Bail on McDonald’s, toss Coke cans sleep-walking before joining UO as first-term freshman.
The Sandy High class of ‘86 had a few bound for private schools, like John Jagosh of Willamette University. A trio of college kids worked that summer at Thriftway. A rowdy HS crew visited Eugene.
Three weeks as a McDonald’s fry cook got the surly best of me. A job as a bottle boy came calling.
Two months short of dorm life, we’re bagging groceries and tossing Coke cans at a Sandy supermarket up the Mount Hood Corridor.
“Clock in now, right now,” a motherly employee advises me at 9:01 a.m. “Every minute you’re late, it’s a dollar docked.”
John Jagosh, soon off to Willamette University, is at check-stand four, where he will help out such Thriftway cashiers as Rick Fry—Sandy High’s quarterback when The Bee Gees topped the charts—and Mel Bennett, my neighbor up Idleman Street whose year-end pay stub once washed down to our driveway.
There is also checker Ryan Eicher, my Little League baseball teammate in grade school. “I’ll be making $5.75 before long,” he says triumphantly, raising his fingers like Eminem.
There is carry-out girl Christine Schiel, the best prep track athlete in the state, a tall blonde who breezed over the 400 meters and 300-meter hurdles in Eugene, leading the Pioneers to the big-schools state title. She will join me at the University of Oregon, still an abstract idea to our 18-year-old senses.
The Class of ’86 has a few kids heading to private schools. Aaron George is going to USC, class co-valedictorian Dixie Cochran to George Fox University. Whether state or private goers, we all need summer jobs to help out Mom and Dad. Sandy is a bedroom community to Portland but has few students, if any, from filthy rich backgrounds.
Friday night beer busts are all about Hamm’s and Rainier, never Heineken, rarely Henry Weinhard’s.
Jagosh, a classmate of mine since fourth grade, is a carry-out boy, filling up brown paper sacks before wheeling them out to the parking lot. He and Schiel get to gab a bit with customers in parking-lot sunshine. As long as the eggs don’t break and the strawberries aren’t smashed, they’re good. Of course, they also have to satisfy the cashiers, perhaps the hardest part.
My job, the least desirable of the two and the lowest paid, centers around throwing recyclable aluminum cans into 10 tall boxes, each designated to respective soft-drink and beer labels. Pretty soon, it becomes mind-numbing, when a stray Coke mixes in with a Coors. One day, a manager—one of two brothers there—reprimands me.
“Let’s pick up the pace,” he says. As if to make a point, he gets a toilet brush and stoops over the bowl, vigorously scrubbing. “See, that’s how hard work’s done.” Somehow, it seems like a dig at college kids.
Far down the cargo corridor is the produce section, co-supervised by a young guy who might be 20 and, again, appears to have a beef with Oregon Ducks. His name is Dan, and he knows about the college-bound trio at Thriftway.
“You, Scott,” he says, smirking when his shift is up. “Spray these vegetables down in an hour. Don’t forget.” Produce is not my job.
Fry, who helped out coaching Little League and is cool, overhears the comment.
“Dave, over here,” he says in between stocking detergent. “Why do you even listen to that guy? If I were you, I would . . . Whatever.”
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