises were, of course, different in many ways, but the sheer volume of them overwhelmed any uniqueness to my mind so I cared little about seeing more of them.

Once we stayed at the house in Cabo where the sister took her sunrise pictures.  As a lark, we decided to take one of our own on that beach to share.  So in the predawn hours we dragged ourselves from the comforts of bed early enough to get down the hill and onto the beach before sunrise.

It was dark, and quiet – everyone with any sense was still asleep.  The air, while not exactly crisp, since it was July, was the coolest it would be all day.  With camera and tripod in hand we started down the path to the beach.  A somewhat treacherous hike in the dark as it is a steep, twisting dirt path littered with ruts, slippery sand, loose gravel and rocks.

On the beach, our quiet is broken only by the sound of waves crashing softly onto the beach in a regular, never changing rhythm, a constant since the beginning of time.  The waves had erased all the footprints from yesterday leaving only ours, freshly made on the empty beach like modern day Robinsons Caruso.  This reminds us that the events of yesterday are passed, they are gone and cannot be changed – only remembered.

We walk along, facing east so we will miss none of our sunrise.  The eastern sky began to lighten, faintly outlining the mountains around Mazatlan, Mexico across the still-dark Sea of Cortez.  The birth of the new sun was imminent, its arrival announced by streaks of golden light streaming into the grey sky, highlighting a few clouds, hinting at the dramatic display soon to come.  We stop to watch as the sun slowly peeks over the edge then bursts forth illuminating us, and the world, with its light, warming us with its heat.

The blank slate of a smooth, clean beach combined with the rising sun proclaimed the gift of a new day and the promise of a fresh beginning, so inspiring it is easy to imagine it accompanied by music; a rousing Phillip Souza march or the Sunrise movement from the Grand Canyon Suite.  Slowly, involuntarily – almost unconsciously – we too raise our arms overhead in greeting and praise to the Great Ra.

I forgot to take our picture!  But walking back to the house, we have a new-found understanding of what inspired all those sunrise pictures.  Our souls are as refreshed as are our bodies following a nights’ rest.  Our spirits are renewed and we are eager to start afresh our new day rich with opportunity, alert to new experiences and secure in the promise that it will rise again tomorrow.

On Turning 75 by
10
(15 Stories)

Prompted By Special Birthdays

/ Stories

Although mindful of the saying that too many birthdays will kill you, I recently celebrated 75 years on this earth.  Which can be viewed from two perspectives.  Looking back, that I have lived through, successfully completed, three quarters of 25 years each.  Or, looking forward, that I am now starting my fourth quarter during which, most probably, I will come to the end of the game.

I entered adulthood when the adage was “Don’t trust anyone over 30”.  So, 75 years old was an unrelatable level of anciency; more even than the three score and ten allotted to us in the bible.  Today I view 75 as still fairly young although I got here much faster than I ever imagined possible. Which leads me to ponder how many more birthdays will I celebrate before they actually do kill me?  And, in what condition?  Will I be enjoying my quality of life in this quarter or enduring it?

For a few years ago I joined a memoirs writing group for which I have written almost 150 stories; recollections of life; stories of work, childhood, family and, only occasionally, attempts to wax philosophically about life or to pass along what I hoped qualified as wisdom acquired over those many years.  I have now written all the stories I can think of which conform with Ben Franklin’s admonition to “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”  I hope whoever reads them will find some to be interesting or funny or revealing of a truth about life or even explain, to some extent, who I am and how that “me” was formed.  I suppose I will not truly be finished writing memoirs until my obituary which, my wife insists, I write myself.  The only flaw in her request is that I will not be here to report how it all ends.

Regardless, now it is time to leave the past behind me.  It is time to look to the future.  What now, I ask?  How do I fill the years left to me in this final quarter?  I have long joked I hoped to be able to simply sit up and feed myself if I ever made it to 70.  Members of my memoirs class, who share my advanced age, with some even more “senior”, have shown me it is possible to remain mentally sharp, retain one’s memory and still able to practice life-skills such as writing, all while being physically active well into their 80’s and beyond.  They are my role models.

