Whats a work ethic anyway

So, I wheeled my chair down the block to the grocery where I intended on purchasing a bottle. Once there I spotted a young gangley looking kid of about late teens stocking shelves a couple aisles down the way. This made me feel how lucky I was to have gotten this type of menial labor past and done at such an early age as I had.

I remembered about a time when I was ten years old and had wanted a portable cassette

recorder to tape music from my small AM/FM radio to listen to my own music when I wanted. I convinced the produce manager of the local A&P in Trenton NJ where I was growing up at that time, to let me help him out for whatever wage He thought I had earned. I was to place some canned goods and packages on shelves and into bins and then carry the empty boxes out back and flatten them before disposing of them. Before finishing breaking down the boxes, the old man came out back gave me two dollars, a mighty windfall at the time, and said when I was finished I should beat it on home. I suppose he didn't suspect that I would return next day to pester him more.

Two weeks into summer vacation I was all over that damn A&P picking up three dollars here, fifty cents there, and a dollar or two over there. I continued my time that summer working at the A&P and soon was also working at the 7 11 for change. The lazy clerk there paid me only half or three quarter dollar for what I imagined to be half his damn job.

I told my pal about my grand idea for taping music to sell, and with help from another neighborhood friend who owned a small portable cassette recorder, we proceeded to implement my plan to select and record various songs from different stations, then edit, copy, and then sell the tapes around the block. The tinny sound from the little AM/FM when played back through the recorder was such a horrible and sometimes unintelligible noise that our dreams of riches and local fame were promptly stomped out. I decided to hide my fortune in earnings from the A&P inside the lining of my jacket. I think this is the first time I have disclosed this information.

At the time I hadn't realized how lucky I was to in fact be defining a work ethic that would last me a life. I did reconsider buying a bottle and instead concentrate on finding a means of sustenance or at least to come up with a plan of sorts. And so that was that.