When I was graduated from high school June of 1962, the next day my father insisted that I start looking for work. It's not that I hadn't worked. Since I was 11 years old, the last six years of my life, I had a job of some kind. I delivered newspapers, I worked in a drug store as an abused helper, (that's another story) I caddied at the public golf course, I cut lawns in the summer and shoveled walks in winter for my neighbors for cash and there were the occasional truck unloading jobs and the times I worked for Mr. L and put the Sunday papers together for him every weekend. And one time I got a three day job with the Clyde Beatty Cole circus when it set up in town. In between all that I had to mow my own lawn, shovel my own walks and clean the basement and take care of the dogs & feed the cats. The work he wanted me to do though was to get a full time job and he wanted me to turn over half my wages for room and board. I guess he was trying to teach me something. My own desire though was to just get drunk or high with my friends. And weekends I'd do that.
I did get a full time job that summer. I worked for a diminutive man, named Helmut Hoffman, in a small shop in an East Farmingdale, L.I. industrial park, where he made industrial sized cameras to order. My job was to assist Ray his assistant repairing the wooden film slides used by professional studio photographers. I guess I was an assistant's assistant. The company "Hoffman Camera" was one of two firms that repaired them. His was the only one on the East coast. Mainly my job was to do the grunt work. I unloaded trucks, swept the shop, cleaned up the scraps of wood and metal, dump the trash and anything Hoffman said I had to do. Sometimes he had me doing repetitive work, drilling holes in the small pieces of wood that made up the frames of the slides and also cutting slots in them with a table saw. Even with the noise though I could hear Hoffman's radio blasting out some talk show. I can't remember who it was, but it must have been early talk radio. My job paid $1.15/ hr. After taxes I got about $32.00 a week. Ray, the assistant, married with 2 kids and paying for a car made $1.50 an hour.
Hoffman was a very disagreeable individual. His thick German accent was sometimes hard to understand. And if you didn't respond fast enough he'd give you a kick in the shin or a slap in the back of the head. Usually it was more than a love tap. The hours were 9 to 5:30. Lunch was a half hour but if you didn't bring lunch there was a truck that came around selling sandwiches and coffee. But that was too expensive so I always brought lunch. The only way I could get to work was by taxi. That cost a dollar a day in the morning. At night I'd walk home about 3 miles. But a dollar day meant 5 dollars a week. I argued that if I turned over half my salary every week that would leave me with $11. Finally my father agreed to only take $10.00 which left me with about $17.00. Enough to get high on.
So we got a half hour for lunch. And Hoffman allowed us 15 minutes each half a day to go to the toilet and to do nothing. I'd go outside and smoke cigarettes one after the other. Ray did too and we'd talk about our dislike of the work. The toilet was incredibly filthy and I was glad I never had to sit on it plus there wasn't toilet paper. Hoffman went to the toilet whenever he liked and he took toilet paper with him.
After I had been there about two weeks Hoffman took me aside outside and said in his German accent: --I see you take the full half hour for lunch every day. I would like you to end your lunch 5 minutes sooner so that you can reacquaint yourself with the shop and your work. He turned on his heel and told me to follow him inside. As I crossed the thresh hold, I see a ball peen hammer sitting on top of a 55 gallon drum. My fantasy has me picking up the hammer and driving it into the back of his skull. Fortunately I knew better.
One day Hoffman has to drive to NYC and says he won't be back and gives Ray the keys to close up and gives us our checks. It's already around 1 PM on a Friday. So I go back to work on the table saw cutting grooves in the small pieces of wood. After a half hour or so. Ray stops and signals me to turn off the machine. He says, let's go into town and buy some wine. We buy a cheap bottle of Gallo red and some potato chips, go back to the shop and fuck off, smoke cigarettes, laugh and carry on and turn on Hoffman's radio to listen to rock n roll. Both of us tipsy now or worse we decide to finish up our work as quitting time is at 5:30 and it should look like we did some work. I go back to the saw and start cutting grooves. I'm not being careful and as I push one of the pieces of wood through, it flies away and my right index and middle finger hit the blade. Deep cuts, blood flies everywhere. I yell to Ray. He runs over with a dirty rag and covers my hand. He drives me to the hospital on Hempstead Turnpike not far from my house. And there I wait at emergency for awhile bleeding all over the floor.
I'm out of work two weeks. I'm out of money. I return. It's impossible to use my right hand to do anything. It hurts even with the self-medication. Hoffman is not happy with me, but I make up a story claiming that because there was no guard, no way of using an implement to push through the wood on the saw's blade that it is his fault and that I now have a workman's comp case. He gives me light duty. He expects me to just keep things cleaned up. By the end of the week I inform him that I am quitting. In my 2 week's hiatus I got another job but it wasn't going to start until after the summer. This time the job is at Republic aviation at $2.16/hr. They made F-105's. (And that's another story) Later that year before I go in the Navy I decide to not go through with the Workman's Comp case even though the lawyer my father got says I could get money. As much as I hated Hoffman, I didn't think that any of it was his fault but only mine and the fact that I had been drinking.
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