Was I really so young?

My first job with an actual paycheck (ie: not babysitting) was at Arnold's Hamburger Grill.  It was a knock-off of the Happy Days hangout and I was a malt maker.  On the weekends there were three of us scooping and blending ice cream but most nights it was just me.  After a few months I was "promoted" to fry cook (onion rings, french fries and chicken tenders) and about nine months after I started I got a job with Schmitt Music at the local mall and (temporarily) abandoned my burgeoning restaurant career.

For a high school job, it was pretty cool.  We didn't sell records and tapes but rather musical instruments and accessories and while I knew a lot going in (years of piano, violin and bass lessons will do that) I realized quickly I had a long way to go before I could be trusted to work the counter alone.

We had to wear name tags, of course, but we also had to wear these giant, garish buttons to promote group guitar lessons (it was a really good deal actually).  This fashion faux-pas was mitigated  by the fact that I also got my own business cards.  Of course, I don't think I ever gave any out since we weren't on commission.


One of the great aspects of the job was that I got to work with friends from high school.  One of them was Kristina (she of the Sandra adventure in the previous post) and another was Traci.  We worked hard when it was busy but we also had quite a bit of downtime.  Summertime in the mall was pretty slow traffic-wise so we played around with the various instruments (lots of squeaks and squats when I picked up a wind instrument) and generally screwed around.

(Traci and me)

Check out my attempt at a new wave 'do.

One of things that used to crack us up was an early version of what is now known as "Sleeve Face".  This is where people hold up album covers and "be" the cover.  Here's a web site devoted to it: http://www.sleeveface.com/

As I mentioned, we didn't sell albums but we did sell sheet music which generally had the same cover art as the records.  When the Sleeve Face book was published, we snagged a free copy from work and while flipping through it I had deja-vu that caused me to rummage through old photo albums.  Here's the image from the book (and presumablely the web site):


and here's the photo it reminded me of:


This photo was snapped more than 20 years ago meaning we were WAY ahead of the trend.  Well, mini-trend.  :)

This job was so long ago (I was a teenager for crying out loud!) that it seems like a dream.  A very nice dream, to be sure!