People & Jobs - Part One - The Connecticut Years

 

Oh boy, where do I start? I had "jobs" before I turned 16; these really didn't count for much though. Mostly I did chores around the house for my allowance, and even those I wasn't that good at.

44 Wall Street now. I don't think the addition on the left was original. There was a pear tree orchard to the far left, and the driveway looped around behind the house.

I remember two short-term, summer jobs I had when I was maybe 13-15. One was at 44 Wall Street, Coventry, CT, just up the street from our house. I don't remember how I got the job. The man who lived there was going to resurface a concrete drive. He wanted the existing drive "roughed up using a digging bar.

It was tedious, and boring. Up and down, bang, bang, bang. I did not do a good job; I wasn't fast enough. The man paid me for the time I worked and basically said "Don't come back." 

Then there was the tomato garden I weeded. 

36 Cooper Lane, as it looks now.

Not surprisingly my mom knew the woman who lived at 36 Cooper Lane. Coventry was and is a small town. According to the 1960 Census the population was 6,356. The lady had a small garden and she wanted someone to weed it. Mom said I'd do it. The plants were full of ripe tomatoes, so this was most likely mid-summer - hot and humid. I did the job (it probably took me too long), got paid, and that was that. I am sure I ate at least one of those tomatoes right off the vine. So good.

The first real job, not a cash under-the-table gig, was at the Bolton Lake House. My girlfriend's mom, Nancy Canfield, was a waitress there.

The Bolton Lake House as it is now - apartments.

The Bolton Lake House (I've seen it called Bolton Lakehouse, and Bolton Lake Hotel) at the time I worked there (1965ish) was kind of a supper club, at least Friday and Saturday nights. Dining and dancing. Men in suits or sport coats, women dressed for a night out. There was a small combo playing, drinks flowed, and steaks were ordered. It was owned by the Negro brothers (Gilbert and Raymond) although I never interacted with them. 

I worked part-time, Friday and Saturday night both as a busboy and dishwasher. If there was a party downstairs either night I often worked cleaning up the next morning. The hourly rate was minimum wage.

Washing dishes (done by hand back then) was not my favorite job, but it was not as bad as cleaning the party room downstairs. Busing was the best, at least financially. I didn't know it when I started but the waitresses were supposed to give me 10% of their tips. And they made very good tips on Friday and Saturday nights. The first night I worked - keeping water glasses full, clearing tables - I ended up with about $40 (working 4 or five hours) plus my hourly rate! Nancy made sure they all paid their share.

I was aghast at the food that wasn't eaten. Sometimes there would be a full, untouched steak. The first time it happened I set it aside, intending to eat it later. The chef saw it and said to put it in the "meat" bucket; the Negros took all "scraps" of meat for their dogs and woe to whoever tried to keep any for themselves!

As an aside, it was hinted that the Negros were "connected." I have no firsthand knowledge of this; it was just a rumor, but a rumor that kept me from sneaking a steak.

Another restaurant I briefly worked as a dishwasher was The Clark's. It was considered a high-end restaurant in Willimantic, CT.

I worked the lunch shift and the place was busy. I didn't like the work so I didn't last long. 

One place I didn't work was a cafeteria at UCONN. Ronnie Anderson and I were desperate for a job. The cafeteria had openings for dishwashers/kitchen helpers. Steady, government jobs! We went there, and filled out applications. But we had to take aptitude tests! We aced them. And we shouldn't have. The lady interviewing us said we were too smart, that we wouldn't be happy with such a menial job, and we'd most likely leave as soon as we found something better. She wasn't wrong but we were really bummed.

Ron & moi many years later. My brother from another.

I started my automotive career at Joe Pellitier's Chevron, Main Street, Coventry. The site is currently a Citgo gas station and Atlantis convenience store. I remember when it was being built.

I started out hanging out there, not working. Joe would give me small jobs to do - clean the bathrooms, clean the gas pumps, things like that. When I quit school in 1965, Joe hired me as a pump jockey. Although it was a menial job, and the pay was low, I liked it. I met some good people, and every now and then some not so nice.

Al LaRocque worked there part-time as a mechanic. Al was a couple of years older than I was. He had a motorcycle, or at least the use of one - a Honda 305 Dream.

Al had a few friends who rode, and for one summer I rode "bitch" with Al on road trips with his friends. There was a guy with a single-cylinder BMW, and another guy with a Royal Enfield 750. There the twins with matching Honda 305 Scramblers, and the older guy with a BMW R60. 

I encountered many different cars. I'd seen Saabs before but didn't know much about them until a college kid came in for gas, handed me a quart of oil, and said "dump this in the gas tank and then fill it up with regular." Early Saabs had two-stroke, 3-cylinder engines.

Malcom "Kit" Devine, I guy I knew from my dad's Explorer Scout Troop back in the '50, drove a XKE when he came into Pelletier's for gas. As the tank was filling, he told me to put 4 quarts of straight 30W into the engine and then check the oil. I remember I burned my fingers on the dipstick, but I found that the oil was just barely showing. Kit said that it was okay! A XKE of that vintage held 9 quarts of oil.

Joe Pelletier was an okay boss but he was going through some personal stuff at that time. Then again so was I. Joe often came to work hungover (so did I on a few occasions), and when he did, he'd have me run over to a little cafe near Lakeside (Lakeside at that time was a seedy bar with a restaurant) for a fried-egg sandwich with mustard. 

Joe drove a '53 Buick Skylark, and he had me take it to DMV in Willimantic for a safety inspection. The kingpins were shot but instead of fixing it, Joe took out the grease (zerk) fittings and put in small screws to temporarily take the slop out.

