And this

Some other jobs, worthy of note…

Once my parents began the push to imprint “work” upon my vulnerable young mind, it became a daily event. They never seemed to miss a chance to mention the word. And so I began to explore the different ways that a child could make money. Collecting bottles for the refund money was always a popular job. I would drag my red wagon around the town, eyes peeled for an empty bottle or two. At that time the refund was 2 cents per bottle, so 3 empties would net you a candy bar at Stuarts Pharmacy. 5 bottles was the big time; 10 cent candy bars were the best!

Other jobs I tried were door-to-door selling. Magazine subscriptions were the favorite. You could get the necessary subscription kit by sending in your name and address to a company found in the back pages of a comic book. Those pages had dozens of money making schemes and I tried lots of them. I even sold soap door to door.

But the ideal job was that of “paper boy”, a job that I really wanted. But since one paper boy could have a route that delivered perhaps a hundred papers, the jobs were very scarce. I remember that a route of 100 papers could net $30 dollars a month, a small fortune.

I got a chance to deliver papers once when a friend of mine (“Buddy”) went on vacation and asked if I would substitute for him and deliver them. It was mind numbing work to fold and rubber band the papers and then began the real test…remembering which houses got a paper and which ones didn’t. I never got it right and ended up having to make second trip to deliver a missing paper and apologize. At the end of two weeks, I was more than happy to turn the route back to “Buddy”. (Of course, later in our lives he became an Eagle Scout…and I became a mere Webelo)