I told myself that it would be wrong to go straight into the arts because life experience was crucial both because if I succeeded well as a painter it could not be said that I was a prodigy with no other talent and I would have a demonstrable skill pool “to fall back on”.
Education is good. I learned that having something to fall back on was like keeping a girlfriend in case marriage doesn’t work out. One ends up with the girlfriend and regrets. The beautiful things that would have been made had I gone straight into painting!
I began working at ten. Not full time, just summer work. 1st job: Christiansen Berry Farm – strawberries paid by the flat.
We worked every summer to pay for our clothing and school supplies.
I sometimes babysat. Actual babies. I was paid in small sums of real money. For fun, one day I was invited back with my penny books and they dumped their jugs of coppers on the living room floor so we could all find most of the dates and we nearly filled the book. 1930’s and earlier were scarce.
Picking beans, berries, nuts, and hay. Except they called it “raking” for nuts and just “haying”.
Garbage pickup and odd jobs a trailer court. We found some fun books.
During blackberry season was the first time I wanted to quit a job.
I irrigated beans then worked as the checker for pickers.
Plucking chickens during molting season. Awful.
Air Force. Radio. Discovered sports cars. Glorious!
Door factory, stacking wood.
Telemarketing. Quit after 15 min.
Nursing home for a year
Fast food at the DQ. I discovered malt. Fried pickles don’t work. Found love. Married.
The trades: weld, torch, scarf, fit, burn, rig, and weld more. Time stood still.
Car sales. Fired.
lab Tech
Scientific illustrator. maggots and raspberries.
handyman
Programmer and software support.
Network architect and admin on a small scale
Hardware support of computer and terminal network.
Database maintenance and admin.
Computer repair.
The most jobs in one year: 7+
Run a Small office: longest held job requiring the highest number of hats
