As a child I had many little jobs. Weeding gardens was hard work.
Delivering newspapers was a large enough task that my two brothers shared the job with me. On Sundays and holidays Daddy helped because we had to go to the next town to pick up the papers then deliver them to farms on the way back. Then we took a stack of them to the town after ours and left them with a cafe. Then we went back to our town and got on our bicycles for our regular routes.
Of course I was a babysitter. 25 cents per hour was the going rate.Almost any little chore that people would pay for I did.
The bowling alley in our was located beneath the post office. We had 8 lanes. We were advanced enough that we had a pin frame so we did not have to crawl out and reset the pins manually.
I guess I should mention that I worked there as a pinsetter. It was the first job I had where I had a schedule to work. It was also the first job where I was paid by check and paid taxes and had Social Security deducted from my pay. I was 11 years old.
Usually a pinsetter was assigned to two adjacent lanes. We went back to the pit behind the pins by walking along the gutters and then sliding under the frames. There was the extension of the ball return lane that we sat on when people were in the process of bowling.
The ball came down the lane and knocked down the pins. The pinsetter then jumped down, picked up the ball, and sent it back to the bowler. Then the pins that were knocked down were collected and put into the spots in the frame that had no pins under it. Hopefully the pins fell into the pit.
If all the pins were knocked down or after the bowler's second try the pinsetter pulled the cord that set the frame down. It would place the pins for the next bowler.
The pit was aptly named. It was dark, dirty, and collected bits of the wax that keeps the lanes smooth. We were not pretty creatures when our night was over.
A complete game in bowling is called a line. Most people bowled several lines and there were multiple people at a time. We were paid a penny a line. It was good money.
One of the reasons I tell you this is because I was 11 years old when I began working there and paying taxes. When I was laid off from my final job I was 62 years old.
I worked and paid taxes for 51 years. I was happy to be retired. A person should not have to work that long.
