A news story on CBS This Morning caught my attention and yanked me right down memory lane. The story stated that only one-third of teenagers get summer jobs anymore, and after the story, the morning crew was reminiscing about their first jobs. Naturally, my brain went to my first gig… Bowen’s Food Center.
Buckle up because the memories came flooding back so fast I almost didn’t know where to start.
Anybody familiar with Bowen’s knew Tom Bowen, the owner. Let’s just say he expected you to earn every penny of your two-dollars-and-some-odd-cents per hour you made. Back then, we feared him. As adults, we applauded him. Truthfully, we couldn’t have asked for a better first boss.
Tom Bowen has been gone over 5 years now. I remember seeing his obituary and I couldn’t help but get a pit in my stomach. So many emotions I felt. The obvious reminder that time is flying by, but also the way it stirred up so many wonderful teen year memories. It made me long for a day back in the late 1970’s when we moaned about working a three-hour shift at Bowen’s, not realizing we were making memories we’d never want to erase.
We learned the pride of earning money – I bought my first car, a baby blue Ford Fairmont Futura, with my savings from Bowen’s. I bought it at none other than Gary Tharp Ford in Forest City. We learned how to socialize with the public, which feels rarer every year. And we learned that it’s okay to have a boss whose tall presence made you jump into action the second he walked through the door.
Looking back, I’m sure my breaks were longer than they were supposed to be. I ate food on break that wasn’t paid for and I clearly partied way too much on the weekends as my memories remind me. The building is still there. Other businesses occupied it after it closed, but when I drive up Secor in Forest City and see that east side door – the one we employees used to walk through, I can’t help but smile.
Most of the younger employees were all school classmates/friends, and we spent as much time pulling jokes on each other to pass the time as we did actually working. And we did it all while wearing those maroon jackets – usually with one of the buttons hanging on by a thread.
I can still remember the feeling of picking out a clean jacket (if you were lucky), slipping it on and rolling the sleeves up while walking toward the front of the store, ready to start my shift. But not before stuffing the pockets with the essentials: some loose change, a comb or pick, a Kleenex or two and heaven forbid you’d forget your lip gloss. Lip Smackers if you wanted to smell like a walking strawberry or Kissing Potion if you were going for that shiny, sexy roll-on glamour. Because a 15- or 16-year-old girl had to look her absolute best ringing up canned peas.
I truly enjoyed being a cashier. No scanners back then. You actually had to punch in the numbers like you were working a 10-key adding machine. And I was good at it. I was fast. And I proudly memorized the Wednesday “3-Wild Hours” sale items like I was supposed to. Prices were stamped on items and so you weren’t going to change the prices just for those 3 hours and then switch them back. You just had to memorize them.
Typically, the customer would always remind us before we even got to the item. You knew they doubted they received the sale price when they asked you for the receipt. Every time someone asked me for their receipt, I had that split-second panic wondering if I’d screwed up. I’d smile confidently, while silently praying I wouldn’t soon be seeing them in my line again with the receipt in hand and certainly not while Tom was anywhere within a 5-foot radius. Nothing made your stomach drop faster than a customer marching back toward your register and Tom standing close enough to witness it.
I can still remember working a Wednesday evening shift, rushing around at home asking Mom where the FC Shopper was. Wednesday evening meant the 3-Wild Hour specials, and I needed to memorize what they were. I took my job seriously… I just waited until the very last minute to act like it.
Remember those metal pricing stamps where you had to roll the numbers and ended up with ink all over your fingers? I can still hear that loud clink when you stamped a product. The real challenge was getting a clean mark – not smearing the ink or stamping it so lightly you couldn’t read a thing.
The guys always treated it like a competition to see how fast they could price an entire case of canned goods. They were fast, alright – but half the numbers were smeared. So, when a can came that you couldn’t make out the number, we handed it to the carry-out boy sacking groceries and told them to go find it in the aisle and check the price.
When we weren’t busy checking out customers, we were supposed to grab a dust rag, pick an aisle, and pull every product forward so the shelves looked perfectly stocked. It was somehow very gratifying and I took it way too seriously. I’d get my row looking perfect – only for some shopper to grab the one can or box that ruined my masterpiece. As soon as they passed by, I’d march right over and fix the gap like the overworked, underpaid guardian of aisle 3 that I was.
I can still picture the back-room area where we took our break. It had a time clock on the wall. I believe it was green. For those of you who don’t know what that is… Google it. You’d hunt for the card with your name on it, then stand there watching the clock tick to the next minute so you could squeeze every possible second out of your break. Then you might punch out and linger a little longer. Who was to know, right?
Reminiscing with Sue Ouverson, she reminded me we used to sit on sawhorses during our breaks. Maybe that was Tom’s way of making sure we didn’t get too comfortable or stretch those breaks a minute longer. As if any of us teenagers even noticed we weren’t sitting on an actual cushion – we were too busy thinking we were living our best lives on lumber.
The biggest dilemma of any shift was deciding what to grab for a snack at break time. The whole store was basically our buffet. Technically, we were supposed to pay for our breaktime treats, but at two dollars and some odd cents an hour, you start redefining the word “supposed.” It better served our conscience to think of it more as a merely a “suggestion.”
On weeknights I either worked the 5:30 – 8:30pm shift, or the 6 – 9pm shift. The later shift meant part of your job was vacuuming the carpet in that entrance area. The carry-out boys would bring in the carts, set them on the carpet you just vacuumed, leaving dirt and gravel particles, but that signaled it was almost time to leave.
