Memory Monday # 58

     

     The summer before my Senior year and the summer after, I worked at the concession stand at the swimming pool.  Actually, my mom and I were the managers/employers.  I was too young to sign on as manager so it was in my mom's name but I was the one and only employee! In the picture above, the stone building to the left was where the concession stand was located.  It had been built even before the pool when King Park was first established in the early 1900's.  The end of the shelter house, where you can see the windows, had been walled off to create the concession stand after the pool had been constructed. I spent many an hour in the area as a kid going swimming which I have told in earlier blogs.
     Most of my friends had summer jobs...working at the drugstores, the drive in where the skating rink was, dress shops....and most were businesses that their parents owned!  My dad was an auctioneer and owned the local Sale Barn...not really a place for a girl to work!
      The concession stand was a great place to work...most days!  Monday through Friday, it was pretty easy work and a hangout for all my friends on their days off,  but the weekends could be pretty crazy.  The park, especially the shelter house, were favorite places for family gatherings.  There were several picnic tables in the shelter, as well as a large stone fireplace at the far end which wasn't used very much in the summer.
      The concession stand was pretty small...it ran the width of the building's end  probably 15 feet or so and was only about eight feet deep.  In it were racks with chips, candy, etc., a freezer for ice cream bars and popsicles, a cooler for soda pop, a shelf for the hot plate where I would cook those yummy hotdogs!  All pretty crude, but in working order.
   

One burner was for the hotdogs, in boiling water, the other for a double boiler holding the buns to keep them warm!  And another shelf for all the condiments...relish, ketchup and mustard.

The pop cooler...holding bottles of soda..in water cooled by electricity!

      I remember one crazy weekend in particular. It was a hot day!  There were many swimmers who would visit the concession stand...and several family reunions going on  with lots of thirsty people!!  My routine was to fill the soda cooler the night before...it would run all night and the pop would be cold the next day.  As I sold the pop, I would reload through the day, keeping the warm pop at one end, and sell from the cold end.  On this particular weekend, I could not keep up with serving the crowd cold pop!  My first taste of working with the public under adverse conditions!  Most people were pretty nice, but there were the few SOB's who were very rude and impatient!

      A lesson learned for me!  I am always  tolerate of the situations that service people are placed in..and I think my experience with the almighty public  in my youth created a compassion in me that remains today!!