Hot weather? I sympathize with those who have to make their living under the hot summer sun. I had my introduction to outdoor work immediately after graduating from high school in 1957.
It was not what I had planned, but I had no other alternative. After graduating I had my mind set on attending the Midwestern School of Broadcasting in Chicago. In the 50s, radio was big and I had always wanted to be a play-by-play sports announcer. My good friend, Phil Taylor, and I even had a show while in high school on radio station WCTT in Corbin each Saturday morning. It was called the “Teenage Platter Party” and we played top 40 music. That was the only time rock music was being played at the local radio station.
As a side note to this, Phil and I were roommates our first year in college at UK and we continued to record music and mail the tape to the radio station. The “Teenage Platter Party” lived another year.
Phil and I lived in Donovan Hall, which was brand new at the time, and we set up an FM transmitter and had our own “dorm” radio station. We took request from those living in the dorm and the guys loved it.
But back to my plans to go to Chicago… After never being further away from Corbin than Louisville or Knoxville, I knew it was never going to happen. A small town boy in the big city? No!
And furthermore, I didn’t have the money to attend the broadcasting school.
So, what to do? Since I looked lost with no plans at all, my dad asked me if I wanted to work on highway construction with him. He was in partnership with Buckner Hinkle of Paris, Kentucky, and their company had won the bid to construct rest areas along the new interstate systems in Ohio.
That state was one of the first to go after federal money when the interstates were being built.
Having no alternative, I climbed in my dad‘s pick up truck along with my mother, who occasionally accompanied my dad during the summer, and headed to Piqua, Ohio. You can’t imagine how distressed I was.
My dad had rented a furnished apartment for the summer, a practice that he had used for many years being in the road construction work that took him from place to place. It took several hours, it seemed like several weeks to a young boy whose future was in doubt, to get there. There were no interstates back then.
The next morning, my first day on the job, started at 7 a.m. My dad took me to a small building in the middle of nowhere and told me to take chains off of anchors and prepare the anchors so they could be placed in concrete for the picnic tables. Then he drove away. There I was, without a building in sight, nothing but cornfields, and thinking that life had ended. At first, I just sat there staring out the door. My dad came back at noon to check on me and said the next day would be better.
The next day was better, as I joined the crew of six men. This was the beginning of my education on the price people pay who do construction work in the hot sun. Thus, my appreciation for those who make a living doing this kind of work, and I may add it’s just as hard outside at times in the winter.
After three weeks of doing this kind of work, I called Phil, who was going to attend the University of Kentucky, and asked him how to contact the admissions officer at UK. It didn’t take long on road construction to convince me that I needed to rearrange my life.
The good part of the story is that as a common laborer working at union scale wages, I made enough money in a 10-week period to pay for one full year at the University of Kentucky, which included my room, board, tuition books, everything. I doubt that’s possible to find part-time work that will afford a person to do that today.
Every summer for four years, I would join my dad‘s construction crew in Ohio and with the money I made it paid for my college education.
I am appreciative for the opportunity to do physical labor, and I am fortunate that my dad was part of a construction company. The favor that he did for me was hiring me. After that, I worked as hard as the others. We ended up constructing rest areas at six different locations in Ohio.
Looking back, attending the Midwestern School of Broadcasting would probably have been a waste of money. But because of that construction job, I was able to follow my dream and enroll at UK with a major in radio, TV and journalism.
Most young people today have a good idea of what they want to do after graduating from high school. In May, I attended the graduation ceremonies of my grandson, Blake, from Frederick Douglass High School in Lexington. Unlike my situation years ago, he had already selected his major, visited the room in the dorm before the semester was over. A couple of weeks ago, he attended orientation.
I feel for young people who do not have the means to follow their dreams. It doesn’t necessarily have to be college, but hopefully it will be a profession they will enjoy. I know that, for 66 years, I enjoyed my profession of radio, TV and newspaper work.
