September 13, 2015
Tipper Lake Logan Boathouse early 90s
I’ve been listening to the Blind Pig Gang’s version of an old Ian Tyson song-Summer Wages. If you’re a bluegrass fan you’ve probably heard Tony Rice’s version.
The song compares love, money, and time to the speed at which summer wages can be lost to beer taverns and the hustlers that sometimes inhabit them.
I used to work for summer wages.
Back in the day, when I first met Matt, I worked at Lake Logan in Haywood County NC. At that time, the paper company Champion International, owned the lake and the facilities which surround it. They used the location for meetings and to wine and dine anyone they needed to.
Guests could fish after their meeting let out or before if they were really serious about it.
I worked in the boathouse from sometime in late April to sometime in October. The lake closed each winter. I guess it was too cold for folks to fish and be wine’d and dine’d.
It was a fantastic job. Scenery out every window that would take your breath away; free meals from the dining hall; good pay and even overtime for anyone who wanted it; lots of down time to read, talk, or listen to music; and the best fellow employees—oh what fun we had. But back then I was too young and inexperienced to recognize any of those great things I mentioned. I whined and complained about everything. Seriously I did.
When I look back to the summer wages I earned at Lake Logan I can’t think of one bad thing about the job. I guess that’s what the saying live and learn means. The summer job encouraged my work ethic, the early shift started at 6:30 a.m. to unlock and set up. After working there I could never forget how to fillet a fish. And the best thing about the job I caught the big one while I was there! Matt, he’s a keeper for sure.
Hope you enjoyed the video!
I haven’t heard that old song in a while. Always nice to hear Pap and Paul’s harmony. I remember I liked to have never learned to play it on the bass and how pleased I was when I did.
A lovely lady recently sent me a Lake Logan Cookbook. I didn’t even know there was one, although it looks like it was made either while I worked there are shortly thereafter.
Flipping through the cookbook reading familiar names and seeing recipes for things I ate on the regular back in the day has had my mind thinking back to those times when Matt and I were young and courting.
Last night’s video: Marathon Pickling Day in Appalachia.
Tipper
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A great story! I never knew you worked in Haywood County, but glad you did so that you could snag that Pressley boy!
What a lovely picture of you, Tipper! I enjoyed reading your description of your time at Lake Logan. I always worked a summer job and also a job after school for all of high school. I began babysitting quite a bit at about 10-11 to make some pocket change, but as soon as I could legally work at 14 I began working 1-3 jobs after school and on the weekends. I have so many fond memories of them all. I sometimes think back on them and wonder where many of the people I worked with are at now. I’ve lost touch with many of them over the decades. When I worked my main after-school job all through high school (cashier at a small town/locally owned grocery store), I made $5.15/hr. One of my more interesting “summer jobs” was a job I worked for two summers during college at the Red Wing Shoe factory and tannery in Red Wing, MN. I worked in the finishing department and threw cow hides all summer. We applied finishes, patterns, textures, etc to the hides before they would be used to make work boots. I became good friends with everyone who worked there and was sad when my time drew to a close. It was dirty, hot and hard work but I really enjoyed it, primarily because of the people. And it was very good money for a summer job for a college student at the time.
I always wanted to work in the summer to make extra cash. Even when I was very young, my sister and I sold Rosebud salve one summer door to door. Another time, we sold greeting cards. These little jobs gave us a bit of spending money. My first real summer job was waitressing and short order cook at a dairy king. I had my license, but no car. As soon as my dad got home from work, he let me use his car to drive to mine. I learned to make pizzas, hotdogs, hamburgers, French fries, milkshakes, sundaes and ice cream cones. I waited on customers, prepared their order, served them, and took their payments. I had to clean up every night and clean both the men and women’s bathrooms every Sunday night. I made $1.50 an hour. My favorite summer job was a receptionist at our Senior Center. There was a nice lady in our neighborhood who let me ride to work with her. She worked across the street. I enjoyed greeting the seniors, talking to all of them each day, typing, and answering the phone. I can’t remember how much I made, but it was the minimum wage at that time. I always saved my money for school clothes, and the rest for little gifts for my family at Christmas.
