When I graduated from high school in 1966 I was already bitten by the motorcycle bug. This was a hobby that required money, so a full-time summer job would be needed. I got that job in the simplest way possible. I asked my father to hire me. His title was Business Officer of the Syracuse State School, which meant he was in charge of the non-medical administration of the place. One of his responsibilities was hiring people. There was some money in the budget for summer help, so he hired me. Shortest job interview I ever had: “Okay, you’re hired. Report for work at 7 am.” I was assigned to the grounds crew. There were the permanent employees, three of us summer help people, and occasionally we were helped by the residents of the State School.
The job was great for a young person who liked the outdoors. We mowed lawns twice a week because the administration did not want the lawns to look like they had just been mowed. That was fine with me, I didn’t care what I mowed as long as I got paid. We had push mowers, I don’t know if riders had even been invented yet. We also cleared brush without power tools. I’m not sure why, but one result was that we all became proficient with a machete. There was also weeding and planting to be done. This was all good, we even had some fun doing the work. Unfortunately, there was one job we young guys hated, and that was picking up the garbage. The State School had outlying properties like halfway houses and picking up the garbage once a week was the responsibility of the school. We had an old dump truck and a driver who was not required to get out of the truck. I understood why. Two of us from the grounds crew were selected. The shortest person, who was always me, was in the bed of the truck. The other person was on the ground. The guy on the ground would hoist a metal garbage can into the back of the truck and I would carry or drag the can to the front of the bed. Then I would dump it and take the can to the back of the truck where the ground person took it and heaved up the next can. This was repeated until we were done and ready to drive to the next stop. The trash had been festering in the cans for up to a week. There was no recycling then, no separation of trash. It all got tossed in those metal cans. After a few cans I had to walk through that disgusting garbage to dump the next can. There were maggots and flies and who knows what other life forms in it. It smelled really, really bad. It’s hard to describe, just imagine the smell of a mound of rotting everything. The smell got into your shirt, your pants, your boots, everywhere. The garbage also made the bed of the truck slippery. Luckily I never slipped and fell, there was a real incentive to stay upright. Driving from pickup spot to pickup spot meant that as we drove the three of us had to sit right next to each other on the bench seat of that truck. Never was togetherness less desired. Finally we were done and we headed at about 25 mph to the dump. The truck rattled and strained all the way. Every time the driver shifted gears there was a terrible metallic grinding. I was told that we went so slow to avoid spilling garbage out the back. I always suspected that the real reason was that the piece of junk truck wouldn’t go over 25 mph. People pulled around to pass us in a hurry. I’ll never know if their haste was due to the smell, our slowness, or probably both. When we got back to the State School there was no welcoming shower or change of clothes. We went straight home. Some of my clothes may have been burned. I don’t remember.
After a couple of summers at the State School they wanted me to put on a white shirt and pants and work with the residents. I had zero desire to do that so I went to work for UPS.