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Tom Brody (1969)
This is to answer the request from Sue Ferreira, "What was your first job and how old were you?" Question #14, Comment #1166. My first job was selling seeds, door to door. They came in little envelopes. I was ten years old. The only thing I remember is that, at one of the houses where I knocked on the door, one of the people living there was a blind man and at the moment they opened the door the blind man accidently stepped on the family dog and the dog emitted a yelp. That was Tim Hale's house. Tim Hale was shorter than me, and we both attended Coe School located on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. But even though I was selling things, I would not consider it a real job, because it only lasted for a few days.
My second job was selling tickets to the Boy Scout fair. This was also in Seattle and I was twelve years old. My scout troop met every week in the basement of a Lutheran church. I sold the most tickets, and my prize was supposed to be a small version of a factory that had an electric motor. When the prize was handed to me, the scout leader (Mr. Hall) said that this particular prize (the factory) was not available, and so they gave me an alternative prize, which was a plastic kit of a HOT ROD. It came with an electric moter, and the rubber tires were 3 inches in diameter. It was fun putting the kit together. But even though I was selling things, I would not characterize it as a real job, because it lasted for only a few days and also because there was no pay for me, just the hot rod. By the way, the hot rod had headlights that really worked, by way of "grain of wheat" light bulbs.
OKAY, NOW FOR A REAL JOB. This was in San Leandro and I was 15 years old. It was a paper route (Oakland Tribune), and the customers were on Bermuda Ave., Driftwood Way, Acupulco Road, Nassau Road, and Trinidad Road. Each day, I carried a cloth bag containing about 50 newspapers to customers while riding a STINGRAY bicycle with a BANANA seat. At the time, I attended John Muir Jr. High School. The fabric that covered the banana seat was textured and, after a few months, it wore a hole in my pants. I was not aware of this hole, until my rock'n'roll band played at a school dance at John Muir Jr. High School. During our performance, I glanced at my buns and noticed the hole, and I stood in a way that would prevent other kids from seeing my white-colored underwear through the hole. During my bicycle route, I carried a card with a list of elements on it, and I looked at the card while delivering the Oakland Tribune, and memorized the card. What I memorized was this list: Scandium, Titanium, Vanadium, Chromium, Manganese, Iron, Cobalt, Nickel, Copper, Zinc. When it was time to collect the monthly money, one of the customers was an old lady with a thick German accent, and sometimes she said this to me, "Come tomorrow."
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