So sweet ! Love & prayers for all !
One summer my sister & I got a telemarketing job at Olan Mills Photography place. We kept it a secret from our Dad, but somehow he found out (we suspected our brother told him). He was angry with us & told us we had to quit immediately. He said if you want money for anything, just ask me & I’ll give it to you. The point was my sister & I wanted to earn our own little spending money. I never knew why he wouldn’t let us work when he would take our brother to his tire store on Saturdays & all summer to work. Dad did very well financially & maybe he thought people would think less of him if his daughters had a job-I don’t know & we were too scared of him to ask why. I also remember I was digging holes with a post hole digger so that I could plant flowers around our circular driveway, and he came home for lunch & chewed me out. Told me he would send some of his guys to plant the flowers and told me I was going to “drag my ovaries down & he would never have grandkids from me.” I’m almost 75 yrs old now & I so wished he would have let me work & have my own little money. My Mom would let me & my sister sleep half the day away during the summers & never required us to help with housekeeping, cooking, laundry or anything. It sure made it hard on me when I married because I didn’t know how to do anything. I couldn’t cook, ruined all the laundry I washed & I guess I thought the good fairy was going to come in to clean the house. Took me years to get it all together. Maybe my Mom & Dad thought they were doing the right things with us girls, it it sure handicapped us for many years. Did anyone else have parents like mine?
Cheryl, if you read my comment you will see I grew up working. Before I retired my company-Michelin, would work students that were going to college or a tech school. Some, not all of these students had no idea of how to work. I don’t blame them, I blame their parents. I think it is just natural to want your children to have it better than you did, but in the long run you are not doing your children any favors by not teaching them to work and giving them any and everything they want. They have a hard time with learning how to work and that the “ real world” does not work that way.
Thank you Norman for honoring all our lost, and those left who continue to suffer, and their families from the horrors of the 9/11 attack of the United States in 2001. Let us pray for these souls, families and our nation. Hearing about everyone’s first jobs has been fun this morning. Tipper, the picture of you is so sweet. What a headful of beautiful curls! My first job was working as a ballet teaching assistant. I took ballet from the age of 8 and when I was 16, my dance teacher, asked me to be a teaching assistant. I made enough money to cover my lessons and have a tiny bit of spending money. My summer job and dancing led me to be accepted to the NC School of the Arts in ballet, and also a couple of universities of NC. I decided to go to one of the universities, came in as a dance major, along the way, came out as a nurse and then a neonatal nurse practitioner. Go figure. I think it was the right choice. But teaching ballet was a great first job.
Loved the song! I used to work in tobacco each summer to make money for school clothes. Those were the good ole days although, I didn’t realize it back then.
I had to work in tobacco for school clothes too but I didn’t get to pick them out. My older brother got the new clothes and I got his hand-me-downs.
