My first job (and one of my favorites, though it didn’t start out that way) was working for my granddaddy on his shade tobacco farm. I started when I was seven and toted the “turns” of tobacco from the primers to the barge. It was hot and hard for a kid my age and being the only white person on the crew, I caught quite a bit of hell from the older boys, but it helped toughen me up. Also, the older lady that packed the barge, Ms. Fanny Butler, looked out for me and was very encouraging. She knew I loved football and would tell me about her grandson that played for the Atlanta Falcons, James “Cannonball” Butler, and I always hoped I’d get to meet him, a real professional football player.
Before all was said and done, I progressed to punching up sticks of tobacco to the hangers in the barn, to hanging, which required me to climb up in the barn and take the sticks from below and hang them on the tiers. It was hot work, especially when your back was up next to the tin roof of the barn, 40-50 feet off the ground. I also became responsible for firing the barns each evening as part of the curing process. We’d prime Monday through Thursday and on Fridays I learned to break down the stringing machines and clean the gum build up and trash out of them. We also had a big garden and I’d pick whatever needed picking, peas, butter beans, squash, etc., on Fridays and a lot of days after work ended.
I learned a lot of things that have helped me through life: hard work never killed anybody (though it has scared the shti out of a bunch of folks), following directions and doing what you’re told, standing up for yourself when need be, saving part of your wages for the future, and working even when you didn’t feel like it. It was a pretty good time in my life.
First REAL job was at the Burger King across from the clown college on Tennessee Street. Worked the drive thru, which did not suck in the least. Also saw Ron Simmons come through a couple of times in a really really nice Trans Am. Always wondered how a college kid could afford a car like that.
He couldn’t, but booster Walter Blount of Blount’s Plumbing could :)