BRADBERRY: Summer jobs could be summer fun

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Columnist Bill Bradberry

June 28, 2011

By Bill Bradberry Niagara Gazette The Niagara Gazette Tue Jun 28, 2011, 06:37 PM EDT

Column by Bill Bradberry — The whole city changes once the kids are out of school for summer vacation — it’s fun to watch them as they rediscover the city and as the city rediscovers them.

Vehicular and pedestrian traffic patterns have shifted to summer mode as school busses, parked away for the season make the daily trek to and from work a little less stressful for those blessed to have a job in this economy.

Meanwhile, the distantly familiar ring and those “stuck in your head melodies” of the perpetually circulating ice cream trucks are once again charming those hard earned dollars right out of parent’s pockets, a nickel, a dime and a couple of quarters at a time.

As a youngster, I could barely wait for summer to get here; it marked the end of a long hard school year and the beginning of the fun season, time to relax, play in the parks, and travel with the family.

And when I was old enough to work outside of the house, summer also meant money. Just about everyone I knew had a summer job of some sort. Back then most of the kids in my neighborhood got jobs in the parks and recreation departments, or through programs funded by the state or federal government to do real work in the community.

Others got jobs in family businesses or in the downtown shopping and tourist districts. Yes, believe it or not, there were actually stores and other businesses downtown, and as hard as it may be to conceive it today, young people worked on Old Falls Street, Main Street, Third Street and all over town.

Those were the days ...

My first job was at home. My parents, as I’ve said before, believed in teaching their children the value of the dollar, and one of the most important lessons they taught us about money was that you had to earn it, and that meant that we had to work.

Outside of the house, besides shoveling snow, mowing lawns and babysitting, I got my first real job at the American Way, the grocery store where my parents bought everything wholesale, the most affordable way to feed eight children aside from growing your own, which Dad did every year in the sprawling back yard.

That back yard garden, or farm as I used to call it, was my first real full-time summer job. There was always something to do out there, planting, pulling weeds, watering, fertilizing, harvesting, you name it.

Just like on a farm, work in the garden began at the crack of dawn and could last all day, there was always something to do. Of course, we never got paid for that work, instead we ate the produce which included the most delicious tomatoes I have ever tasted, sweet orange carrots, deep green cabbage, dark red beets, and all the cucumbers and radishes we could eat, and eat we did.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that we owe much of our good health to the amount of fresh vegetables we consumed back then right there in that garden.

Watching so many of the young ones today as they rediscover the city, it is a little disappointing to me that most of them will not be able to share the same experiences I had when I was growing up here

Most of the neighborhood parks are gone (as are some of the neighborhoods), some of those that remain do not have the kinds of programs that we enjoyed as kids. Gone for the most part are the organized events, the field trips, sports and training that we had back in the day.

And as for jobs downtown and in the tourist district? Well, there’s not much of that left either, it’s hard enough for adults, let alone summer kids to find work as it is.

I don’t see nearly as many back yard vegetable gardens anymore either. Sure there are a few, but they are not often tended to by youngsters any more, they are more than likely getting their fresh fruits and veggies fried at a fast food counter where they might also be lucky enough to find work slinging burgers, pizza and wings, not that there’s anything absolutely work with that either.

I suppose my point is that things sure ain’t what they used to be, and that a healthy economy creates opportunities for everyone, including the youngsters, but summer is summer, and sometimes we have to create opportunities where they don’t seem to exist.

Maybe this year, some of those young men and women will see a need and fill it within the tourist district; they may realize that some of those eight million or more people who will find their way here to Niagara Falls, New York might just be looking for something that they might just happen to have for sale.

Ice cold carrot juice, anyone?

Contact Bill at bill.bradberry@yahoo.com

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