A real factory job and a queen contest

I probably wouldn’t have run for Loggerodeo queen if I hadn’t worked at the frozen food plant the previous summer. It was my least favorite job, even worse than picking cucumbers. All day long I stood beside a moving belt, separating out the rotten berries and the green stems and caps before the berries were frozen and bagged. It was the epitome of a mind-numbing factory job. Besides, it made my back ache.

The following summer when I heard I could make the same amount running for queen of the Loggerodeo, our town’s Fourth of July Celebration, I signed up. As with most queen contests in small towns, the candidates helped raise money. In our case, people hoping to guess how long it would take for a log to float down the Skagit River bought tickets from us. The top ticket sellers not only became finalists in the queen contest, they received a percentage of the money they took in. Not a bad deal.

The local American Legion sponsored me, so I had lots of help selling tickets and easily made it into the top five. The judging didn’t involve marching around in bathing suits or long gowns—just an interview with some town elders from which I emerged the new Loggerodeo queen.

Loggerodeo 1961

Best summer job: pea truck driver

I drove a pea truck two summers while I was going to college. Twin City Foods hired only girls to drive the big dump trucks that carried the pea vines in from the fields. The insurance for boys would have been too expensive. I worked days one year and nights the next in shifts of eleven-and-a-half hours. Boys drove the tractors that pulled the harvesting equipment.

So why did I consider driving a truck such a good job?

1. I liked the challenge of driving around the field just the right distance from the tractor so the pea vines would drop into the back of my truck. Sharp corners next to fences were the most difficult.
2. Some days (or nights) I had time to read while I waited for my turn. You can’t complain about getting paid while reading Gone with the Wind.
3. There were lots of teenage boys to flirt with.
4. I made good money, I’m guessing it was about $1.85 an hour.

This job is long gone. Now instead of cutting the vines, driving them to a stack where the vines were dumped and then put in a machine that separated them from the peas, the whole thing is done by a giant machine in the field where the peas are grown.

A different economy

In the 1950s and ‘60s, summer jobs really meant something. Even though I went to a private university, I was able to pay most of my tuition the following year with what I earned driving a pea truck during the summer. Today a summer job like that would barely make a dent in tuition at a private college.

What summer jobs did you have? Did you save money for college? What about your children?