By Mo McCooper, January 21, 2010 — After earning nickels and dimes carrying shopping bags from the Acme and the A & P supermarkets to their cars and or homes, some of the housewives asked if we could cut their grass, shovel their sidewalks and snow covered steps and help clean their cellars.
In the summer in between 7th and 8th grades I was hired as a soda jerk by a drug store owner named “Doc” Schekter who taught me to scoop ice cream for cones, milkshakes, and ice cream sodas. Sodas were also made by adding coca, coffee, root beer, and other syrups to fizzy soda water. Customers would also bring tasty cakes and pretzels to the soda fountain where we had learned to work the cash register.
Bananas, cherries, and some kinds of nuts were used to make ice cream sundaes which adults ordered for themselves and sometimes their children or grandchildren.
Teenage boys spent their nickels in the pin ball machine while other kids watched. Sometimes they lifted the machine onto the wide edges of their Tom McCann shoes to cheat.
Some used a coat hanger to pry up the edges of the top of the machine and score points and illegal free games. When caught they were thrown out of the store for a while but the police were never called.
39 cents per hour was my wage and I felt like a BIG SHOT!