No Safety Net, No Internet: Summer Rituals

Those small yet important moments as a kid that help you celebrate events for your own kids are super important. Each generation has their own version, but they have them nonetheless.

This is Delaware Academy, my junior high and high school in the same building. Despite its snooty name, it was a public school, class C. My graduating class was 76 people strong.

Labor Day is a bookend.  It marks the end of the freedom from school for kids, and the end of summer nights lit by crackling firelight flames while camping or perhaps at an impromptu party at your friends home.  For my wife, kids and I, Labor Day meant rolling into town after a long trip down I 75 from the last hurrah of hiking, kayaking and swimming, but my kids and I had another one last exploit before the magic was officially pronounced “Over for the year”.  And while we homeschooled, the kids knew the next morning was the first day of lessons, so despite a three hour ride, they wanted one last run at summer fun.  On Labor Day weekends my town has a festival called Arts, Beats and Eat. It’s a mini Taste Of Chicago style event, and the last evening of Labor Day, a few hours before close, the gates would open and they would stop charging for tickets, and the vendors would start giving away their food.

My wife (Mrs Humanzee, or Mrs H for short), would turn a blind eye, and the kids would literally run down with me to see what we could scrounge up for free.  My son would gobble a deep fried Snickers, then complain of a stomach ache as his sister pushed us to find more.  You can’t run too well on a deep fried candy bar.  This was the final scene of the summer magic before bedtime, for the next day Mrs H would assume the role of “fun killer” as my son would describe it.  

As I said, Labor Day is like closing the chapter on the summer. And I realized as I was editing this that this Labor Day indeed was a distinct bookend in a sense for my wife and I as parents as our youngest charts his way. Looking at the photos he has sent me of what his summer was like, I realizes how different things have been for both my kids. I included the photo of my school Delaware Academy for a few reasons, one being that in a small town back in the 70s and 80s, the school still played a role as resource for our village, many activities took place there that formed a part of my summers as a kid and then as a teen. Being the start of the fall school year, I started thinking about the other more valuable events and lessons I’ve learned while working in the summers of my remote youth. I couldn’t have learned those in that building depicted above.

My kids have been raised with a toehold in my world in the Catskills, having spent summers with my mom and dad. But being homeschooled and growing up in the suburbs of Detroit, their summer experiences have been vastly different than mine. The No Safety Net, No Internet series of articles is, at it’s core, about getting out there and running the ball. Doesn’t have to be just in a canoe, sometimes it’s about just putting yourself out there away from expectations of social circles.

But as with my summer rights of passage, as my kids grew older work became a big part of their summer as well.  While this meant less time for free-for-all riding the bikes and playing in the park, it didn’t diminish the opportunities for adventure on trips.  But with maturity, the ability to work, earn money and gaining degrees of independence rewarded them with special dimensions not available during the school year, even if that school was home school. The irascible streak of independence that runs in my family is fully expressed in their make up, too. Jobs for them became a means of leaving the nest and embracing self determination, and to do that comes with getting out of the comfort zone, working hard and being willing to learn from the lessons that life gives you.

My Mrs H is a Taurus, while I am a Capricorn, and we both fit the profile of practical, routine driven, by the book parents.  When I started to explain the idea for this article to her, she immediately said “Summer jobs are those times where you have to practice those skills you don’t really learn in school.  Like talking to adults in public, dealing with customers, doing what you promised you would do - you have to practice those.”

Mrs H is right.  Jobs for kids means they have to answer to adults other than their parents.  Jobs mean you have to meet obligations, communicate, and be on time.  And work hard.  It means a kid has to face how they measure up with expectations placed on them when they have responsibility.  Life lessons such as these are rarely learned in the classroom.

My daughter started her first job in the neighborhood doing landscaping at several homes.  My son, two years younger, wanted to do the same thing when he reached her age, but found he didn’t like that type of job.  He thought his sister just showed up back home with cash with not much effort.  But his first time doing landscaping chores was not his liking.  He liked it even less when we made him go back to finish the job the right way, but it was an important lesson for him at age 12.  You meet your obligations first, then you get paid.  And when you promise to do something, you need to deliver.  Facing the person he had disappointed and doing right by them was a good lesson as well, as he learned about good service and his responsibility to himself and others to honor his word.  Kids don’t come upon this realization on their own, if they spend time with just their peers, they are not capable of accepting feedback or criticism when they have failed adults. We made him stick with that job.

These summer jobs are rites of passage and rituals.  I grew up in a family run business, and started working for my dad at a very young age.  Before I could drive, I worked with my 8th grade math teacher as we rehabbed a house that dad bought after a fire. The house was built in the 1870s, and known to the area as “Cherry Hill”. A fire burned nearly half of it, but what remained was still pretty amazing. Such as the French doors and old window on the pulley system. The sashes had a panel where you could access the weights. We replaced every piece of glass in the place. Put in the glass, push in the push pins gently, run a small bead of caulk and then run your scraper blade slowly down the side and you were done. In two summers we had it cleaned up, but I can still smell the charred debris to this day. You can’t a see it in this photo, but the structure had a Widows tower. It was creepy working in there. Dad sold it years ago, but I remember the walk from my house up that steep drive very well.