We juggled our schedules constantly among each other to accommodate our social lives and according to a diary I found, I complained more about having to work far more than I should have. Funny how hindsight softens everything. I guess my social life was important. We lived in the moment.
One Friday evening during my 6 – 9 shift, my boyfriend, Jay, walked in to surprise me. He had driven home from Iowa State because he missed me and was looking forward to surprising me. And oh, did he ever – surprise me, that is. I think the look on my face disappointed him to his core. Typically, I’d would have been thrilled to see him, but even though I don’t remember what it was, I apparently had plans that evening that didn’t include him.
To this day I feel regret for acting that way. Had the shoe been on the other foot, I’d would have been crushed. It all turned out well in the end though – we married a few years later, so I guess all was forgiven- although he never forgot.
I’m not proud to admit that one Saturday morning I was let’s just say “not feeling so hot” from obvious reasons the night before. My friend Cris made me check somebody out when she knew full well what I really needed was a sprint to the bathroom. She shrugged, smiled and said, “That’s what happens when you’re a peon,” meaning she had seniority over me. That memory obviously left an impression. I checked that lady out, praying the contents of my stomach would stay put.
Only recently, while reminiscing with a friend and looking at old photos, did I remember there was a cigarette counter at Bowen’s. And… Brach’s candy that you could scoop into a white bag that had to be weighed. We’d take the bag up into the small coupon lady’s room where the scale was located, so we knew what to charge. That little room was also where the microphone lived, which is how I ended up announcing to the entire store over the intercom – courtesy of Dave Mehl, “JACK MEOFF – TELEPHONE… JACK MEOFF – TELEPHONE.”
Not until my co-workers erupted in laughter did it dawn on me what had just come out of my mouth. I’m sure my face matched the color of my jacket. I don’t know what’s more laughable– that I said those words or that we’d page someone for a phone call.
I remember working the day somebody announced that Elvis Presley had died. I was up front near the checkout lanes and the whole store seemed to pause. Some moments just freeze themselves into your memory.
And then there was Jerry. Not Jerry Tweeten – he was as nice as they came. I mean Jerry, the very tall customer with a hearing aid and a stutter. He’d never grab a cart. He’d just wander the aisles, make eye contact with one of us girls and then stand there smiling… lingering. We’d walk away and he’d meet us down the next aisle. Creepy! We were always relieved when he finally bought his one or two items – clearly purchased just as an excuse to be in the store. I couldn’t help but be nice to him, but at the same time I always made sure I walked out of the store with a friend at the end of my shift.
There was gratification in telling the carry-out boy, “They also need 6 bags of softener salt.” The look I’d get! As if lifting forty-pound bags was a personal insult. I’d purposely not tell them what kind so they could go unload all the groceries and then have to come back in and ask “what kind?” Some of them wised up and remembered to ask before they left the store.
That was true customer service. The carry-out boys followed customers to their cars and loaded everything – even the softener salt bags. It reminds me of the service you got at Schnebly’s 66, just a few blocks from Bowen’s. You’d pull up for gas and never even open your door. Just roll down the window. They’d ask what kind, stick the hose in, and wash your windshield while the tank filled. I can still hear Rick or Russ as clear as day: “Morning, Lisa – the usual?” Oh, how I miss those days.
Hearing that only one-third of teenagers get jobs today flipped the nostalgia switch in my brain and suddenly I was right back at Bowen’s again. The more I thought about it, the more memories that surfaced. The maroon jackets, the 3-Wild Hour specials, the carry-out boys hustling to cars in their white shirts that never stayed white for long… I remember so much of it. And if I had teenagers today, I’d absolutely encourage them to get a job. Not for the paycheck, but for the pride that comes from earning it.
The pride of buying my first car with my Bowen’s wages will stick with me until my dying day – or until dementia sets in – whichever comes first. Yes, it was work, but it was also where you learned responsibility, teamwork, how to greet the public and how to show up even when you’d rather be anywhere else. Those things quietly shape a person in ways a classroom never could.
Time for a toast:
To Tom Bowen and Bowen’s Food Center, where we learned responsibility, teamwork, and the fine art of pretending we didn’t eat half our break-time snacks without paying.
To the fine art of realizing we forgot to punch out for break… right as the break was ending. Nothing like sitting there for an extra ten minutes just so you could punch back in and pretend you meant to do it that way all along.
To teen jobs – not for the money, but for the memories, the mischief, and the character we accidentally built while trying to look busy.
And to the gift Tom Bowen gave to me and hundreds of other teens through the years – the gift of earning a dollar. In a time when so many want to be given what they need, I’m grateful I learned early that the real treasure is in earning it. That’s something you have to experience to appreciate it.
Tom, I hope the handful of teenagers who still get summer jobs today end up with a boss like you – someone who scared us just enough to keep us in line but cared enough to make us better humans. You were tough, you were tall, and when your silhouette hit that doorway, we straightened up fast. But we also learned how to work, how to earn, and how to grow up. Not every kid gets that today. We did – because of you.
I regret I never told Tom this while I had the chance. But I know somewhere, somehow, he’s receiving it now.
Let’s raise a glass or a can of perfectly stamped Shurfine goods in Tom’s honor – and toast.
Cheers!
The names on the timecards above are the people I could remember working with during my years there. Obviously, there were many before me and after me and I’m sure I missed some names too.
Please share this blog post with someone you know that worked at Bowen’s during the mid to late 70’s. They might enjoy a trip down Bowen’s Food Center memory lane. And, if you worked at Bowens in the later 70’s, please share some of your memories.
