I was usually willing to try anything that wasn't illegal or immoral to make a buck.
So I got a lot of experience even if I didn't make much money.
As a kid, I raised, showed, and sold registered Berkshire hogs, I sold okra to grocery stores, I sold plums door to door at the right time of year, and I sold pecans. I also mowed yards.
As a teenager, my Dad bought a Texaco service station, sold it, and bought a Mobil service station, so he and I both worked at that business. Then he and I opened the town's first auto parts store, and we were the bus station for both Greyhound and Continental Trailways. I was also a temporary part time mail carrier.
At the age of 19, I became a full time postal clerk in Dallas for exactly 5 years. During that time I moonlighted as a taxi driver in Dallas, and one year, while working nights in the Post Office, I drove a school bus.
At the age of 24, I became a police officer, about 4.5 years as a patrolman, 15 months as a sergeant, 5.5 years as a lieutenant, and about 13 as a captain. Retired 2 months and 5 days short of 25 years, after having worked in just about every division in the department except homicide and vice/narcotics.
Of course, as a police officer, I moonlighted until I made lieutenant; worked store security for a couple of department stores, hotel security at a Marriott, worked valet parking at special events, worked in the Cotton Bowl for Cowboys games, etc. Married my wife when I'd been an officer a year and she and I were assistant managers of an apartment complex for 3.5 years.
After "retirement" from the police department, we became full time RVers. She and I worked one summer at an RV resort in Virginia. She clerked in their store and I did maintenance work, pumped propane, ran an evening bingo game, etc.
One summer I worked the front counter in my brother's garage/tire dealership in Anchorage.
Two years I traveled for a company out of the Atlanta, GA, area doing gas leakage surveys.
After 6 years, we gave up the RV lifestyle, bought 10 acres in the country, and a small Kubota, raised a big garden, sold a few pecans, had a few goats, raised a few hundred New Zealand White rabbits, worked for a neighbor cutting, baling, and hauling hay, branding and vaccinating cattle, and such farm chores. One brother was a Matco Tool Distributor and brought me his customers' broken air tools for me to repair, so I repaired just about a thousand air tools.
Had to come back to town for family reasons, so now I'm
RETIRED.