Once I could drive, I worked on dad’s construction crew. It was brutal, my dad was demanding, and the favor he did for me was to make me the lowest of the low on the job sites.  No favoritism shown, whatsoever.  We had homes to build, and he had closing deadlines that had to be met.  And there was a lot I couldn’t do, and had to learn and adapt to because the times I heard “You’re fuckin’ holding us up” from dad’s foreman were deeply embarrassing.  I wanted to be able to do the job, not be coddled.  As I got older and could drive, I was the one selected to do the grunt work at a moment's notice.  Post holes needed to be dug for the deck at next job site?  I was picked.  No one liked sealing foundations, it’s a miserable process of spreading black top pitch while you're down in the trench, so it’s inevitable that you get covered with the crap.  Do it in 80 degree weather, it sucks.  Well, that fell to me as well.

When picking lumber and shingles for the first time, I’ll never forget pulling in with the truck, and getting chewed out by Karl, an old Swedish guy who was always pissed about something. Every time you saw he was literally bitching about something. That morning I couldn’t understand his directions, and as a 16 year old I thought I knew best how to drive.  Nope, he set me straight, lowered my ego back to the ground where it rightfully belonged. I gave him lots to bitch about that morning, but I wised up from first meeting. It was HIS lumber yard, despite my dad being a customer.

On another occasion I was sent to pick 1x4 finishing pine.  Dad’s head guy at the time was always complaining about the quality of materials, and recently we had doubled the orders of the materials we were using.  Yet we were ending short lots of the time.

“I keep telling your dad we’re getting shitty materials”. He handed me a slip of what we needed.

So I had to pick up more.  When I got to the lumber yard with the order, Karl freaked out and shouted at me “Who’s the asshole who ordered so much - that’s-ah almost-ah 2000 a-linear-ah feet-ah!  You load it yourself!”.  And he stalked away.

It was too much, I almost dumped the lumber on the road driving back, and the sheriff stopped me.  While he wasn’t going to let me continue, he called in to have my dad contacted.  This was back in the 80s, so there were no cell phones.  Dad eventually arrived, and between our Suburban and the truck we got the 1x4s to the job site.  But he asked “What the hell are you doing?  We only needed 200 linear feet.”

I showed him what the foreman gave me, and he did indeed request that amount.  Soon dad learned that there were orders that turned up missing from our job sites.  Dad later found out that those materials ended up at the foreman’s house.  The guy was over ordering, stealing from us, and using it on other side jobs.  My dad’s harsh treatment of me with the explanation of “I have to hire and fire these guys” suddenly made sense to me.

Life’s lessons are not learned in the classroom.

Those interactions that kids get on the job are priceless.

During the fall I worked for my neighbor Mr Lennox after school, who was still running his landscaping business at the ripe old age of 79.  He was in amazing physical shape, but would get confused sometimes when we were out driving to and from his various jobs.  He sold Christmas trees and had many locations where the trees needed to be trimmed.  Sometimes it took extra time to find them when his memory would go. I spent a lot of time listening to his stories of Delaware County from a time prior to my parents birth.  On Fridays he’d send me home to get changed, and I would drive him and his wife to dinner where the three of us would eat. I remember many of those conversations today.  

“I want to write a book”, he would say.  “Do Your Work and Do It Well.”  He had a full life, but he passed before writing that book. He and his wife ran the 4H programs and founded the 4H summer camp, they influenced so many lives while never having kids of their own.

There is a rhythm that kids pick up that transitions them into independence.  I had one in summer, then fall, and my kids had their own over the summers as they experienced slices of what it is like to be more adult.  That’s what jobs do, it puts immediacy in the forefront, and makes many problems disappear.  

My son took his own path, too.  After having jobs at grocery stores and a bakery, at 18 he cast his net even wider and came home one day with a gig at a golf course.  We didn’t even know he had applied, he merely mentioned an interest in something where he could earn tips and found a spot himself.  In a few weeks he announced he was training to be a bartender.  There was an interesting lesson there for him, while many adults were still receiving the Covid payouts, so there was less competition for his spot.  The next year when that money ended and the golf course digitized tips, he made far less, and the experienced bartenders got the shifts.  He was rightfully upset, and called me one night while on break.  He was fed up but had already something else lined up, and it was his last night.  He made the decision first, told me after. Like an adult. This summer he has been first mate and bartender on a small cruise boat that takes excursions on Lake St Clair and the Detroit River.  Many of his evenings have been with sunsets like this.  Completely different set of experiences than I had.  

At that point I realized that he really didn’t need me.  In fact, I’ve been learning a ton of history about Detroit from what he has picked up from the harbor where he works.

Despite all the work I did during the summers, it was still a magical time, because while my days were spent framing, painting, fixing windows and sealing foundations, my evenings were mine for community band and other music playing that I did. I’d be out on the road by 630 am, put in 8 hours, shower, eat dinner, and be out again. No TV, there was too much to do. It’s been the same for my kids as work during the summer has exposed them to different interests and new friends. Our entrance way has been stacked all summer as someone was packing to be on the go. It’s great to see them of on adventures of their own.

Education is very important, but life has a vast offering of events that teach in a way no class can. Life’s many dimensions is there for your kids, some you have to push, and some you have to hold. But know this, soon they will out the door, just like summer turns to fall. It the healthy cycle of things.

May that cycle never change.