Early Employment

Newspaper Assistant Circulation Manager

My first formal job was with The Holladay Neighbor newspaper. I was just 16 years old and had only had my driver's license for a couple of months. My mom was talking to one of the managers there and found out that they needed someone to help deliver the bundles of newspapers to the paperboys. My brother, Dave, was one of the paperboys.

It was a small weekly newspaper, put out by a Mr. Anderson. He had a few other employees. Only one, the office secretary, was full time. The paper was to be delivered by the paperboys to every home in each delivery area. Then, they went to each home each month to ask for volunteer donations. They kept a percentage of what they collected, and turned the rest in to the paper.

My job was to report to the Murray Eagle Newspaper printing office, where the paper was printed, pick up the bundles of papers and take them to each boy's home. I was also to help recruit additional paperboys. I had a route with about 15 boys, for which I was paid $5 each week. After a couple of months, one of the other bundle deliverers quit, and I was asked to take over his route also. So I was making $10 per week. I had to pay for gas out of that. Fortunately, gas was only about 25 to 30 cents per gallon. I think I ended up earning about $1.50 per hour.

I really learned how to find addresses all over Salt Lake County while working there.

The only problems I had were when there was bad weather, or when the presses broke down and I had to be out really late delivering the bundles. One night there was a combination of both problems. It was snowing, and I didn't finish delivering bundles until after 11PM. I had to have the defrosters in the car going all the time, and I was jumping in and out of the car to make deliveries. As I got near the end of the routes, I started having problems with my vision. Apparently the cold air blowing into my nose caused my sinuses to swell and press on the nerves to my eyes. I lost all peripheral vision and had a hard time keeping the car in the proper lane. Fortunately I was only about a mile from home at the time. Mom said my speech was all jumbled when I got home. After a good night's sleep I was fine. It was just really weird when it happened.

After about 1 1/2 years, the paper was purchased by 2 young political entrepreneurs, the Rosenblatt brothers, Norm and Steve. They changed the paper from a neighborhood news focus, to a left-wing propaganda focus. They even hired an avowed Communist to be the editor. They must have been trying to annoy their father, who was the long-time head of the Utah Republican Party. They also expanded the circulation far outside the Holladay area.

We had been using our personal vehicles for the deliveries. They bought some Ford Econoline vans to make the deliveries. The vans were not heavy enough to handle the loads of papers, and overloading them made them very unstable and dangerous. They had moved the printing to a plant in Tooele. Driving back from there with a load, the van would suddenly, without warning, change lanes. Once I found myself in the wrong lane, with a cement truck coming head-on toward me. I quickly dodged back into my own lane with a near miss. I was happy to quit shortly after that.

I started out using Mom and Dad's cars at first, but eventually saved enough to buy my own car, a 1957 Chevrolet. Soon after getting my own car, I finished my Lifeguard and Water Safety Instructor classes at the University of Utah and was able to earn more money that way, so I quit that job.

Lifeguard and Swimming Teacher

My first lifeguard job was at the Club Fontainbleu. It was a small neighborhood swimming club, with grand designs to become much bigger. They had an Olympic size pool, meaning it was at least 25 yards long and wide enough for several lanes, which had been built by one of their members. He had only previously built small backyard pools, and really botched the job on the bigger pool. That caused us several problems in maintaining the pool.

There was a clubhouse, divided into men's and women's dressing rooms, and a common area with vending machines and where we stored deck furniture. Just outside the clubhouse was a foundation, with a basement where the clubhouse was to be expanded.

The filters for the pool were inadequate for keeping the pool clean, so we had to clean them and reinstall them every night. Cleaning them required back flushing with pool water. We had to dump the dirty water somewhere, usually in the empty basement foundation. That became a large frog pond after a while. The procedure also lowered the pool level a few inches, so we had to refill the pool with cold water every night. While the pool was filling, I would finish all of the other clean up and closing tasks. A couple of times I forgot to turn off the refill system when I locked up for the night. By the time I remembered and returned to shut it off, the nearby empty field was a swamp.