What great memories you have of your summer job, the lake lodge, friends and courting Matt. I enjoyed hearing Pap and Paul singing together, that always a treat. I know that video is a treasure for you and Paul both, packed with sweet memories of singing/playing together with your beloved Pap. I have no doubt Granny was tapping her foot along with the tune and possibly singing quietly along or humming it with them in the background. Great memories you’ll have to cherish always. My summers were always working in the garden with my mom and cleaning. My mom needed me to much at the house for me to get a summer job when I was a teenager. I wanted too, but was always told I had too much to do around the house. I did pick cherries from our black cherry tree and sold one gallon worth to a college professor who taught at the local college saw me carrying the bucket loaded with cherries at the filling station (gas station) right up from our house. A friend was with me to help sell the bucket of cherries so we could buy us a soda pop and candy. He asked if we could pick about 2 gallons more of the cherries and we said yes. He told us he’d pay $10 per gallon bucket. We went straight back to my house and started picking. We picked two gallons worth and took them back to the filling station where we agreed to meet him after he got out of his last class that day. He looked the cherries over and said there was no way we picked them from the same tree. We assured him they were from the same tree, but he said we he didn’t believe it so he only gave us $5 for both gallon buckets. We argued that it wasn’t fair because we did pick them from the same tree because there was only one cherry tree in my yard and in fact in the entire neighborhood. He said $5 take it or leave it. So we took it. My friend asked him what he was going to do with all them cherries and he said make wine, of course. She apparently knew something about wine making because she said well if the cherries weren’t good enough you wouldn’t have taken them, so you cheated us out of $5. He laughed as he put them in his car and said well now it looks like I have taught you both a good lesson today. Never settle for less when you know what produce is worth and always negotiate for a higher price to cover your labor. He said People will always try to get things your selling for a cheaper price even if they know how valuable it really is. If you don’t try to get more for the price you want, then you will always end up with less. My friend was a few years older than me (she was around 15, I was 11) so she got really mad. I reminded her we still had $5 to split to buy whatever we wanted so no use in being mad about it. Next time we’d know better. When I told my mom she said I was never going to sell that man anything ever again for cheating us girls after we worked so hard picking them cherries all day. She said if he had been an honest man he would have kept his word by paying us what he said he would no matter what. If you tell someone you’re going to pay them $10 for two buckets of anything, then that’s what you do. That is called keeping your word, that’s being an honest person. If he wanted to negotiate the price with you then he should have told you both to pick two gallons and then he would negotiate a price with us for the two gallons of cherries based on what he thought the cherries looked like then, but he didn’t so he was dishonest in his dealings with you girls. As it turned out we never saw him again, but my friend and I learned about worth, want negotiation meant and the value of honesty.
From My Archives: 3 Sep 2015
When I was young I worked for one whole year at Lake Rabun in Northeast Georgia. We were building a house on the far side of the lake. There was a road to the site but it was bad to wash out and awful slick when it rained or snowed, so we went to work mostly by boat. I didn’t know about the boat so the first day on the job we pulled in at the dock someone was sitting there in it, waving for us to come on.
We loaded all our tools, climbed in and pushed off. Our driver idled it around and out passed the dock then suddenly slammed it to full throttle. The boat sorta reared up like a stallion and took off. Most of my boating experience was with the pole and paddle variety. I didn’t know what to think. The boat was loaded pretty heavy with five good sized men and all their tools but eventually it planed off and was skimming across the lake at a pretty good clip heading straight for the opposite shore. It was lined up with one particular boathouse.
As we got closer I could see where we were going. The boathouse was anchored to a rocky hillside with a staircase leading up into the woods. It had two bays. One had a boat in it. I had this figured out by now. He’s going to drive this boat into the other bay. But why isn’t he slowing down? Boats don’t have brakes, do they? He is trying to kill us! We drove fifty miles to work and some old fool is going to kill us before we even start.
By now I am firmly attached to the seat covering but not by my hands. They were poised to cover my eyes. I knew my end was nigh! Just before my final few words of prayer, the driver reached over and slipped the throttle back into neutral. The back of the boat just sank into the water and a wall of water seemed to form in front of the boat. Then the stern bobbed back up and the bow settled down into the water and I could hear waves slapping against the rocky shoreline. I looked around and we were stopped just inside that boathouse.
I was an apprentice so pretty much the gopher for the crew, so when we needed supplies I was the one who had to go. By boat! Across the lake! Spring into Summer and on into the Fall I had to fetch whatever the building needed. Many times I got lost on the way or back. Or had to wait in line at the building supply up in Clayton. Could have been accidents on the road. Maybe it was the pretty ladies sunning themselves on their boats and all along the shoreline.
That was probably the most enjoyable year of my life and I got paid for it!
Randy we went to Her Majesty outlet when I was very young with my mother. I don’t know how people function without a good work ethic. It was one thing that kept us out of trouble for sure.
