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This week’s writing prompt was – Jobs

Jobs

I’m not sure how my father made money growing up. I know he said he played soccer on a national team (something I’ve never been able to confirm). I’m not sure how much that would have paid him. He left Germany in 1933 to go to France. He lived there for 5 years. Again, I have no information as to what he did there to make a living. In 1938, he came to the United States to stay. There, at least, I know that he earned money as a waiter or busboy in Atlantic City for a while. By the time I was born, he was a shipping clerk in various factories. I only remember going to one in Queens with him periodically, where I could watch him stack boxes and take inventory. He also ran a little import business importing and selling French knick-knacks. It was called Walter de Paris, Inc. I still have his corporate seal.

My mom came to the United States in 1938 directly from Germany; she was 20 years old. I assume her parents footed the bill. Her older brother Hugo and sister Gerda were already here, so they might have helped pay for her immigration.

By the time I was about seven years old, my mother worked at the Fanny Farmer Chocolate factory, which was a 10-15 minute walk from our apartment. I would occasionally walk there to pick her up, hoping that one of the other women employees who left the same time my mom did would offer my cute little self some chocolate. I was occasionally successful in my endeavors. 

When my older older sister graduated from college, she became a social worker. When my younger older sister graduated from college, she became a teacher in the East Bronx. 

As I was applying to college, my father gave me no indication as to what I should major in. Since neither he nor my mother had attended college, he didn’t quite understand how it worked in terms of majors and careers. 

My mother, on the other hand, thought I was good with numbers. I did well in my math grades in high school, more by luck than skill. She encouraged me to apply as an engineering major, which I did. I got into SUNY Stony Brook and entered the College of Engineering. I lasted in Engineering for one year. Between Calculus and Physics, I was a lost cause. 

I took myself out of the Engineering track starting my Sophomore year, and declared myself an Undecided major. When I graduated from college in 1972, I graduated with a double major in Education and Psychology. I had the credits for both, so why not? My sisters should have been proud; I followed in both their footsteps. 

I immediately moved out of my parents’ house and shared a home with a number of my graduating friends in Stony Brook. 

I’d like to say that I immediately got hired by a school district where I continued teaching for 34 years. But I didn’t. I got hired by J.C. Penney’s as a stockboy, following in my father’s footsteps for 6 months, before being hired in Shoreham as an administrative assistant in their 7th and 8th grade for a month. I left them for a job as as a permanent substitute in a 6th-grade classroom in the Three Village School District for the remainder of the year (5 months). 

At the end of that school year I was one of seven teachers hired as a 6th-grade teacher in the Shoreham-Wading River Middle School for its inaugural start in the combined district of SWR, where I did end up teaching for 33 years (not all in 6th grade) until I retired.

Following retirement from SWR, I worked on storytelling as a sideline, and as a “casual employee” for the BOCES Model Schools program, as an Educational Technology Integration Specialist. 

When that fizzled out, I started subbing back in my old school district to go along with my storytelling, up until COVID hit. 

I haven’t subbed since then, though I’m still on the sub list. I’m somewhat COVID-shy, especially after dealing with a couple of heart issues and having caught COVID after telling stories in a 45-minute session with 4th graders at my old school. 

Any storytelling activities now are virtual, unless I’m invited to do some writing or storytelling with any of my ex-coworkers’ classes in my district. But even that is waning. Once retired, you tend to be forgotten. At least, it feels that way.

I miss having those jobs and interacting with people. When you spend a lifetime with others helping them become better at who they are and what they’ll be, it’s tough not having that connection anymore.

I look forward to it as my wife takes more time off and finally retires, allowing us to spend more time with each other, our family, and friends. This will also give us time to explore the world around us, see new places, and meet new people along the way.