I’ve already written some about my life in the media business, starting with the Middlebury Independent and Crystal Valley Express, a newspaper and shopper that I sold ads for just out of college. My boss was David Summerfield, who was an executive with Coachman Industries for many years before buying the state’s oldest newspaper and the Square Nail restaurant next door. My title as Advertising Manager was certainly a step in the right direction towards getting involved in the business that I studied in college. I had previously worked fulltime as a supervisor for FORMEX, a Styrofoam company in Elkhart, while finishing my degree. Both of my bosses were named Charlie, if I remember correctly. I was hired by Coppinger as a production worker, advanced to be a supervisor under Bartlett, and eventually was laid-off. A headhunter then found me the job in Middlebury. 

All the work before this were odd jobs. One summer, while home from college, I worked part-time for Speedgrip Chuck, a manufacturing company. They made “chucks,” just as the name implies, that firmly grips a rotating drill bit, for example. My friend Bob Grove had a girlfriend whose father owned the place, and we were hired to clean florescent lightbulbs. Bob and I used a forklift to raise us to ceiling height, cautiously removed the glass bulbs from the fixtures, cleaned them with soap and water, then replaced them and moved on to the next set of lights. It was tedious work with no supervision and thankfully no cameras to monitor us. Naturally, as teenagers, we spent a lot of time goofing off and it was difficult to see which ones we had cleaned and those yet to do. Hours were wasted flinging wet sponges into buckets of suds, like a basketball game, and each other. After we were done cleaning each night, we lounged around the main offices that were airconditioned and poked through the drawers of employees, finding all their hidden contraband. It was probably never reported when things were undoubtedly found out of place, since they shouldn’t have had these things at the office to begin with. Fortunately, we were not thieves, just curious young men discovering the unmentionable! 

Two summers I spent working for Phillips Irrigation, putting in sprinkler systems and farm irrigation equipment. It was owned by two brothers, and I would arrive half-asleep each morning at 7 a.m. We would load our trucks with supplies each morning and usually be at the first job by 8 a.m. It was the first structured job that I ever had, and my mentor, Odie, was a mean S.O.B., with a slow southern drawl. He was probably some relation to the owner and lived on their property in a rusted-out mobile home, so he was always early. He hated college kids since he was probably only grade-school educated, but I managed to earn his respect through the years to the point that we worked together all the time. At first, he hovered over me, taking great delight in pointing out each error that I made. However, in the process, he taught me how to use tools properly and how to operate a Ditch Witch, a machine that laid plastic pipe under the sod or would dig trenches to bury this same type of flexible irrigation pipe. I also did a lot of shovel work on this job and would install what they called a “saddle” at points where the pop-up sprinkler heads would attach. The process involved carefully burning an opening in the pipe to allow water to flow to the surface and adjusting the “heads” to properly cover a specific grassy area. I learned all about pumps, wells, and various types of sprinkling systems, like the Rain Bird brand my dad had installed at our home. Odie was very careful about treating each man’s lawn like it was the 18th hole of the Master’s, so I learned well. I often wonder about what ever happened to Odie, my first real boss?

The next temporary job I held was painting a house between my freshman and sophomore years at Albion College. The house belonged to a friend named Alan Harper’s uncle, who made the mistake hiring two sloppy college students to paint his pristine, country club home. We rushed through the job, took the cash, and ran off to California, the most memorable journey of my life. I would go on to live with Alan at I.U. the next few semesters in two different apartments, after he convinced me to transfer schools. 

Once Alan and I stopped being roommates, I worked briefly at the Indiana University library, a place I never visited as a student but should have. I stayed in Bloomington the summer between my junior and senior year and collected only a few paychecks before unexpectedly returning home to Elkhart, getting married, and finishing my degree at I.U. South Bend. I did enjoy the aura of being amongst the stacks of books, learning the Dewey Decimal System, and returning used books to their proper places on the shelf. With the quiet nature of the library setting, it was not the type of social experience that I might normally desire, interacting with customers and fellow workers, but that would come with future jobs. My boss was a woman, although I don’t remember her name, the first of many mostly positive experiences working with the opposite sex. 

My working career slowly progressed from mowing lawns, into irrigation, light bulb cleaning, librarian assistant, and Styrofoam production before selling newspaper and radio ads. I then took an Account Executive position with B.J. Thompson Advertising in Mishawaka, Indiana. We handled the Burger Chef restaurants account, so my responsibilities centered around local store marketing. I assisted various store managers in their efforts to support their local communities, utilizing the Burger Chef and Jeff characters for promotions and appearances at key events. There were times when I even had to put on the costume or flip burgers in a restaurant. I learned a lot about the restaurant business from my female boss, Tacy Hendershot, but ultimately decided to go back into the media business.

Just before retirement, I spent a year selling men’s suits and accessories at Joseph A. Banks in their downtown Austin, Texas location, and worked part-time for the Austin Chamber of Commerce. Joseph Yazbek, was the tough-minded store manager who spoke with a Lebanese accent. Robert was my Chamber boss who I never saw eye-to-eye with, but soon moved on to the Austin Business Journal, going full-circle in the newspaper sales business. I did earn several sales awards while with this company under two women managers, starting with Lynne Chastine who hired me. When we moved to Portland, Oregon, I finished my career at Alpha Media, selling ads for six radio stations under several different managers. Likely, there will be more odd jobs in my future.