Triple-breading chicken-fried steaks, and other jobs

I’ve been seeing a lot of ads on Facebook and social media about area youngsters looking for work, from cleaning cars to mowing and trimming lawns and cleaning out garages full of old junk.

One young fellow is selling and delivering ice and ice cream.

I did have a lawn business a few years after high school and mowed about 10 yards. It was good work and kept gas in my tank.

During the summer of my 10th grade year in high school, I worked at a 10-stool eatery a couple blocks from my house.

There were two such eateries in my neighborhood, both a couple blocks from my boyhood home.

They served good old-fashioned greasy southern food, from cheeseburgers to chili and French fries and onion rings.

These type of eateries were quite popular back in the day. Folks would often stand two or three deep waiting for a seat.

I don’t recall the name of the eatery, but I do remember the experience. I was hired that summer to wash dishes and triple-bread chicken-fried steaks for about $5 an hour.

There was no dishwasher, so all the dishes had to be washed by hand.

Every so often, I would lay a big board across the sink and set up shop. I had a large bowl of milk mixture and large bowl of flour with salt and pepper.

I dipped the chicken-fried steaks (cube steak) one at a time in the milk mixture then dipped it into the flour mixture. I did this three times and then laid the breaded chicken-fried steak on a piece of waxed paper.

I would make a small stack, and they would be placed in a large baggie and into the freezer.

I would have to stop and clean the flour mixture off my hands because it got so thick on my fingers I couldn’t hardly use them.

When a customer wanted a chicken-fried steak, the cook would place the frozen piece of meat in the deep fryer and cook it to golden brown. Then cover it with some homemade gravy.

I remember my folks visiting the eatery, and I got to cook them supper. I really enjoyed that experience of cooking on a grill.

I used some of the money I made that summer to buy a citizens band radio from my neighbor across the street. Each week on Saturday, I paid him $5 until I got the radio paid for. I believe it was $50.

I had several CB names, from the “Snowman” to “Pork Chop.”

The CB was stolen out of my car a few years later while I was working nights at a Tulsa grocery/drugstore chain. I never did replace it.

When I was a senior in high school, I got a job at Sears and Roebuck a few miles from my boyhood home.

My job was to retrieve large-ticket items, such as fireplace screens (which were quite popular in the late 1970s), televisions, paint, vacuum cleaners and such.

One family came to pick up their new television, and I went to the warehouse, only to discover the television was on the third shelf.

Let me say that getting the television off the third tier of shelving by myself didn’t go well. In fact, my work experience during that brief six weeks in September and October 1978 at Sears didn’t end well, as I was fired.

I’ve been fired from a couple of jobs through the years, and I just chalked them up as life experiences.

In high school, I learned to run a printing press through a vocational education program. In the late 1970s, lead type was still in use.

I worked at a business in Tulsa, which is still there, that made wire line for the printing press that was used to cut perforations in checks, forms and such.

After a month, I took a job, which happened to be next door, working for a check printing company. I ran a letterpress called a jumping Jack and printed three-to-a-page business checks using lead type in a printing chase.

I’ve held a number of other jobs, such as working as custodian at an all-night grocery/drugstore. I worked for a company in west Tulsa for a brief time in the early 80s that made sheaves for tackle and blocks on cranes. My job was to do stress tests on the welds.

There have been lots of other jobs, from selling and delivering furniture to working on cars through my own business.

And I’ve thrown a lot of newspapers through the years, first with my mom and later on as a substitute news carrier. I have lots of great memories with many valuable lessons learned.

My hat goes off to all these young people in the area and across the county who are looking for work, and I hope it is the start of good things to come.

Have a great week, and always remember that “Good Things are Happening” every day.