At the time, I didn’t realize just how spoiled I was. Yes, I grew up on a farm and helped out as needed by riding my bike to the field and driving the trucks back to the house for the unloading of grain. I drove the tractor pulling a cultivater in the fall. Sometimes getting excused from school to do so. Back then (early to mid 70s) boys also got excused absences for deer hunting. I had a car from the time I was 16 and full access to the gas pump right there at the house. If I got caught “in town” and was low on fuel, I’d stop at the Standard station owned by my aunt & uncle to get a few gallons, sign a ticket and be on my way. I was happily and gratefully ignorant until my adulting started for real at 19. It wasn’t a jarring shock because everyone just seemed to shift gears and take on adulting as was expected. Many of my friends in our small, rural community, experienced a similar situation and as we get together occasionally and reflect, we know exactly how blessed we were to have had our particular childhoods. There were personal issues at home that weren’t idealic but life in general, was good. Many of us truly feel that the small town we grew up in or outside definitely mimicked Mayberry and wouldn’t trade our memories for “all the tea in China” as the old saying goes. As we reflect on how the world as we knew it changed forever 25 years ago today, I’m grateful for the memories of my youth and the innocent life I was fortunate to have.
loved the summer wages video. so good.
Tipper,
I really enjoyed this flashback! My best friend and I got jobs waitressing in Gatlinburg one summer. That was way back when it was a non-alcoholic little town where the sidewalks were rolled up at 9 PM. That was a great summer job experience.
I also loved the big pickeling video! You found your soulmate for sure in Matt. He obviously loves preserving the old ways just as much as you do. You make a wonderful team! I’m so glad you have been able to turn your mutual interests into your life’s work, for the benefit of others, like me and your other followers. It’s amazing to look back and see where your early steps have led you.
I’m feeling very thankful this morning. Your writing encourages all of us to look back and take stock! It’s hard not to see God’s hand in our lives when we do this. Thank you!
Rita,
I am from Sevierville. I to had waitress jobs in Gatlinburg back in the day. It was a different day in a different era to live in sad how it has changed.
I worked a couple of days after school and on Saturdays in a department store when I was seventeen in 1966. I don’t know if anyone remembers J.J Newbury but I worked there about a year and a half before college making one dollar and twenty five cents an hour. One Saturday afternoon just before closing I was robbed while I worked at the back register. A man came up to the register. He had sun glasses and a hooded sweat shirt on and gave me a note. I read it which said to open up the cash register and put all the paper money in it. I looked at him and said, “You’re kidding?” He had one of his hands in his pocket and made like he had a gun a hand and said”Move!” Well, I opened up the register and started putting the money in the bag when he reached over grabbed the bag and took off out the back door running up the street. I called my manager who called the police. I went down with the police and filled out a report, in fact I typed it out. I had to go speak with the head manager when I returned to the store. He asked me how old I thought the man was and I said, “Oh, middle aged, about 28. He leaned back in his chair and laughed so hard I thought he was going to topple over. It took me a few years to figure out why he laughed. The innocence or ignorance of youth.
Tricia, your comment about the 28 year-old “middle-aged” man really made me smile. I remember when I was young and thought 40 was “old”— now that I have reached that point in life, I realize how young it is! It is so interesting how our perspectives shift over time. Thank you for sharing this story with us!
Yes I thought of something when I read Tricia’s comment, my future’s wife aunt has never let me forget. She was about 30 years old and teaching our SS class when we were around 14. We would tease her about being old. I wish I could turn back the clock to when I was 50 years old and still able to do whatever I wanted to do even though I was beginning to have problems with arthritis.
Thank you for bringing back those memories! I hadn’t thought of summer jobs for years. I know I am going to enjoy reading the comments!
