Jobs Redux 2: Summertime and the Living is Busy

Summer 1968

I know I had a summer job in 1968, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was. Since it’s been 53 years at this writing, I will not be hard on myself for the lapse.

By fall, I was volunteering for Wayne Morse, the Lion of the Senate, who was defeated by Robert Packwood, who went on to become the Doofus of the Senate, driven from office by an early outbreak of #metoo.

1969: Talk and Rock

During my junior year, I participated in a Benson program that allowed early dismissal for a job; I drove a van to deliver clothes for Sanford’s Children Wear. Boring, but less boring than hanging around doing classes that wouldn’t help me get into MIT. Then Ev Helm got me a job doing a talk show on KLIQ AM-FM as Paul St. John, and I got a job as a disc jockey at one of America’s first underground rock stations, KVAN.

1970 TV and Politics

As a result of earning my FCC First-Class Radiotelephone Operator’s Permit, I became a weekend engineer at KKEY radio, got a job as a summer relief camera operator and board op at KGW-TV. I still cared about politics, and so worked on progressive Art Pearl’s losing gubernatorial campaign. I remember being tired a lot.

1970-1974 MIT Termtime: Dormphone, The Tech

A lot of people I know who had to earn their way through school, did so in the library or the cafeteria. I was blessed with two clean, indoor, interesting jobs that allowed me to set my own hours. I repaired telephones and lines for the MIT Dormphone system, which placed a phone in very dorm room―nothing now, but a big deal then.

Plus, The Tech, the MIT student newspaper, “set type” for MIT departments and outside organizations, using student labor. A real accordion job, which could shrink or grow as my need for money shrank or grew.

One conspicuous absence from this list is an experience most people who work summers share: retail/food service. I could not be happier that my sole retail experience was one four-hour shift at the MIT Potluck Coffeehouse in MIT’s Stratton Student Center. That was more than enough retail for me.

Comments

[Robert E. Malchman]

I always confuse Wayne Morse with Wayne Hays.

A lot of politicians' tongues get them in trouble with the public. Packwood found a unique way to achieve that.