So, what is ahead?  There are grandchildren to watch grow into adulthood, begin careers, marry – or not – but hopefully to provide the gift of great grandchildren.  There are trips to take, friends and family to interact with; to support and to be supported by them.  It is time to slow down, to take the time to enjoy the simple pleasures of life; reengage a neglected hobby, maybe volunteer, take walks in the park or simply enjoy a meal or glass of wine.  There is no longer any need to either rush into or past these things.

My mother-in-law always said, when trying to decide whether or not to do something or go somewhere, that one should decide to “Make a memory”; a double benefit creating both a memory for yourself while providing something worth writing as a memoir for your posterity – if they ever become curious enough to want to learn whatever happened to this old guy to make him how he is, or was.

I don’t know what the future holds nor how or when it will end.  Neither do I know how to end this little story, so, just let me ask you to wish me luck!

My First Retirement Didn’t Work Out Too well by
10
(15 Stories)

Prompted By Retirement

/ Stories

I retired from my career job in 2004, but soon began working contract jobs from which I am now almost completely retired. On the first day of this second retirement, I woke up wondering – so, what now?

I tried retirement once, and it didn't hold. Maybe the second will be more successful?

From working as a teenager mowing lawns, selling shoes and, for one miserable day, cutting Hops – the job that convinced me I did not want to do manual labor – through a 35 year career in federal law enforcement, which I loved, I decided to again try to join the ranks of retired Baby Boomers. Having tested those much-longed-for waters several years ago I reenter them with some trepidation.

My first try at retirement, from a career requiring many more hours and days than a 40-hour week, lasted only three months. Time enough to complete that “Honey-Do” list of neglected maintenance and home improvement projects, take a Mediterranean cruise (now a trip, no longer a “vacation”) and begin establishing a daily routine. To my dismay, with all that new-found time, the “Honey Do’s” were soon completed, big trips proved to be expensive and, most distressingly, the high point of our new routine was looking forward to 4 O’clock so my wife and I could watch Oprah while sipping our daily dose(s) of wine! So, I returned to work – for another 10 years.

But now I think I am finished. I no longer want to deal with problems of my own making – or those of others. I am through dealing with old computers, new programs, changing passwords or those tasks which I now perceive as menial or a re-inventing the wheel, especially when the end result is more Rube Goldberg than Einstein.

But how to fill my time? In our imagined retirement, my wife and I would move to hot housing markets flipping a house or two while seeing the country. Now, however, another thing I don’t want to do is work that hard. A new Honey-Do list, now including projects in our children’s homes, will provide enough of that work.

I could, I suppose, indulge in a few hobbies. Photography, for one, where I aspire to some level above that of lucky snap-shooter. But my eyes are not what they used to be so I’m not so sure fine art photos are achievable. And, much like my golf game, buying more or better equipment seems to have little positive effect.

Reading history and philosophy may productively fill some time but that pesky eye thing makes it less enjoyable. Listening to music? See photography and reading above, substituting “ears” for “eyes”.

I kept a 1970 Volkswagen Bug we drove around Europe our first year of marriage, and plan to restore it and drive around town reliving both its, and our, glory days. But I’m not really a mechanic, a painter, a body work man or upholsterer and paying others to do those jobs wouldn’t fill much of my time anyway.

Attempts to provide my wife with the very significant benefit of my input concerning household management is also being thwarted. It is becoming clear that to maintain domestic harmony I will be the one commencing a curriculum of retraining to include courses in listening and saying, “Yes, Dear”.

There is volunteering but I lack the warm and fuzzy personality to be a greeter at Wal-Mart; I have no desire to stack books on library shelves, I am too patience-challenged for tutoring and my older grandchildren are becoming harder to entertain or impress; translation: they’ve got Grandpa figured out.

So, what now? Indeed.

I realize I am surrounded by everything necessary to truly make these the Golden Years. We are blessed to have our family close and in good health. Their “Honey Do’s” will become labors of love. Travel may be less exotic but with family along it will be events and memories not just trips. And with those grandkids – who needs – or could even keep – a routine!

