It’s Just a Job

There comes a time in everybody’s life that may prove to be transformative. Actually, many of you have had this happen more than once. I’m not sure where I am on this spectrum. I’ve had many life-changing moments that in retrospect seem somewhat less than transformative.

Perhaps one is on its way. I’m not holding my breath.

Several of those moments have come courtesy of a change of jobs, a move to another place, an inheritance that would place me in a yacht club. Having a Cooper’s Hawk here for a visit could also have been. I’ve changed jobs numerous times. I have lived in numerous places: Chicago, Michigan, Cleveland, New York, Champaign-Urbana, Los Angeles, and Montana.

It was while living in L.A. that we almost made a move to New York. I was being scouted for a magazine job that sounded wonderful. We hastened to facilitate this anticipated moment by scouring the back pages of The New York Times magazine in search of suitable housing. We found what seemed to be a mansion in Rockland County, just west of the Hudson River.

I fantasized making a daily commute to the city by train. In some of my daydreams, I wore a fedora and carried an umbrella.

We were pretty giddy with excitement. The job was a perfect stop on my career path, such as it was. It almost seemed unreal. As it turned out, this magazine job was in Washington, D.C., a place that Geri and I agreed would be the last place on American soil that we would choose to live, albeit Texas was right up there.

As a nine-year-old I began playing drums in a little trio at clubs and weddings. I was paid for my efforts, but the gigs were low profile as few of my friends were allowed to spend weekend nights in bars listening to music their parents grew up on. By the time I got to high school I wanted a summer job—a job with perks that included hanging out in town while I worked.

The kids in this far western suburb spent their evenings hanging out a stand-alone kiosk that sold popcorn and soft drinks. The kids were actually just loitering. No good came from any of it, but I endeavored to jump feet-first into the culinary arts while actively hanging out with the cool kids.

I got the job running the popcorn stand, five nights a week. It was hot and nasty inside the stand. Oil spattered, the soda machine was sticky, the floor gritty with salt. My vision of hanging out with the kids who smoked cigarettes and whistled at the girls was replaced with the more realistic vision that while they played, I worked.

Following the summer of ’69 spent cleaning sewers, I headed off to Cleveland to try my hand at college. Spring of ’70 saw the closing of colleges all across the country as we endeavored to end the war in Vietnam by our refusing to attend classes. While that didn’t immediately become apparent, I joined a rock ‘n’ roll band whose music and lyrics would surely put an end to the war.

That didn’t pan out very well either.

But rehearse we did every day, practicing in an old wood barn filled with pigeons. To afford this luxury of playing music, I moved into a house with several other people and got a job driving hack for the Yellow Cab Company. I wasn’t crazy about driving a cab. The pay was unpredictable, with many a night going fareless or not getting tipped by stingy riders who didn’t care about tipping because they knew they would never see me again.

Always on the lookout for a job that would be better than driving strangers to hotels and the airport (oh, how I longed for a return to the sewer) I answered an ad to become a telemarketer, although I’m not sure that the word had been created yet.

Anyway, the gig was to sit in what was called the “boiler room” with several other callers and call small businesses in Cleveland. We were, I told the recipients of my calls, a charity trying to send inner city kids to a circus. The businesses could become tax-deductible donor-sponsors to this charitable effort.

When I would score a sale, I would hold up a note with the name and address of the business. A runner would grab the ticket and go to the business to collect the money. This routine would be used throughout the morning—four hours of calling strangers with maybe a 10 percent success rate.

Our first lunch break came at noon that Monday and everybody had an hour to roam around downtown Cleveland.

It was on the elevator going down that I commented to the boss, who would later join the cast of The Sopranos, that the whole circus charity thing was very cool. He grunted “uh-huh” and I pressed on: “When is this circus?”

“There ain’t no friggin circus.”

It was just a short walk to the cab company.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Oven Fries
This is my preferred method of preparing “fried” potatoes.
Cut a large russet potato into eight or more wedges. Place in a bowl and season them with salt and pepper. Add olive oil to cover and add a pinch or two of dried thyme. Toss until seasoning and oil are well distributed. Bake at 450° for 15-20 minutes. Toss with salt and serve.