Image: Millie Garfield High School Photo
When I graduated from high school a neighbor told me about a bookkeeping job in a nearby city. I got the job and stayed there until I was twenty-one.
In those days money was tight and "maybe" if the parents had a son - he was the one to go to college. If you were the daughter "forget it" - you got yourself a job and stayed with it until you got married and started a family. That was it, you became a stay-at- home housewife, just like Betty Draper on Mad Men.
Image: Betty Draper courtesy Mad Men AMC
Not me, at twenty-one I was very young and marriage was the last thing on my mind.
As I said earlier, after five years on my first job I decided to leave. There was no opportunity for advancement and I was not "having fun" on the job.
It was time for something different.
Image: Mille Garfield Photo Booth
I decided to take some time off that summer and figure out what I wanted to do next.
Well what do you know, My cousin worked for a restaurant that had a concession stand at the Suffolk Downs race track in a nearby city. They needed a clerk at the cigarette/cigar stand at the clubhouse.
Was I interested?
YES, that's just what I was looking for, certainly a change of pace, being in the great out of doors, meeting new people and being exposed to different lifestyles.
It proved to be a learning experience and "it was fun."
After that summer, it was back to the real world.