What Makes a Move Memorable? by
10
(15 Stories)

Prompted By Moving Day

/ Stories

It is not the act of moving from one place to another, or the activities surrounding one, that marks it as memorable. It is the reason for the move, and the changes in our lives resulting from it. We have had 3 such moves.

It's not the act of moving that makes one memorable..

The first was in 1970 when Patty, my wife of one year, encouraged me to quit my job to finish college. We had waited until she graduated from nursing school before marrying. I had quit junior college due to a less than exemplary record of academic achievements. I was the junior of two employees on the shipping/receiving dock at IBM in San Jose. When the senior guy got “promoted” to deliveryman for the packages we received – I decided Patty was right and so quit. We bought a VW bug, toured Europe in it then moved to Sacramento, buying a small townhouse a short bike ride from school – all on one years’ savings – times were certainly different.

The Junior college granted my petition to strip my transcript of grades lower than “C” giving me a fresh start. Being 23 and married I was both older and wiser than my fresh-out-of-high-school classmates, so I did well, most probably because I attended classes, read the books and did the homework. Three years later I had a degree in Accounting and a job with a CPA firm in Sacramento. The most miserable job I ever had.

The second move, two years later, was necessitated by my assignment to Los Angeles to begin a new career in government. We considered this move the beginning of whatever our new life was to become. We’d been married 6 years, our first born was 18 months old and we – the royal we – were pregnant (although my part in that endeavor was long past). I had learn a new career field, Patty had to find a job, we had no friends or family to support us or to help us find a house, doctors, dentists or day care; we were starting completely over and it was exciting.

While we felt we were moving forward, we were also escaping. My father, a stereotypical old-time Italian, kept a Big Thumb on his family; the reason I left home in the first place. We had the only grandchild on either side and we lived between both sets of grandparents. So, we got lots of unannounced and, sometimes, unwelcomed visits. By moving, we escaped those confinements and began developing lives of our  own.

Life in Los Angeles was good. We made new friends as a couple and we loved living in the Conejo Valley town of Thousand Oaks. But I had a 60 – 90 minute commute each way. Patty had to work swing shift so we could minimize day care expenses. Saturdays were devoted to chores, shopping, yard and house work and resting. So, the only real family time was Sundays; I could never get home for kids games or to otherwise help during the week.

Our last move was to Fresno. When told I had been transferred to Fresno my first thought was, who have I made mad? Like so many, my impression of Fresno was of gas stations, auto wrecking yards and run-down motels where the rooms mostly rented out by the hour to the “ladies” strolling out front. However, everyone I spoke to  who had actually lived here told me they liked it and would move back. So, we took a leap of faith and moved again.

This move made life easier, better; well-worth giving up southern California which was, really, just better weather. We gained a slower, less crowded life style. My work became more interesting; Patty could work days and our children were exposed to a more diverse and realistic environment than in Thousand Oaks, where the WalMart parking lot was full of Mercedes Benz and Rolls Royce’s.

One move for education; one to start a new career and an independent life of our own; and finally, one to improve our lifestyle. All good choices and therefore memorable.

A Timeline of Life by
10
(15 Stories)

Prompted By Ageism

/ Stories

My wife once read, in what I hope was not People magazine, that our bodies go through a major metabolic change about every seven years. I tend to believe that because, as I think about my own life, that schedule seems to fit. Those seven-year increments can generally be identified by, or associated with, songs, stories or books. Some stir memories, some act as a guide through a stage of life while others prepare us for the path to be traveled.

Birth to age seven is the time of lullabies and fairy tales teaching young minds about the world so full of new things. Sing-along songs and books teach the basics like numbers, animals, shapes and the alphabet.

By age seven most of us are no longer “babies” – at least no longer infants nor toddlers. This is the period most of us remember as our “childhood”. School books, coloring books, comic books and early television were our sources of learning and entertainment.