My dad, uncle, and grandpa were farmers so since I was big enough to safely work the clutch and brake, I was driving various farm equipment. In summer that was usually the tractor that pulled a grain cart around the field to the harvesters and took the grain back to a truck which would haul it off. My cousins and sister and me always helped the harbest crew. Even though gh we were younger and not as careful as we should have been, I think we were a big help to our family in those really busy days. After Dad passed away we moved into town, and when I was 16 I worked as the only waitress at a soda flountain downtown. That was a fun job! It was a lot of work, running all over that resaurant and then cleaning up for closing every day. But I learned a lot and met some truly wonderful people. There were several older gentlemen whose wives had passed away and they would come in and eat their one hot meal of the day there. They told me stories and asked me about myself and we really became friends. They were like more grandpas to me. The cook and her husband were the sweetest people too and they gathered all the regular customers and threw me a going away party when I had to leave for college. It is still one of the most touching things anybody has ever done for me. Good people and good memories. Thank you for stirring those up! Praying for healing from pain and illness for everyone in need. ❤️
I love these stories, Meg! What wonderful experiences! I had two adopted “grandpas” who meant the WORLD to me that I met through work in my younger years also. They are both gone now and I miss them every single day. I’m so thankful your appointment went so well! Thanks for updating us. Will keep praying for you and baby. 🙂
Thank youfor your prayers, Allie! Adopted and natural grandparents are the biggest blessings! I am so glad we will see them again one day in Heaven!
Meg, your description of growing up and working on a farm is the exact reason so many of us rural kids could drive cars and such well before we reached the legal age of 15. Getting a “driver permit” was just a formality we had to go through before the HP would let us take the driver’s license test. I helped my friend many times pick up their square bales of hay, his PRETTY sister (Sandra) would drive their Super C Farmall tractor pulling a large flat bed trailer while we loaded the hay. Sandra’s boyfriend would help, he was very strong and held some high school track records for throwing the shot punt and discus and would often tote two bales at a time, one in each hand. I would only look at Sandra! I was dumb but not completely stupid!
That is funny, Randy! A two bale toting boyfriend would make anybody think twice!
I hadn’t thought of it, but you are right, we were better drivers from all our practice on the farm. My husband grew up in suburbia and it really surprised me that he didn’t learn to drive until he was over 16 and he was never taught to drive a stick shift. Things are different out in the country!
You caught “the big one,” i.e., Matt, but how many “catch and release” beforehand? 😉
And I suppose the lake closes because it never freezes over sufficiently for ice fishing, which is something many do in the North Central states, and maybe New England in a cold-enough winter. But I know someone on the Wisconsin-Illinois line who will take his oath that he has never trusted the thickness of any ice, ever, and thus has never and will never ice-fish.
Remember what happened today in 2001? 9/11 , take a moment to honor them, those that died, God comfort the families lost loved ones that day, in Jesus name I pray amen
Amen! Thank you!❤️
Hey Tipper!
So glad you received the cookbook! I had figured it must be from around the time you worked there, I always check out the cookbooks in thrift stores, yard sales and antique malls, and must admit the recipes in the Lake Logan cookbook looked mighty tasty! Enjoy, take care, and God bless!
I worked at whatever job I could do starting when I got old/big enough to help farmers or cutting grass for a few elderly neighbors. The pay was whatever they would pay me, I was just glad to have a little money of my own. At 14 and for 3 years, I cut several acres of grass including the church cemetery for my church. When I was 17, I hit the “big time.” I worked during the summer months for a company named Her Majesty at Mauldin, SC, the pay was minimum wage-$1.65 an hour. Just as soon as I turned 16, I also got my bus license and drove a school bus until I graduated, it also paid minimum wage, I made $5 a day, bought my own cloths and everything I needed for my graduation. My parents did not make me do this, I just wanted and thought I should do this to help them out after their scarifies they made for me when I was younger. Within two days of high school graduation, I started working full time and was never without a job (all blue collar manual labor) until I retired and never drew a dime of unemployment or was out on any kind of sick leave. I laugh and say all I ever needed for any job I worked was a weak mind and a strong back. One of the first things I bought with my pay when I cut the grass at church was a $75 dollar set of Sears Craftsman tools, this would have been in 1968. I still have them, I had saved my money in order to buy them. I am laying here right now hurting an am no longer able to do many things, but I am grateful for God giving me the health and my parents teaching me my work ethic to do this in my lifetime.