The Wages Of A Summer Job

Last week I revisited some of the summer jobs of my long-ago youth. (The Summer Job of Personal Growth) I was reminded of this topic when my wife and I visited our youngest son recently at his summer job at Hume Lake Christian Camps high in the cool, clean air of the Sequoia National Forest. Tough gig, right?

In that column, I reminisced about one particularly sweaty summer spent out in our family’s garage sorting through thousands of nuts and bolts and other zinc-plated hardware without the benefit of even a transistor radio to help me pass the time. As coincidence would have it, the rules for counselors at Hume Lake don’t allow them to have their iPods on duty either. Even more unique in this day and age is that there is absolutely zero cell phone reception up there. And no internet. Or TV.

Oh, the horror of it all.

So what does everybody do all summer? They live life. They explore. They sing songs. They talk to each other. I mean, deep, meaningful conversations. They study the Bible. They pray. They play. They play some more. They experience the beauty, wonder and joy of God’s creation without the almost overwhelming digital distractions so present in our lives today. Sounds like heaven to me.

On any given weekend, my son doesn’t know what job he’ll have the following week until a staff meeting on Sunday afternoon. Although he has worked some weeks as a cook in one of the camp’s kitchens (they feed as many as 1,200 hungry campers at each meal!), most weeks he works as a counselor to a group of boys of either elementary, middle school or high school age.

That means he spends the next six days being the boys’ confidant, mentor, security guard, pastor, nanny, activities director, trail guide and surrogate parent. He eats all three meals with his guys and sleeps in their cabins (or covered wagon in the case of the younger boys). So far this summer, he has experienced the joys, stresses and frustrations of caring for homesick kids, frightened kids, bored kids, angry kids, troubled kids, barfing kids, lonely kids, clingy kids, kids who won’t eat, kids who won’t stop eating, gassy kids, kids with acute arachnophobia and everything in between. 

As camp staff, he’s gets a weekly salary (which works out to be around $4 an hour) plus meals and a place to sleep at night. When he isn’t counseling, his living quarters are unfortunately only slightly better than sleeping in an abandoned rail car in suburban Fresno.

As I write this, he has two more weeks at camp until he comes home for several days and then leaves again for his sophomore year in college. He is exhausted beyond his ability to express it. He has caught several of the nasty colds and flu bugs that have raced through the camp this summer. He deeply misses his friends and family. He misses the internet and his music.

And he couldn’t be happier.

During our visit, my wife and I saw that our son has already earned something that won’t show up on any pay stub: namely, patience, fortitude, resilience, commitment and most importantly, what it means to be there for a kid who needs comforting, advice, strength, guidance, friendship and reassurance at any hour of the day or night.

In fact, my son said something during our visit that confirmed our suspicions. During a quiet moment, and with a heavy sigh, he said, “Dad, I think I’m starting to understand what it’s like to be a parent.” Let me tell you, it was all I could do not to dance around the room like the quarterback on a winning Super Bowl team.

But I didn’t. My face muscles almost cramped from trying to keep a straight face and not grin from ear to ear. I simply said, “Well, mom and I are very proud of your dedication and commitment to these kids, son. You’re certainly learning a lot this summer.”

At least I think that’s what I said. I couldn’t actually hear my own voice over the Mormon Tabernacle Choir belting out the Hallelujah Chorus in my head.

Please don’t tell the folks who operate Hume Lake, but I would have paid THEM to hire my son this summer. I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is an edited version of my column first published yesterday, 8.4.11 in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

The Summer Job of Personal Growth

As far back as I can remember, I had a summer job as a kid. And no, in spite of what my own kids think – those jobs didn’t involve helping Fred Flinstone wash his brontosaurus or Herr Gutenberg print Bibles.

Having a summer job was just an expected part of growing up around our house. Other than the seemingly endless list of chores and projects that my Dad would have for my brothers and me, however, I don’t remember what the actual jobs might have been.  

Maybe my memory has simply protected me from the adolescent anguish of having to perform backbreaking work at slave wages from sunup to sundown while “all of my friends” got to ride their bikes all day or enjoy the beach or go on exotic vacations with loving parents and best-friends-forever-siblings. I just remember that’s often what it seemed like from my side of the summer.

My Dad would leave detailed lists of “things to do” before we were allowed to play or go anywhere. If these tasks weren’t completed to his liking, we did ‘em over. And over. Until they met his standards. Eventually, we learned to take the time necessary to do something the right way (or at least Dad’s way) the first time. Or we’d just wind up spending even more of our precious summer vacation time doing the task over.

For several weeks one memorably miserable summer, one of my jobs was to sort through dozens of shelves filled with coffee cans which in turn were filled with all manner of fasteners and loose hardware.  My dad (by trade an engineer, of course) had painted each of the metal coffee cans (am I the only one who remembers when coffee came in a can instead of a bag?) a uniform, flat white color. Then using a black marker he labeled each can with what was supposed to go into it; machine screws, wood screws, sheet metal screws, lag bolts, carriage bolts, metric screws, standard screws, pan head screws, flat washers, lock washers, castle nuts, cup washers, star washers, cotter pins, brads, wire staples, brass screws, Phillips head screws, slotted head screws, Allen head screws, galvanized nails, roofing nails, finish nails, 16-penny nails, box nails, duplex nails, concrete nails and welcome to my teenage nightmare.

Every day after summer school I would sit for hours in our sweltering garage on Harmony Place – just a few houses away from the beckoning basketball courts, cool grassy slopes and glorious, lazy freedom of Two-Strike Park – separating machine screws from the sheet metal screws (yes, there is a difference), roofing nails from finishing nails and flat washers from star washers. Hour after stifling hour. Then, Dad would come home from work and casually scrutinize the results of my afternoon’s labor. All too often it take mere seconds until he discovered a rogue flat washer hiding among the lock washers and pronounce, “You’re not being careful enough!” Then he’d say the three little words that could darken even the brightest summer sun. “Do it over.” 

Now, please understand; this was a time before iPods or iPads and streaming video. Even cassette tapes and Walkmans were a few years away. To ice this crummy cake, our neighborhood was in a virtual black hole for radio reception, so my little 9-volt transistor radio was of no use while I worked. Feel sorry for me yet? Please don’t. I learned invaluable, lifetime lessons at the feet of my taskmaster Dad. At the same time, he also taught me about auto mechanics, roofing a house, plumbing, electrical wiring, how to slurry a driveway and build a fence and dig a leach line and – most importantly – the value of a job well done.

I got to thinking about my past summer jobs while driving to Hume Lake with my wife this past weekend to visit our youngest son. He has a summer job as a counselor at Hume Lake Christian Camps deep in the cool forests of the Sequoia National Park. I’ll write more about what he’s doing and how it’s changing his life next week. For now, I’ll just say that it beats sitting in a hot garage counting nuts and bolts.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a longer version of my column first published yesterday, 7.28.11 in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.