Around 14 years of age we are assaulted by puberty. Life becomes complicated and can be confusing as we stumble our way toward adulthood. My teen years can be relived hearing early rock and roll songs of the 50’s and 60’s about the drama of life; its highs and lows, of young love discovered or lost. Reading, especially the classics, provides some awareness and direction as we strive for a successful path through life, mostly through trial and error.

Twenty-one marks the beginning of adult life. Over the next 5 chunks of 7 years to about age 56, I married, finished college, began a career and had children. We were busy trying, to the best of our abilities, to live life to the fullest so can’t point to any one thing marking the era for us.

Sometime between the age of 28 and 56 we hit our physical peak. For me, the best I ever felt was at 35 years old. But the decline of physical and maybe mental prowess begins in this period. Initially it may go unnoticed as we slowly begin sliding off our peak while still high enough on the mountain of good health that we either do not notice or are not bothered by the changes.

Hitting 63 marks the Senior Citizen phase of life. Here we become more introspective and begin evaluating our lives and to grapple with our mortality. This stage can be characterized by Frank Sinatra reminiscing about phases of life in “It Was a Very Good Year” or by Harry Chapin’s “Cats in the Cradle”, wherein he decries a fathers regret about being too busy to have a relationship with his growing son.

Now in my 70’s I have lived through 10 these changes and have inarguably entered what are politely referred to as the “Golden Years”. Being at the beginning of this phase I have scant knowledge of what to expect. What changes are in my future? What can I do to prepare, to help me, as I go forward? Nothing comes to mind but, in some old files, I recently found a poem by an unknown sage. I saved it because, at the time I thought it was funny. Reading it now, with age-altered perceptions, it is too close to the truth to be as funny anymore. Still, maybe it can provide some modicum of guidance. Paraphrased, it reads:

The Golden Years have come at last
I’m no longer the man I was in the past
My hearing stinks; my memory shrinks
No hair no more; all my joints are sore
No sense of smell; and I look like hell
I cannot run; I must avoid the sun
I cannot chew; I cannot screw
I cannot see; I cannot pee
So, the Golden Years have come at last
Well… the Golden Years can kiss my ass!

Wine Time, Anytime by
10
(15 Stories)

Prompted By Altered States

/ Stories

The meaning of Altered States brings to mind a drug familiarization lecture I once attended, presented by a DEA Agent. To gauge our beginning level of knowledge, he asked a few questions of the group.  One was, “What is a narcotic?”  Several answers were shouted out, all met with a short explanation of why they were wrong.  The best was by one who opined that a narcotic was something that “altered one’s level of consciousness”.  The answer here was, “No.  I can do that with a Louisville Slugger!” (a baseball bat for the unfamiliar).

As a pre-teenager I saw an article in Life magazine on Heroin addicts in New York City. A quote in that article has always affected any desire to engage in drug experimentation.  Under a photo of a woman, severely decimated by her self-admitted drug use was her admonishment that, “Heroin is so good don’t try it, even once.”  I was, from then on, wary of trying any of those drugs that so famously are associated with the 1960’s.  Including even the softer drugs like Marijuana which I may or may not tried and if I did I may or may not have inhaled!

By the time drugs were becoming common place I was married and busy with other things. I was aware of, and you might say exposed to, the drug culture via a few friends and relatives some of whom were able to handle it and others whose indulgence ruined their lives, in a couple cases even ending them.  For that I am both happy and thankful I avoided any of those troubles whether by choice or mere happenstance.

Thankfully, I never read any such warning relating to alcohol usage. So, whenever I need to change my attitude or otherwise alter my current state it is wine time!  And that, thankfully, can be at anytime because, as they say, it is 4:00 p.m. somewhere!

 

 

 

Running on Empty by
10
(15 Stories)

Prompted By Sports

/ Stories

I had never been much of a runner.  In high school PE classes, when told to run laps around the baseball field I would hide behind the backboard until the last lap then re-join the group to cross the finish line trying to look tired so the coach wouldn’t catch on.  In boot camp we ran wearing heavy boots in a freezing cold Texas winter – I swore I would never run again.  Before a training academy at Quantico, Virginia it was suggested I do some pre-conditioning.  I forced myself to run a few laps on the local track but it made my legs so sore I could barely walk for days so, no more pre-training.

