Pumping Ethyl

While I've shared much of the story of my life as an employed person, I've not yet shared my first job story. As with all my jobs, the biggest thing about this job was the people. In this case, it was one person, my boss Harry Hjortshoj - pronounced Yortsoy.

Harry was a great guy of about 55 years of age. He had a ring of hair that tended to stick out below his bald pate. He had a very peculiar nasal tone to his voice, but his voice had a lilt to it that was always jovial and good natured, and he had a twinkle in his eye.

Harry ran the gas/service station our family frequented for some 20 years or so. It was a Standard Station first - when I was just a little girl. I liked to go there because he had one of those machines you could put a penny or nickel into and get a handful of nuts. You don't see those around any more. And he would let me stand on the hoist while he made it rise a few feet into the air - probably not too safe, but exciting for a tot!

When I turned 15, my parents wanted to get me out of the house more. I played softball but that was an afternoon, evening activity and back then we didn't play 50 games a season. So Dad asked Harry if he needed some help, and I began working a couple hours each morning at Hjortshoj Fina (after Standard pulled out of Iowa). I rode my bike down the big hill to work each day. Fun on the way there - not so much on the way back!

In those days, people didn't use credit cards for purchases - they had charge accounts that small businesses kept track of. As a car driver it was great! We could pull up, Harry would wipe our windows (usually with a greasy cloth) and pump the gas. Then we'd say "charge it" and drive off.

That was the era when gas had gone up from like 30 cents a gallon to around a buck. Harry had 2 pumps - 1 was regular and 1 was ethyl - the more potent stuff, a little pricier. The old pumps didn't have a way to price gas over a dollar, so the ethyl pump showed 50% of the actual price. The first tough lesson I learned was, remember to only put in half of what customers told me. It was embarrassing to tell them I screwed up and put in $10 worth when they only wanted 5$.

I also kept the books and did statements at the end of the month - all by hand. I worked a big adding machine and ran a ticket. Some people charged a bunch! Sometimes, when another person manned the station, Harry and I would run to get people's cars for service. Often, Harry would drive us to the home in his old Chevy pickup that had tire strips on the front bumper. I soon found out why those strips were in place, when I stopped at a stop sign, and Harry would ram into the bumper of the car I was driving - on purpose! Then he'd smile and wave!

Lots of people, including my grandpa, would stop for coffee each morning at the station. It was a regular hang out! Then Harry would yell "Lessie" (he couldn't say my name very well) "How about you go for donuts!". Then he'd slip me a couple bucks and I'd walk a couple blocks over to the donut shop. I learned to love fresh from the fryer plain cake donuts. Yum. He'd also send me for parts at the NAPA store. I learned to love that service station smell - kinda oily, tire scented. I still enjoy that today. Kinky, I know.

At the station, we had an Coke machine (of course - Atlantic Bottling had a monopoly in that town), but instead of pop in every slot, there were a couple cans of beer in one for when Harry closed up in the evening. He taught me how to fill out forms for tire adjustments. I ran the car when he balanced wheels. He had a few "bad" jokes he'd tell often - like when people wanted air in their tires, he'd say "we have a special today - colored air!" Sometimes they'd fall for it!

I've mentioned before that I am a former (maybe not so former) tomboy. I had my hair short even then. Harry knew I'd get dirty at work, so he gave me some of his striped work shirts with a Harry name patch to wear. Several times people asked him if I was his son. He'd just smile and say I was Dave Bullock's daughter. He paid me in cash, so I guess that job was off the books!

You can probably tell, I loved Harry. He was a good guy and I'm glad I had a chance to work for him at my first job. I hope I bring the same energy to work with me each day that he did.

Here saber tooth kitty kitty kitty

That line was from a cartoon, but I can't remember which one. I always liked it though. It reminded me of my first cat, Bucko.

Bucko would have been a saber tooth had he been born at the right time. I adopted him from a shelter in Sioux Falls, SD - the location of my very first "real" job. In college I majored in Public Service and Administration (PSA) much to my parents' chagrin.

"What the hell can you do with that?" I can just hear Dad saying when Mom broke the news to him that I wasn't going to be a veterinarian after all. I'd discovered that:

a. you had to have pretty much a straight 4.0 grade point to go to vet school.
b. having a 4.0 grade point didn't go with having a social life and drinking 3+ nights a week
c. I was getting a D in Biology 101 - not a good sign (sidenote, I re-took the course sophomore year after I learned how to study and received an A)

I spent a couple semesters searching for the "right" major for me. I wasn't sufficiently rural (my dad sold ladies underwear for God's sake) to be an Animal Science major. I tried journalism but lacked the killer instinct to go for the jugular on stories. But I took a sociology course and it clicked. I also did well in political science and economics. What combined all of those in the Ag College? PSA! This major was actually a good pre-law major, or set up grads to work in the ISU Extension Program.

Neither of those appealed to me, but hey I loved my advisor, Eric Hoiberg, father of Fred Hoiberg future ISU and NBA basketball star. Eric was a sweetie and just the thing for a very shy and non assertive girl from Atlantic, IA. I think my parents worried a great deal about how I would make my way in the world due to my lack of self-esteem.

When my partying (ur um school) years wrapped up, I bought an outfit and signed up for interviews at the Curtiss Building. I was very selective - anything that sounded do-able. I ended up interviewing with Gamble Robinson a grocery wholesaler out of Minneapolis (they sold Snoboy Fruits and Vegetables) and the interviewer and I ended up talking about skiing (see post below about my spring break trips during college). He must have been convinced that "hey if she can ski, she can be an office manager" because a few weeks later, that company offered me a job!

I had been in a panic thinking I'd be forced to move back home. No Way! So I was thrilled to accept a position as Office Manager at the Sioux Falls branch of this company. It seems Nancy the 30 something Office Mgr. tragically had a stroke. She was expected to recover, but it would be a while. And the office staff loved her. (open door and insert new college grad who knows nothing about produce, offices or South Dakota)

Mom and I took a trip to Souffles (that's what I called it) and I selected a furnished apartment to live in. Who cared if the mattress was bad and it was right by the Interstate so I couldn't open the window if I wanted to hear the TV. I didn't mind the neighbors who fought a lot and I could hear each word through the thin walls. (it made me feel at home, really)

I probably learned more in that job than I had (at least skills to do a job) during my prior 20 (counting Mrs Lewin's nursery school) years of school. Karen, the assistant office manager had been carrying the ball when it came to the office work. She was a strict task master and I felt incompetent since I couldn't even run a damn 10 key adding machine with all my fingers. I didn't know any grocery lingo or where towns in SD were. She made me feel stupid - which I was when it came to that stuff.

I ended up living in Sioux Falls for 10 months - during which time, I mastered the adding machine, learned how to do the job pretty well and won Karen and the other office staff over with my unassuming smart-ass style. I could do a whole 'nother column about Kermet Torgerson, the Branch Manager for some of my time there. In fact I will this week. He's was a WWII Veteran and f'in crazy.

During the time I lived in SF, Paul was the only person besides my parents to come and visit. We'd dated in college mostly my senior year, but I didn't think it was anything permanent. When he came to visit, that's when I really got to know him - away from the distractions of college - to find out what a good person he was. I also adopted a kitty, who didn't really like people (he'd been an orphan) and Paul put up with said Saber Tooth.

Fate and karma intervened in our lives when Paul accepted a county soil conservation job in Oakland, Iowa (20 miles from Omaha) and I was asked to transfer to the Gamble Robinson branch in Omaha - on 10th street right by the Old Market. Again - that could be a post for another day in the walk down Leslie's memory lane.