Post High School Graduation

Much of the following was happening simultaneously or in close proximity, even though I’ve separated them as best I can remember of the sequence of events to make them a little easier to write about.

Working With Dad

I quit Sandy’s shortly after graduation. I didn’t like the politics of the manager and his nephew, whom he hired as assistant manager, even though I had been vying for the position. The nephew made a point of lording it over me every time I came in to work. So the last time, I walked out and left him to do my job too… C’est la vie.

Dad kept me busy working with his installers and himself. He generally had three crews working on any given day. At the time, he was the main installer for all the Sears stores in Lorain County and a couple in Cuyahoga. He paid me minimum wage, which was $1.25/hr at the time. We did furnaces, water heaters, bathroom and kitchen remodeling, and roofs. Plus, Guy and I had to clean nails and tiles from scrap lumber that Dad collected from the jobs we worked… and that for no pay. Dad and I were constantly at odds over my progress as a ‘plumber/installer’, which I didn’t want to be; and he for his part, claimed he didn’t want me to be either. It came to a head after IDPI (International Data Processing Institute) and my first quarter at LC³ (Lorain County Community College).

I had grown a goatee and was letting my hair get longer than he liked. One morning as I was getting ready to head out with one of his installation crews, he stopped me and said that he wouldn’t have someone who looked like me (a goddamn hippie… his words) representing his business, disgracing it. That I should shave and cut my hair or be gone when he got home. And I was… gone that is.

By that time I had my GTO and was planning to live in it for a bit, but got a room at the Elyria YMCA for $10/week instead and got a job working as a stock boy for minimum wage in a camera shop, Loomis Camera, across the square from the Y. But again, I’m getting a little ahead of the story.

To be Continued

–LE