Summer Jobs

This blog title did not come as a deja vu concept, rather a current situation has dredged up ong forgotten and buried memories.

Growing up Jensen meant that somehow, some way, you spent time in economic activity, i.e. summer jobs. Well, we all had them. Some were good, some, not so good. RJ lucked out with the lifeguard jobs. DJ did a myriad of warehouse and office type work. Lou was involve in retail- but I could be very mistaken here.

Me? Well, as indicated before, I worked ramp at O'Hare Airport, but also dabbled in painting addresses on curbs, camp counselor for the YMCA, but the most poignant job- an likely not equalled- was the summer I worked for Louie Frappier Construction. "Construction" , I found out too late, is a loosely termed word meaning : sewer and septic service. Yep, you got it. Like the kids in Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss movie, this was the job to propel me into the mega body I wanted- abs, .. well, you get the picture- manly stuff for the summer. Instead, being rather slight of build, I was the perfect hire to go down into septic tanks. Also, as the "grunt", I was the guy they left at a job site for a day to dig out and replace old septic tile fields. Mom would make me a bag lunch that I could only eat by taking the external side of the bag and hopefully chew through any wrappings to the food. All day, I was alone with my thoughts while plowing through my work. Everytime I ran into a broken pipe or a tough dig, I thought "Oh, crap" . Little did I know, my thoughts COULD became reality!

Character builder job? Nope, don't think so, except that I did spend a heck of a lot more time studying the next year at ASU for a "desk job".