Summer in The Pit

"The pit" would not exist today. For a couple of reasons. First, there is no need for it any longer. Second, it would be environmentally illegal.

The pit was a metal box, four feet by four feet by four feet. It was enclosed on all but one side. It stood on four legs waist high. On the top there was a fan. It needed a fan to get rid of some of the toxic chemical fumes that were produced in the pit. On the bottom there was a hole. Attached to the hole was a hose that drained into a bucket. It needed a drain so the toxic sludge also produced in the pit had somewhere to go.

For four summers during my high school years, I worked at the pit. From 8AM to 5PM, Monday through Friday, mid-June through mid-September I stood there, wearing goggles, but no mask, no gloves, a t-shirt, jeans, and tennies. I believe I got paid a dollar an hour.

The pit, in case you were wondering, is where manual typewriters ... the old Royals, Smith-Coronas, Underwoods, Olympias ... would be brought for their annual cleaning and refurbishing. It was a big job. Back then, every high school in the Santa Clara Valley (long before it was Silicon Valley), had typing classes. Some had two or three classes. And from September until June, all those typewriters were battered and beaten and abused by thousands of students learning how to type.

So, when summer rolled around and the schools closed for a few months, a large truck would go to each school, load up hundreds and hundreds of typewriters, bring them back to the shop that my dad owned (Modern Office Machines Company in San Jose). There I, along with several other workers, had to put them back into working order in time for the first school bell in the fall.

Some workers in the shop replaced broken keys, and polished the rollers. Others tightened screws and straightened broken links that allowed the print head to accurately hit the paper in the roller when the keys were depressed. And one person, that would be me, would stand there at the pit and with a high pressure air gun (think early version of a power washer). I would inject each stripped down machine with a powerful spray of oil and cleaning solvent, dislodging nine months of eraser shavings, gum wrappers, and hairpins and at the same time lubricating the mechanical parts.

My lungs would fill with the oil/solvent fog, my face and clothes would be covered with grease and oil and tid-bits of the rotted gems the students left behind in the mechanical typing machines. My ears would ring from the air gun compressor which was right next to me. To compensate for it, I set up a speaker inside the pit and cranked it as loud as I could, listening to the same top 40 hits played every two hours on KLIV and KFRC. I got to know radio during those summers. That's when I realized I wanted to go into broadcasting ... and not into a pit.

It sounds like a crappy job. And you know what? It really was. But I was a high school kid, looking to make some money, and it was easy and mindless. And so far, I haven't contracted any horrible diseases that I know of after breathing the carcinogenic mist.

I recall my summers of working in the pit after an article that I read today. It was in the Des Moines Register from May 21. (As I had written in a previous blog, one of our neighbors here who lives in Des Moines graciously brings me the paper to read, knowing that I miss having a daily delivered here.) The article was entitled "More Than A Summer Job." Click HERE for the link to it. It's about the invaluable experience high school students can get by working summer jobs. In this story, the jobs were at a local Des Moines grocery store, and it followed the lives of several people, some current students and some store managers who started at the Hy-Vee Market when they were kids. It was a fun read, and again, bestowed the virtues of summer work. The problem is, however, there just aren't that many summer jobs available for high school students anymore. The unemployment rate for teens ages 16-19 now stands at 24.5 percent.

Getting a summer job apparently requires much more than it used it. And sometimes it requires jobs that pay very little ... or nothing at all. My nephew, a really bright kid who goes to Chico State and is studying engineering, is heading out this summer with his church group to Seattle to do volunteer work with the homeless and inmates in prison. It might be a bit much for a high schooler, but the experience will likely be life-changing. Still, it doesn't pay.

There is a website the US Department of Labor has established to help students find summer jobs. It is www.dol.gov/summerjobs. I checked it out, and it is a good place to start.

But, it leaves me wondering. What will high school kids do now to get jobs in the summer of 2011? Maybe working in a grocery store? Maybe an ice cream place? Maybe at a car wash? Or, do they just ask mom and dad for a handout? It will likely not be easy. One thing I'm fairly sure of. None of them will be working in the pit.