> > That's nothing to scoff at: Did you know that
> Erma Bombeck started out as an obituary
> writer? If you truly like to write, any kind of job
> involving writing is a way to improve and hone
> your skills.
> >
> > ~Kathleen
>
> Erma Bombeck was from my hometown. She
> even has a parkway named after her here.

My definition of "Odd Jobs" is what teachers do in the summer to keep from starving to death. I spent several summers painting classrooms. I also worked in a factory, measured tobacco patches, taught driver ed for adults, and just about anything that brought in a paycheck, however small.

No, teachers don't get paid in the summer. Sometimes their contact is written so that some of their pay from the school year is held back so that can get a summer check or two but, it's really just a no-interest savings account.

Some of this stuff was covered in an earlier thread, but I won't let that stop me. Besides, it was before some of you became Rinkies.

Teachers also hold "Odd Jobs" in the evening and on weekends. I taught Adult Basic Education, tried to sell encyclopedias, and drove cars around at the local auto auction.

As a youngster, I set pins in the bowling alley, sacked groceries, assembled bicycles at a local store, mowed lawns, delivered handbills. I also collected and sold scrap metal.

Naturally, when I started college in 1953 (with only $140 that I saved working in my uncle's store), I looked for some Odd Jobs. I found them at the Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro, where I wrote obits, sports, and news. I also worked on Linotype machines doing routine maintainence, cleaned ink out of the decks on a printing press, bundled circulars, swept floors, unloaded 700 pound rolls of newsprint, ran ad copy, read proof and poured pigs. At 5:00 am, I took copy off the teletype, selected a few interesting stories, wrote single-column head lines and sent them out to the composing room. This stuff is called "inside copy." I remember having stories on page one a few times and twice, I even got a byline. But that all ended when I got my degree and signed a teaching contract for the magnificant sum of $2550 annual salary. Then I was back in the Odd Job market. These days, $2550 won't restore a vintage motor scooter!
Howard