How I wanted to earn money in the summer of 1983 -- enough dough for hot dates, ice cream and Springsteen tickets. Because my older sister had an in at an amusement park in central New Jersey, I was a shoo-in to get the job at the parking lot detail.
About halfway through the summer, I got promoted to work the end gate at the Safari. My responsibilities were laid out by my manager. He dropped me off at the end gate of the Safari and asked Jose to show me the ropes -- or the bat, that is.
You see, the end gate was a passage to the real world for the monkeys and baboons. The inner fence was controlled electronically as cars drove up to it to exit the final portion of the safari. About 30 yards after that gate was my new post. The gate remained open until the safari closed. Here, Jose showed me how the baboons and monkeys would try to make a break for it by riding atop a car, under a truck or just plain rush my gate. I was trained on how to use the Baboon Beater -- a three-foot-long, six-inch-round bat -- to dissuade our fuzzy friends from exiting.
As weeks went by, the baboons and monkeys learned to respect their new master as I maintained a batting average that would assure me a seat on any major league team. One day, I fell asleep on the job in my booth. As I lay asleep inside my booth, the baboons surrounded me. And they had my bat! I had left it outside the booth against the side. One baboon started banging the bat against the roof of my booth as I awoke in horror. I scrambled to close the door just in the nick of time. I spun the tiny latch and felt a sense of security -- but not for long. They had me right where the wanted me: Stuck in the wooden shed with Plexiglas windows in 90-degree heat. Luckily, I had a radio and called for reinforcements. All this to earn $5.75 an hour and break every child labor law at the age of 15!
A friend helped me land a summer job in the machine shop of a bottle-manufacturing plant. Half of my responsibilities included rebuilding bottle-molding machines while working in the air-conditioned shop. Unfortunately, the other half included lubricating the massive machines on the manufacturing line.
Three times a week, I would wheel a bulky grease gun along the line. At each machine, I would crawl through broken glass to grease hidden conveyor-belt parts and other moving equipment while clouds of sulfur surrounded my head and jets of fire often singed my hair. Twice a week, I would lug a two-gallon oilcan along the catwalk above the line to top off each machine's reservoir. Up here, on hot days, the temperature would soar to more than 120 degrees.
During my third week on the job, while pouring oil into one of the reservoirs, my oil-soaked cotton glove touched one of the ceramic chutes filled with molten glass. My glove briefly smoldered before bursting into flames. Then the flame ran up my oil-soaked arm and ignited my shirt. I quickly put down the oil can and started beating out the fire that now engulfed my chest and arms. I put on quite a show as I danced along the catwalk, flailing at the flames.
Almost as quickly as my clothes had ignited, I'd beat out the fire. And while I stood on the catwalk with singed eyebrows and smoke rising from my smoldering shirt and gloves, the crew below gave me a rousing round of applause. Later that day, one of the machine operators told me that the last oiler had been on the job for less than a week before he'd set himself on fire. Apparently I'd established a new record for survival…