There was one mechanic that worked for Joe that actually seemed to know what he was doing, Dick Durepo. Dick would check for leaking spark plug wires by running his hands along them and watch for twitching in his forearm. 

Pelletier's wasn't a bad place to work but I didn't make all that much (minimum wage at that time was $1.25 and hour), and Joe was sometimes late with paying me. Stan, my friend, came by one day to tell me that the place he worked in Manchester was hiring. My next stop was Moriarty Brothers.

Moriarty's was my first job working for a professional organization. Look at that place! The photo is from 1960 but it it was the same when I worked there. I worked there from sometime in '66 through the start of '69, with one break of a few months (I'll explain later).

Moriarty's was a fairly large business. Its primary business was as a Lincoln-Mercury and Jeep dealership. There was the sales department (the showroom is on the far left of the building), a full repair shop, a body shop, a lube, exhaust, and minor repair shop, used car lot (on the right), home heating service including furnace oil, and Mobil service station. I worked in the service station.

The gas station was a 24/365 business. It was said that the only time the whole place was shut down was when JFK was killed.

It was around Thanksgiving '66 when I started at Moriarty's. I was the new guy. They had a party, I think at Cavey's (Manchester's best restaurant) for all employees. I worked with one other guy, someone I didn't know but he drove a red '66 Comet Cyclone GT.

It was a slow night, and we chatted. I found out that he was a college kid, home for the holidays. At one point he sat up on the counter next to the huge cash register and asked me to "pull his leg." I thought it was some kind of joke but evidently he had a problem with a knee or something, and it eased the pain if his leg was stretched. 

I ran my mouth a bit, regurgitating stuff from magazines about how the Comet and Fairlane weren't as fast as GM or Chrysler muscle cars. I was totally embarrassed when I found out that I had been lecturing Maurice Moriarty, Matthew Moriarty Sr.'s youngest son.

Matthew Moriarty Jr. was the eldest son, and basically second in charge.

Matthew Moriarty Sr. (always Mr. Moriarty), the owner, was a decent man. Make no mistake, he was an astute business person, but he always treated me well. That first Christmas every employee got a bonus, even me, the new guy. 

One thing I quickly learned about the Moriarty clan was that they did just about everything and anything needed at the family business. Maurice was not around that much because he was in school. I vividly remember Matt Jr. during snow tire season working like mad in the tire mounting/balancing room. Here was a man, heir to a fortune, dirty and sweaty mounting tires. 

There was a whole cast of characters that worked for Moriarty's. The gas station had two managers; Dewey on the day shift, and Danny on nights. Dewey was a bit harder to work for than Danny. Danny was Irish, he still spoke with a bit of a broque, he had a wicked sense of humor, and at that time he had a drinking problem. 

"Tiny" was a big softy. He did a little of this and that. In the winter it was his job to plow the lot. Ernie was the mechanic in the gas station. Donnie was a guy in his twenties who worked days; he was married and worked part-time for USPS while waiting for a full-time opening.

What started out as a gig pumping gas, checking oil, and cleaning windshields almost became a career. Working at Moriarty's was like family. In time I did road service calls, drove their tow trucks, and supervised shifts. 

Mr. Moriarty would often show up at night or on weekends to check on things. He would check the cash register totals, and just "have a look around." One Sunday Danny told me to mark down some car care products. I made up a sign showing the price cut. Mr. Moriarty came in, looked at it, and took it down. He said "If I needed a sign, do it right, no handmade signs" in his business. He didn't yell, he wasn't mad, he was teaching me. 

They all took care of their employees. One winter, during and after a bad snowstorm, I did road service calls. I'd be handed a pile of addresses, head out in the Jeep, and jump-start cars, or pull them out of driveways. We charged $4.00 per boost, maybe $10 to pull a car free. I would do maybe a half dozen calls, take the money back, and grab more calls. When I handed Danny the money, he said "you gave me too much." Huh? I gave him $4 for every call. He said "Put one in your pocket and turn in $3." That was just the way they gave a bonus for hard work. I worked more than 24 hours that day. It's funny, I didn't live in Manchester, and there was no GPS, but I found every location.

I left Moriarty's for a short time in '67. My mom wanted me to get my GED, so she enrolled me in a private school (more like a private class) in West Hartford. I hated it; the other students (there were only maybe a half-dozen) came from well-to-do families. I drove a '62 Falcon wagon.  Every day I'd drive from Coventry to West Hartford (30 miles), and take prep classes for the GED. I hated it. So of course, I quit.

I was ashamed to go back to Moriarty's. They had been so gracious about my leaving them, encouraging me to get my GED. I shouldn't have worried but I did.

I got a job in Vernon, CT at Sloan's Garage. It wasn't anything like Moriarty's. I was low man on the totem pole when I started, and low man when I quit a few months later. So I swallowed my pride and went back to Moriarty's.

I shouldn't have worried. Matt Jr., and Danny welcomed me back like I'd never left. I ended up getting my GED in the summer of '67, not long after I should have graduated. 

Moriarty's was the last place I worked in the USA until 1991. I got drafted. On my  last day at work, Danny and a couple of the guys took me out drinking. I was 18, the drinking age was 21, but I was not carded anywhere. Danny knew all the dive bars. 

Years later, when I could legally go back to Connecticut, I stopped into Moriarty's. Matt Jr. was working and we talked. I was leery because I knew Matt had been in the service but he welcomed me with open arms. He said something to the effect that no one blamed me for what I did.

Moriarty's never made me financially rich, but it truly was the best place I've ever worked.