But during 16 weeks of running at the academy, I got in shape and came to enjoy it.  From then on jogging was my exercise of choice.  My wife and I regularly ran 2 to 4 miles several times a week for the next 25 years including several 10K races – a distance of 6.2 miles.

In our early 50s we decided to run a half marathon.  We chose one in Davis, California because it was level and near our hometown.  My sister-in-law agreed run with us and so training began.  Over the next several months my wife and I increased our long-distance training runs to 9 miles.  We felt we were ready.

The night before the race we stayed at my mother-in-law’s house in Sacramento.  We planned a dinner of pasta and fish to “carb-load” for long-lasting energy during the run.  My wife had read somewhere, or heard, or maybe just dreamed it, that it was best to run “empty”.  By “empty”, she explained, it was necessary to clean our systems through the use an enema.  It was never clear to me how that would improve the endurance of my legs and lungs.  Regardless, my brother-in-law and I were dispatched to buy three Fleet-brand enemas.  Now, truly, I’ve never had a problem buying my wife’s “feminine products”.  But, standing in line at the CVS, I began to squirm over what the elderly customers surrounding us might be thinking of two middle-aged men buying three enemas in the early evening hours of a Date-Night-Friday (not, of course, that there’s anything wrong with that).

Back at the house, we enjoyed our family dinner then suffered the humiliation of “emptying” our systems as instructed.  Then it was off to bed for an early morning trek to Davis.

On race day we shivered in the morning chill along with the other runners as we stretched and jogged in place to limber up.  As is typical of these fun runs, the participants ranged from young, lithe, zero-body fat runners to the over-weight, over-aged and under-trained.  We considered ourselves to be somewhere in the middle.  The start time approached so a last trip to the Porta-potties then we were off.

For the first mile or two we worked out the kinks, warming up, getting loose and finding our pace and stride.  Caught up in the excitement of the run I realized we were running faster than our normal pace.  I slowed to the pace we’d trained at.  That’s when I became aware of my wife right behind me, just off my left shoulder.  If I sped up she was there, if I slowed down she was there.  Shift left – there; shift right – still there.  She was always there and it began to play on my feeble mind.  I know she was just letting me set the pace but it began to feel like I was pulling her, dragging her along, and it was wearing me out!  At a water table I grabbed a cup of water and slice of orange then ran off trying to disconnect, to no avail.

I ran up behind an “old guy” – the ancient age of 60 or so (I was 53) – and decided to pace him a while then pass him.  I don’t remember even seeing him again and I don’t know who passed who but we were well into the race by then, over half way, and I was starting to have other issues.

The route crisscrossed town, so we periodically saw runners on different parts of the course.  Being unfamiliar with the course and missing the mile markers I had no sense of where I was or how far I’d gone or how much farther I had to go.  At one point, I ran under a bridge covered with runners going 90 degrees to me.  Who the heck were they?  And how long before I got to be up there?  Or, had I already been there and didn’t remember it?  The end had to be near, but it seemed like forever before I got to cross that bridge.  Not knowing the distances made it seem so much longer.  By the 10th mile I realized we had not had long enough training runs.  Finally, mercifully, I crossed the finish line barely able to smile for the picture my mother-in-law was taking of our grand finishes.

We ended with decent times given our age and level of training.  I wasn’t especially tired and I didn’t get sore but my desire to run was gone and we have not run much since.  Why?  My heart just wasn’t in it anymore.  I think it was either that the increase from 9 to 13 miles was too large an increase or, whether it helped or not, just like Pavlov’s dogs, thinking of jogging reminds me of that damned enema!

