Completely in the Dark

Guess you could say my early “career track” was a bit wobbly, if predictable.

Predictable: Show of hands if your first job was “paperboy.” Thought so.

Busboy? Check. Fast-food cook? Yup. Schlepping metal toy parts in a factory? Sure, why not.

But once college started, things got wacky: Paper baler at a Lutheran publishing house?Art department aide?

And once the school year was done, looking for a summer job went front and center with the Family Project.

Dad was insistent.

Money was needed to keep us in school—he wasn’t going to do much in the way of subsidizing it. We weren’t allowed to slack, even during the summer.

And while I’ve always been half-hearted about working for anybody, I do understand the utility of having a couple bucks in the wallet.

So that summer of 1980 I was probably turning Minnetonka—and even downtown Minneapolis—upside down looking for…