Escaping the bubble and getting a job: A youthful experience--by Bryan F.

My first vehicle, a 1965 Ford Econoline van. Christmas of 1971. 

My first job in the summer of 1969, at age, fourteen was as a parking lot janitor at a fast food joint on 40th St., ten blocks south of my house on 50th St.; a straight shot down the alley at the end of my street. My Mom usually got up with me at 5 am and drove me, I would walk back home after. It really didn’t pay much, so when a new manager started demanding more work for the same pay I ignored her and she fired me. I didn’t need to be working at fourteen years old anyway and the school term would be starting soon. I was able to buy a few school clothes, so I counted it as a win. 

Not the San Bernardino location where the entrance was on the corner, but a good representation from the same era.

My second job which lasted from June of 1970 until about March of 1971, when I had to quit for my grades, was at a sit-down restaurant on 5th and G St’s. It skirted San Bernardino’s skid row with requisite downtown bus station a block away. It was my first important contact with diversity. I got the job by way of family connections. My friend Joey, who was going by his first name by then, but I’ll withhold it because he is a very private person, had an aunt that worked there. The aunt was the sister to my Mom’s childhood friend Pat that I have referenced in numerous articles here on this blog. She was very tight with the manager and we, Joey and I both were hired without an interview, on her recommendation alone.  

He got the more coveted busboy position, sharing in the meager tips that a smorgasbord restaurant might generate in such a neighborhood. I got the dishwasher position, working next to the army of roaches that slept by day under the various appliances. 

As it turned out this challenging second job was worth the effort because I was able to work for about nine months, long enough to save over six hundred dollars to buy a vehicle for myself. I started at a $1.35 an hour and they took out money for meals whether you ate or not. So I made sure they didn’t make a profit on that little underhanded scheme that was perfectly legal at that time. I guess I probably worked twenty to twenty-five hours a week. Sometimes more if I could get them.

I think a brief introduction to a few of the crazy characters that comprised the cast of Sir George’s Smorgasbord might bring a chuckle or two:

First, there was the manager. His name was Al, and he was right out of a Godfather movie. The owner George McBride did not seem to care for the choice of husband that his daughter had made but at least he could keep an eye on him as his employee. George was there infrequently, tending to the other locations that he also owned in neighboring cities. George's wife Marie made occasional visits that always included an outburst of anger about the shoe scuffs on the door leading to the dining room from the kitchen. She would find a can of cleansing powder and hurl it with a profane outburst against the offending door. I had been warned but nothing prepared me for the elegantly dressed and bejeweled, perfectly coiffed pink hair piled high upon the thin regal female frame cursing as she walked through the white powdered bomb she’d just deployed. 

The other two dishwashers, both older and looking to make my time there as miserable as possible would occasionally decide that some hazing was needed to keep me in my place. This one time included two of them snatching me up and holding me upside down, head first over the scrap can. It was a smaller metal barrel, the heavy kind you don’t find anymore and that trashmen hated. It was filled with grease and scraps scraped from the steam table trays that held the smorgasbords food offerings. This may not sound all that bad until you understand that it took quite a while to fill it and it was usually bubbling like some demonic brew within days. These guys didn’t know me well though, that I was a screamer. My scream brought George running, he happened to be there that day. The scream could be heard in the dining room and George was furious. The two were almost fired and henceforth they hated my guts even more, but the hazing stopped for everyone including the busboys that had been victimized as well, but who never screamed, including Joey.

Not San Bernardino but the color scheme in the dining room is from the same era and close to San Bernardino's in 1970.

I loved working Sunday morning. The cook that always worked Sunday morning began too warm to me a bit. These were men that were denied opportunities because of their skin color and that were cautious around people like myself. They seldom spoke to me except for one very rotund dude that found it hysterical to call me “picker-wood”. I didn't know what it meant but I knew it was a kind of insult. I never took it to heart though, as an empathic person I felt people's pain and could usually respond accordingly. Anyway, the Sunday cook warmed to me a little and let me help him a bit with the cooking. There were mounds of crispy bacon and stacks of pancakes alongside steam table trays of freshly scrambled eggs. Sundays were my favorite because it was just me and the one cook and I got to eat all the bacon and eggs I could hold on my break. 

Joey quit when school started in September. He was an A student and his Mom was not going to allow anything to interfere with his education. I stayed through the late winter of 1971, leaving only to save my grades that were suffering. I had taken on more hours to build my car fund and my grades suffered. I quit and recovered my grades, but the stream of income that caused me to feel a certain level of independence was gone. 

Shortly after that, I bought my new to me vehicle, a 1965 Ford Econoline van at Van Winkle’s VW lot on E St. I had gone to school with Leslie Van Winkle the year before at Pacific High School before I was moved to Cajon High School for my junior year. New school construction and boundary changes were to blame for yet another school change. 

The van made it easier to adjust to a new school. I knew some of the kids from Golden Valley Junior High that were now attending the new Cajon High School. The
neighborhoods around there were more blue-collar, unlike Pacific High School where social stratification was more pronounced making it harder to make friends. 

I made a few friends at Cajon and I was also the guy you asked to take you to McDonald's on lunch break. I had removed all the rear seats from the van and made curtains for the windows. The kids mostly girls would pile in, sitting on the floor. One would call dibs on the center spot upfront that set up high, that was a metal box with a lid that opened to the motor. This was a coveted spot I guess because one could be seen clearly by other students envious of the ride gained. This was a very dangerous "seat" and could get hot on a longer ride. There were no seat belts in this vehicle.

Because the upkeep was high on this vehicle, the brakes went out constantly, it was not my driving style that was to blame, I’m sure. I sold it a year later and traded it for a little red 1964 Volkswagon bug, which I could also not afford to maintain, but it was cheaper to operate. I wasn’t working and I had no maintenance money. I still can’t figure out how I afforded that twenty-five cents per gallon gas to run the VW. I probably saved some from the fifty cents a day I got for lunch to do it. 

I no longer had hordes surrounding me when I went to lunch. But occasionally some girls, usually my sister's friends would ask me to drive them to a party in Crestline located in the mountain. The toll was always a quarter apiece and share your weed. I got to go to a party and never had to buy my own weed. It was a pretty good deal.

I installed an 8 track stereo in the van. The picture below shows the 8 track tapes I got that year for Christmas including The Beatles, White Album that I still have.

I will share in a future post my third job adventures from 1973. The graveyard shift I worked alone at a Jack-In-the-box in Costa Mesa, California. Yes, it was interesting and sometimes, scary.

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