I took Georgia and some other friends there one night after closing hours. That was approved by the powers in charge. I trapped her behind one of the pool ladders, but didn't do anything more than say, "Gotcha trapped." She later admitted being disappointed that I did nothing more. I gave her the first hug I had ever given her while wrapping her in a towel. She was totally surprised by that.

My next lifeguard job was at Willow Creek Country Club. I also taught lessons and helped coach the swimming team. I remember teaching one young boy how to do the butterfly stroke. He went on to win the country club league championship.

One of my duties was to clean the locker rooms after we closed up. One evening a young, recently engaged couple came to swim just before closing time. He came out of the locker room about half an hour after we closed. I had already completed all the outside cleaning jobs, so I then went in to clean the men's locker room. That took me about another half hour. I came out and waited another 15 minutes or so, to make sure the lady had gone. I couldn't imagine that she could still be in there. So I opened the door to go in and there she was, sitting at the mirror in just a lacy black bra and slip, still putting on makeup. I made a quick exit, very embarrassed, and went to sweeping the pool deck until after I saw her actually leave. I had had no idea it could take a girl so long to get ready for a date.

The next year, 1965, I was able to get a job lifeguarding and teaching swimming at the Deseret Gym in Salt Lake. I had not been selected to work there when they first opened, but a month later they decided they needed more staff, and I was hired. That was February, and I worked there until I had to leave for ROTC Summer Camp in June.

When I got back from camp, it was less than 2 weeks before my marriage to Georgia, so I decided to wait until after the honeymoon to ask for my job back. When I returned the first of August, all the positions were filled, and it looked like I would have to wait until school started in the fall, or until someone quit. The pool manager asked one of the lifeguards, who had his mission call, when he planned to quit. He had already decided to leave as soon as a replacement was available, so I got to start the next day. The Lord blessed us with that job.

I worked there while going to school until January of 1967, when my schedule got too heavy to both go to school and work. I loved that job and was sad to leave it. I loved teaching, and apparently got pretty good at it, because I was rewarded with the best teaching position, teaching the lifesaving class. I taught future lifeguards from the summer of 1966 until I left.

One of the challenges I faced in that position was when a group of young men from the Cyprus High School state championship swim team signed up for my class, along with some college PE majors from Utah State University. There were also some average swimmers in the class who were pushed along faster than they felt ready for, as a result of the way-above-average students' pace. Everyone did quite well, and all graduated feeling confident in their knowledge and ability.

Concrete Construction

After I finished my graduation requirements at the University of Utah, I only needed to wait for my orders to come through from the Air Force. But they were slow in coming, and the first orders were in error, so it took even longer. I had some time to work for a few weeks, from the end of February until the first of May. Granddad got me a job working concrete construction for a contractor who was working on some of the projects Granddad was a supervisor for.

A couple of things that happened while I was there included a nearly broken toe and a near electrocution. Working in the rain, the ground was quite slippery. As I rounded a corner carrying a heavy concrete form, I slipped and planted the corner of the form on one of my big toes. That night when I removed my blood filled shoe, the toe was extremely painful. My dad took me to an orthopedist the next morning. He x-rayed my foot and found that the toe was not broken. Then he heated a needle in a Bunsen burner and used it to pierce the toenail to relieve the pressure. As the needle penetrated the toenail, a spurt of blood and water came out and sprayed clear from the floor to the ceiling. But the severe pain was gone. I went back to work the next day.

A few days later I was standing atop the recently poured cement wall using a tool called a vibrator to get the bubbles out of the wet cement. It was raining, and the vibrator suddenly conducted the electricity through me. The power threw me off the wall, still holding onto the vibrator. I guess I couldn't let go. The boss quickly unplugged the machine. I was just fine, but he wouldn't let me operate the vibrator the rest of the day, and I had to go back to hauling forms.