Rock and Roll and Its Roots by
10
(15 Stories)

/ Stories

I am one of the earliest born of the Baby Boomer generation which still left me too young to be aware of the pioneers of the Rock and Roll phenomenon as it was being born.  I missed the early years of the likes of Bill Haley and the Comets, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper or Richie Valens.  Even Elvis or others crossing over from Country, the Blues or what was then referred to as Negro music such Little Richard or Chuck Berry.  I listened to Rock and Roll, or the Top 40, almost exclusively from then though all its iterations including those early artists crafting the genre from the Blues, through the Surfer craze in the early 60’s   (Beach Boys, Dick Dale), the Hippie era (Jefferson Airplane, Jimmy Hendrix) the British Invasion (Beatles and Rolling Stones), Folk music (Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell) and ballad singer (Jim Croce) plus one in a class by herself, the Devine One – Bette Midler!

We listened to “our” music until our first child was born in 1974 which for some reason left us frozen in the music of the 50s’to early 70’s.  I have tried other genres; Country (too twangy plus my parents listened to that), Classical (too slow and hard to hear in a car) even Opera (okay, only once but need I say more?).

But, one day in the home of a college classmate I heard the LP, “Take A Giant Step” by Taj Mahal. It was the first time I’d listened to the Blues and I was hooked.  Blues connected with me, it spoke to my core; I could feel the music and the moods and emotions the lyrics spoke of.  I understood it to be the very roots of Rock and Roll.

Over the years since I have listened to Blues as it was created and has evolved over a life span of many more years than Rock and Roll.  I have had to listen pretty much by myself as no one else in my family likes much of it.  I can understand that when they are the scratchy, poorly recorded early fathers of the Delta Blues (Charlie Patton or Son House, even the studio recordings of the legendary Robert Johnson whose skill with the guitar was admired by such as Eric Clapton and was the basis for the legend of the guitar play who sold his soul to the devil at the crossroad at midnight).

I enjoy listening to it all; styles originating from the Mississippi Delta, Texas or in Chicago where Blues evolved from the acoustic sounds of Big Bill Broonzy or Howln’ Wolf to the electric Blues pioneered by the “King” of the Blues, the great B.B. King.  B.B. wrote in his autobiography that Taj Mahal was one of his favorite musicians so I guess it is appropriate that my interest in the Blues started with him and in some respects reached its pinnacle in the music of The King.

Thank You, Mrs. Beach by
10
(15 Stories)

Prompted By My First Paycheck

/ Stories

The first time I was paid by check, not in cash, was at Triangle Rents, an equipment rental yard in Carmichael where I worked as a “Yard Ape” doing chores the real employees did not want to do. I was 16 or 17 and It was my first full-time summer job, 8 hours a day for 5 days a week which always included weekends, thereby also making it the first time I had to give up summer vacation.

She promised a $1 an hour and guaranteed 3 hours work each week.

It was not the first time I was paid for work, only the first time by check. I had lots of jobs as a kid; mowing lawns, gardening chores even babysitting neighbor kids; nothing more than chores, but done for someone other than my parents, so I got paid.  When I was about 15, a neighbor, who was 4 years older than me, asked if I wanted to replace him on yard-work job he did every Saturday for an elderly lady in Rancho Cordova, about 5 miles from my house. I agreed and met Mrs. Beach.

Mrs. Beach lived on Coloma Road, then a two lane country road between Sunrise Boulevard and the housing tracts of Rancho Cordova, about a mile away. Hers was the only house in that entire stretch of road.  I was to come every Saturday morning to mow her lawn and do other gardening chores such as raking or pruning – whatever she would deem as necessary.  She promised a $1 an hour and guaranteed 3 hours work each week.

Those were safer times so I would hitchhike to her house. She was nearly always already hard at it cutting things for me to rake or planning other chores.  I’d mow her lawn then clean up the cuttings which left a couple hours for other assignments.  She was true to her word and always kept me 3 hours.  I was often aggravated by what I perceived to be “make work” chores when I just wanted to be done and gone.  She did need the help though and always expressed her thanks.  I now realize she was just making sure I got the full $3, but required that I earn it.

I worked for her for maybe 2 years then gave it to my brother when I started at Triangle Rents. Without realizing it until later, Mrs. Beach taught me the importance of being on time, of doing what was asked of me to the best of my ability and to put in the time necessary – to stick with it – in order to complete the job; traits that went far toward earning that first paycheck and others throughout my life.

<< Older posts