By Donna Westfall – April 19, 2017 – While Sup. Bob Berkowitz spends this week in Sacramento learning how to get along with his fellow supervisors, Sup, Roger Gitlin is holding down the fort at the Fisherman’s Restaurant from 6-7 am holding The Daily Town Hall Meeting.
Roger W agreed with some others that there’s too much duplication having a City government and a County government. Several would like to see the City government closed up.
Further discussion on sending Mayor Blake Inscore to Washington DC along with Sups. Howard and Hemmingsen. At least the City Council know when the trip will take place – June 7-9. They mentioned having Congressman Huffman take them around DC along with the Del Norte County lobbyist, Greg Burns, but no one seems to know where they will go, who they will meet or what’s on their agenda. Without a bill, no one at the table thinks they are spending taxpayers dollars wisely. City Council voted 4-0 to send Inscore to DC. It will take one day for them to travel there, one day to meet and greet people, and one day to travel back. Money or time well spent?
Connie M. brought up special districts, bonds and whether or not CDBG funds are to be used for infrastructure.
Sup Gitlin attended a luncheon honoring those involved with the prison system. He complimented Chef Justin Williams on the delicious food, and considered Warden Ducart an upstanding guy. Gitlin has been working on getting Level 1 inmates to do clean-up projects around town. Specifically, the road on 101 in front of the hotels and Good Harvest Cafe. Years ago, they had a program but it was discontinued. They are trying to resurrect it. Inmates earn somewhere between 10 cents and 35 cents an hour if they’re on a work crew.
First jobs: a trip down memory lane. I mentioned earning $1.65/hour working in reception at a public relations firm in Los Angeles.
Dave S. would meet up with Dennis Sutton before school and buy 100 newspapers at 5 cents a copy and sell them for 10 cents a copy all before school began.
Linda S worked at Ben Franklin at the age of 12 but she didn’t remember how much she made.
Gitlin worked at the Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles when Cal and Eileen Eaton owned the place. He was 13 years old in 1961 and earn 10 cents a bottle for selling beer, something that’s outlawed these days. But back then he earned $200 for two hours of work and remembers well the Floyd Patterson vs Ingemar Johansson fight. Do you remember who won?
Why is it so hard for children to work these days? Unless they work in the family business, they would need to get a work permit from school and then they have to be 16 years old. Ridiculous.
Jr…it was ’61 and I believe The Swede knocked out Floyd. I forgot to mention that’s where I met Howard Cossel for what I believe was his first professional assignment for ABC. ” Hey, kid, what are you doing? We had an nice chat BEFORE the fight. He was brash then but I liked him. I told him my idol was Vin Scully..,,He just gave me a big smile and said, one day I may be your idol. LOL,
True story.
I believe Patterson knocked out Johansson in Feb 1962 if memory serves. Those were good days: breakfast at the Original Pantry Cafe, lunch at Philippe’s French Dip across from Union Station, and dinner at Musso and Frank’s in Hollywood.
I grew up in household with enough, but nothing extra. As far back as I can remember I was always looking for odd jobs to finance my latest hobby. I was ten years old in 1988 and could wash cars well enough to get paid for it. It was hard to get all the work I wanted because many of the people who wanted to pay for a wash were concerned about insurance and liability etc. I walked dogs, made crafts during the holidays, did farm and garden labor, sold recovered golf balls at the public course, and changed bike tires for other kids in the neighborhood. Some people treated me fairly and others tried to take advantage of me. This was at the end of the kid dominated paper route era. At age twelve I could finally apply for the ultimate steady job. The routes were cut up to be bike distance from home and my first route had about thirty houses. The papers were dropped at my house around 4 AM and had to be folded, banded, bagged if there was rain, and delivered by 6:30 AM, seven days a week. I was responsible for collecting payment from each customer and had an opportunity to collect a tip and get praise or advice from customers. The newspaper sent me a bill each month with the papers and I had to pay whether or not I got paid. If the kids had a “problem” customer then you went to Peggy who went straight over there with you. No one messed with Peggy! It was a good experience, but in the end I made less than three dollars an hour due to all the time spent collecting payment. A few years later the system was over run with accusations of child labor violations. The papers were then delivered by car by adults. I later earned good money working in the family business, but most don’t have such opportunity. Today everything has to be done in a way that supports every possible professional industry, weather it makes sense or not. Until society relearns how to provide real value for our efforts, children won’t be able to compete honestly in the real world.