Halvorsen Saga

 I'm not sure if the year is right, this could have been between my junior and senior year, that is 1970 instead of 1969. I found a job with Asphalt Paving & Gravel. They were putting gravel on a large electrical switching station at  44° 7'58.24"N,  99°26'11.58"W just north of Ft Thompson, SD. I was a gopher, I was hired to be the odd job guy to rake the gravel into the tight places, pull the dump truck cords, get the drinks, etc. The interesting point was that although it wasn't too far away from Huron by today's standards, back then, it was forever away...an hour and a half. So four of us would get into one of our cars and drive to Lee's Corner every Monday and come home Friday night. Lee's Corner was a tiny store out in the middle of nowhere and they used to have a trailer with four beds...perfect. The job was to haul gravel from near the river in Ft Thompson to the station, spread it out about 6" deep and ensure it was level throughou...

 I had just graduated from high school, the draft was on, the Bird Dogs had scattered, and minimum wage was $1.40/hour. I was registered for college in the fall so had a draft deferment but needed dollars. My dad finally relented, thanks to Joe Stahl, and allowed me to work at Armour's where the starting salary was almost $4.00/hr.  I think they wanted to test me, I was given the job of scraping fat off of the ceiling of the kill floor. For two weeks I laid on my back, nose just a foot away from a filthy ceiling, and scraped the goo off of the ceiling with a wire brush. I had to wear a mask and goggles and it was hot. Really, really hot. After two hours I could take a break, after two hours more I could eat lunch then another two hours another break and then finally home. For two miserable weeks I did that.  The plant had six floors, I think but am not sure that this is how they were laid out. The top floor was the kill floor. One side of the floor was for cattle, the oth...

I truthfully don't remember exactly the timing...I think during the summer between my junior and senior years. I went to a two week ROTC summer camp in Topeka, Kansas, that year and a week summer class at U of Minn so it wasn't a full work summer. I will digress... My best friend in college during my sophomore, junior and senior years was a wild Irishman from Minnesota named Patrick Condon. We did everything together but were not roommates, his roommate, Vince, was also Irish from the same hometown as Patrick. They were insane together, I was the calm one. Patrick joined SAE with me and we were both in USAF ROTC.  The summer of 1970, Patrick drove to Brookings where I picked him up and off we went to summer camp at Forbes AFB, KS (now closed). We were both just 21 and had both taken a liking to Singapore Slings. Summer camp was a two week very mild boot camp. We were allowed to leave the base on the weekend so Patrick and I rented a hotel room and filled our cooler with Singapo...

Early morning, freezing temperatures, deep snow, and grumpy customers, that was my first job…a newspaper boy! I delivered the “Minneapolis Star” newspaper to about 35-40 houses six days a week. My paper route was a couple of miles away from home, I’d ride my bike to the route every day except Saturday. The Star was a morning paper from a big city and was popular with many folks because our local paper, the Huronite, did not have a great deal of national and international news. I didn’t mind the early hours, except in the winter. Most of the time, the quiet and solitude were perfect for me. I’d found the job because I wanted spending money and the pittance of an allowance I received from my parents certainly wasn’t enough to keep me in Snicker bars at Ravine Lake. The newspaper office was in downtown Huron, a small, run-down building in the 300 south block of Wisconsin Ave. The newspapers themselves were dropped off at a corner half a mile from my route. Several flat stacks of papers he...

That was the year my Grandpa Halvorsen died. In April. I was with him.  I had been home by myself, my parents were at the country club, I don't remember where my sister was, probably with friends. The phone rang, it was grandma, she was in a panic, crying, terrified. Grandpa had fallen and was not getting up, could I come. They lived about half a mile away, I could have run or ridden my bike but instead I jumped in my mom's 1956 Chrysler New Yorker and drove to their house. Only five minutes. My grandfather was laying on the bathroom floor, twitching violently. I went to touch him, to do something, I'm not sure what. My grandmother screamed to not touch him. All I could do was watch him shake. In 1964 in Huron, SD, there was no 911. When you called for an ambulance you were actually waiting for a doctor. Thirty minutes later the ambulance came, about the same time my parents arrived. I'd called them before I left home. By then, my grandfather had stopped shaking. Stoppe...

 I was 16 and definitely not sweet although working in a Coca-cola plant should have made me that way. I don't remember how I got the job, probably from asking at the Country Club. The owner of the plant was named Ellwein. He was a member of the club and quite vocal, hmmm loud. For some reason, he liked me. He had a daughter my age, Paula.  Back in those days all soda was sold in bottles or in fountain tanks. The plant I worked at bottled Coke and 7-Up, and maybe Fresca. I don't remember if we actually bottled Fresca but I do remember Ellwein saying that he thought Fresca would knock competitor Squirt off the map. Didn't happen. The bottles were reused, so a deposit was charged when you bought the product and when you returned the bottle you received your deposit back. The deposit on each bottle was two cents. As little kids, we would look for bottles in the ditch or the ballpark, take them to a grocery store, and get two cents each. Coca-cola "plant" is probably ...