My First Job

Things are never the same after a death in the family. We know things will be different. Suddenly there were two people who lived in our home, instead of three.

After Daddy died, I went to both drugstores to ask for a job. The one, where I thought I wanted to work, was not hiring. So I applied at the Rexall Drugstore. They hired me to be a "soda jerk" and paid me 35 cents an hour.

The schedule was 4-6:30 p.m. three days a week; 6-10 p.m. two days a week; Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The next week it was two days a week 4-6:30 p.m.; three days 6-10 p.m.; and Saturday noon til 10:30 p.m. I may not have the rotation exactly correct but you get the idea.

I couldn't drive alone at night because I was only 15 years old. Mom would usually take me to work and pick me up when I worked the evening shifts.

The first day I worked some guy came in and asked for condoms - I had no idea what he wanted. The senior high school girl, who worked with me, took over and really laughed at my naivete'.

My main responsibility was to work at the fountain but I could also help out elsewhere in the store, if the fountain wasn't busy.

We served cokes and rootbeers from machines - and oh, how I hated to clean the insides of those machines! We made milk shakes, malts, ice cream sodas, chocolate milk called a "400". If we made an ice cream float with the chocolate milk, it was called and "800." The "400" came in a small coke glass while the "800" was in a large glass. We also made coke and rootbeer floats, limeades, and we served coffee.

We sold sweet rolls, donuts, sandwiches made with ham salad, chicken salad plus toasted cheese sandwiches.

My least favorite customer came in with her young daughter at 10:25 on Saturday evenings. Every machine and the grill would be cleaned up for the next day. This lady always ordered shakes and toasted sandwiches! So we would have to clean up the grill and the milk shake machine again! Of course, we were anxious to get finished so we could go to the dance at the American Legion Hall.

The clerks all learned to make shakes, ham or chicken salad. We also made "simple syrup" - water and suger - which we used to sweeten the limeades. We made it in a five gallon container. One time I dropped this glass container on the floor in the back room. Oh, my! What a sticky, ugly mess! I had the pleasure of cleaning it up! Yuck!

A married couple owned the store. The man was easy going but we hated to see his wife come in. It was like the "good" cop and the "bad" cop. He let us get away with some goofing off - but when she came in, she certainly didn't let us get away with anything!

The man would often put a scoop or two of chocolate ice cream in a coke glass and then put carmel sauce on top. I tried it out. Yum! Delicious!

I worked at the Rexall for three years in high school. I was a cheerleader the last two years. Two other clerks from my class were also cheerleaders and worked there. The store would close during the games so we were free to go. However, if we were scheduled to work Friday evenings, we would return to the store after the game and wait on customers for an hour or so before we could go to the Friday night teen-age dance at the Legion Hall. Of course, we didn't change out of our cheer leading uniforms and worked in them.

Working at the Rexall was a good experience. When the man who hired me and his wife sold out, we got a new boss. He was one of the good guys. He expected us to work but he also allowed us to have some fun.