What was your first job?

I landed my first official job, the kind that pays into social security anyway, when I was 15. It was at Happy Joe's Pizza and Ice Cream Parlor at the Blue Ridge Mall in Kansas City.

At the interview for the job I lied about my age and told them I was 16. I needed the job and the money, so my motives weren't necessarily bad in that deception. I guess back then they didn't check these things out. I'm not sure how that worked in those days. My best friend of the time interviewed the same day, and we were both hired.

The uniforms consisted of a red and white striped shirt/apron thingy, much like I've seen candy stripers wear. We also wore black caps, what I might call a golfing cap now. It's too bad there aren't any pictures as that generation's employees as we must have been quite a site. It would be fun to look back and laugh at that bit of my teen years.