I moved to Washington when I was fifteen. Therefore, the first real jobs I held were in this great and very green state. In the past couple days of vacationing I ran across all the old buildings where I held employment. Today, I have nothing more interesting to show the world wide web than pictures of those buildings.
This is the grocery store formerly known as Bell”s Supermarket. The same store that my parents bought when I was in high school. I spent many hours there, picking up loose change on the floor so that I could buy a fifty cent can of Mountain Dew for my break.
This is the Peerless Restaurant and Lounge. I was nineteen when I started working here and only legally allowed to tend to the restaurant half. This is the place I developed a love for biscuits and gravy. Also, this would be the place where I realized that small town bars are full of insanity.
After the Peerless, I wound up working at this place, where I was an advertising sales-woman. I was driving when I snapped this photo, and did not get a full shot of the sign. I got paid on commission, but was told I would be paid only after the newspaper was launched. It was not off the ground in the three months that I was an employee. In total, I took home fifty dollars at this job…in three months. There is good reason that I am not mentioning the true name.
At Gold Digger Apple sheds I took apples off a conveyor belt and put them into boxes. The shifts I worked lasted twelve hours. There were people working there when I did that were my parents age and had been doing that same work since they had graduated high school. It is monotonous and painful work. painful because the same motion being made with your hands and arms for that long of a time causes catastrophic inflammation. I would watch as the workers would eat ibuprofen like candy to last through the day. Super nice people work there, but I could not handle it very long.
Fat Boy’s Diner was and is one of my favorite jobs. It’s a restaurant/bar that is frequented by good-old-boys who want breakfast for pennies and coffee for free. Those old farmers quickly nicknamed me Red. (don’t even try it) If money were nothing I would work here forever.
Some day I better be able to look back at Hell’s Kitchen with the fondness that I have for some of these places.
The Pilver 
I had a job like that- one that I would work at FOREVER if money was no object… that would be wrangling goats at the Kennedy Park Petting zoo. I would beam for hours in the hot summer sun with a chicken on my shoulder, doling out feed cones for fiddy cents. I was like a barnyard pirate!
“With a chicken on my shoulder”
Um, we needs pics!
you are missed
you need a better camera.
My camera broke in Sioux Falls 😦
You know the problem with nicknames? There’s only like 5 of them.
Red
Moose
Tex
Mumbles
Killer
What’s the point of names if your at odds to have the same name as someone else if you’re in a room with 5 other people? I prefer Moose but I’m more of a Mumbles.
TONY- I miss you
doho- don’t fight the fact that you are totally a Tex
I’m just wondering…did you happen to walk into some of those places and meet old faces/memories?
MIchael- Well, I went into two of those places. And yes, I recognized many many people at each. I do love that about small towns. I can’t see it as a downside, though some do.
I really liked this post. I don’t know why, but I just really did. It made me think of my home town and how when I go there I drive around the same streets and look at all the places that have changed and the ones that haven’t changed a bit.
I always glance over at where the Bi-Lo used to be that was my first job, bagging groceries at the age of 14. I think at one time every guy in my high school had that job. All the girls worked at a local restaurant about a block down called The Clock. It’s still there and when I go there I still see at least one girl who worked there when we were in high school and still does. Then, I go right up the street and see the spot where there used to be a video store that I was the “assistant manager” of when I was like 17. Before it was there, there was another video store in that same spot. I worked there too. Now, the most recent one has moved down the street and in it’s place is a CVS. Long before the video stores were in that spot, it was a pharmacy called Al’ Pharmacy. Al had to shut it down cause he was selling prescriptions illegally, but they had a comic book rack in there, and my cousin and I used to ride up there when we were kids and get comic books every week. That was the start of what would become a massive comic book collection.
Man, the memories. Thanks for this one.