By Dan Mackie
For the Valley News
There are plenty of songs about summer, but I don’t know if any are about summer work. For many of us, the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer meant a different refrain: Get a job.
Back when I was a teen, which grows more distant by the month, I spent summertime hours toiling at minimum wage — $1.65 an hour — or just above.
I grilled burgers, dug up bushes and trees, and made lonely rounds as a night watchman at a chemical plant. Jobs like these got me through high school without an allowance and paid most of my college bills, back when that was actually possible. I even drove to college in a paid-off Chevy of my own, listening to Born to Be Wild. (I wasn’t.)
One summer job was at Howdy Beef Burgers, a New England chain much like McDonald’s except for the clown and quality control. Hamburgers, thin and greasy, cost 20 cents. Soda was priced the same and fries likewise.
I was a good employee. I kept my head down and worked hard, as if that would get me somewhere. Unfortunately, there was hardly anywhere to go at Howdy Beef Burgers. Most jobs that come with fries have limitations.
Howdy’s, which wasn’t quite as friendly as it sounds, employed crews of teenagers and young adults. Some were college prep. Some were factory prep. The restaurant was enclosed in glass like a hothouse. On one side were a bunch of uncomfortable tables. It didn’t have a drive-through, but some customers treated the interior like the floor of their car. Hamburger wrappers and soda cups dropped like fast-food foliage.
I wore a white shirt and dark pants, a black tie and a paper hat. When we took orders we were supposed to begin, “Howdy, can I you help you?” Somewhat shy, I found this difficult, especially when cute girls were at the counter. They giggled and my face turned red, suggesting I might remain dateless for decades. (If I’d stayed at Howdy’s that might well have happened.)
Actually, Howdy’s was a good place to meet girls, the girls who worked there. Even a shy boy probably seemed more interesting than the fryolator. We worked side by side, burger to burger and fry to fry, and I eventually managed to ask some of them out.
Howdy’s had some benefits. We were allowed to eat for free, although after months you sort of despised the food. Cooking left an oily sheen on your face and skin, which made it easy to meet neighborhood cats and dogs.
I was there in the ’70s, but out in the parking lot a gang of greasers was stuck in the ’50s. They hoisted the hoods of muscle cars and loitered, talking about mufflers and motors. They smoked Marlboros and drank rum cokes and burned rubber when they drove off. Their girlfriends burned through the ozone layer with their hairspray.
When I rose to the title of night manger ($1.85 an hour!), it was my duty to call the cops to roust the greasers. This didn’t endear me to them, because conflict could accelerate their path to delinquency. The Howdy greasers were slackers, content to idle and blast music on tortured speakers. They weren’t motivated to actually work on their life list of misdemeanors.
One afternoon as I was walking to work a group of them surrounded me gang-style. A thick guy with an angry buzz cut challenged me to fight. He got the first punch off, a glancing blow to my head. I grabbed his sweatshirt and he pulled backward, so the sweatshirt rode up over his head. Dumb and sightless, he was an enraged bull. Steam might well have escaped from his nostrils.
As it happened, he wasn’t as strong as he looked, and not in good shape after the smokes and liquor. (Punching is more work than it looks.) He was quickly spent, and he let me go with a warning laced with profanities. My goal — to get out with my dignity and glasses intact — was met.
You learned about people in a place like Howdy’s, where work moved at a fast pace. Some kids couldn’t keep up. Some got picked on. The boss sent one into the basement to get a “bucket of steam.” He, unlike me, would never become a night manager.
I wish I could say I learned useful things at Howdy’s, but it isn’t entirely true. It was second rate, poorly run, and would someday be razed and mashed into an empty lot. I wonder if the smell of fish sandwiches rises from the depths on certain rainy nights.
I liked many of the people I worked with, but I remember them almost as sitcom characters. A boss who was cheating on his wife. A cook with unfortunate body odor. A guy who fretted that he’d lose his pretty girlfriend after he went off to college. A guy who flipped burgers fast and stylishly — the Michael Jordan of the grill. Did that lead to any sort of success?
I left for college and the newspaper life. Even the hardest stretches seemed better than my summer job. I guess there was a lesson in it after all.
The writer lives in West Lebanon. He can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.