Jobs i have known and loved...

I have had many Interesting Jobs

I have worked at a pretty large variety of occupations. I though it might make for an
interesting journal entry...and so,in order to make a more complete profile, here is a
breakdown in a fairly consecutive manner. Just for memories sake, if nothing else.

The first position that I had at 15, was really relaxed, I was hired to work at a little
family enterprise, a Ceramic Shop Assistant, they grabbed me up out of my Vocational Arts and
Crafts class, during high school, and just happened to be close neighbors (about a mile from
my home), in Wears Valley, TN. Where that is actually "close", when you live way back in the
boondocks of the Smokey Mountains. My duties were simple I was to learn every facet of the
business excepting financial, so, If you want a finished ceramic lamp or cookie jar, I'm
still a good ceramicist, yep, I'm your girl.

Next, having grown a bit restless once I had learned everything about creating ceramics...I
left (amicably) getting a job in the nearby town of Gatlinburg. I was hired by the sweet
wife of my former babysitter (and my cousin Kyle, the one with the Genius IQ)...she needed
teens to work the ANTIQUE PRESSES and create "Souvenir Newspapers" for "tourists" along the
main boulevard. We basically created a personalized title, (using an antique printing press)
you had to learn the alphabet backwards, adding the names of the client(s), to show they had
been in Gatlinburg, and the paper was about three pages in length, with local tidbits, and
trivia. Titles were cute or clever, such as 'Glen & Barbara Caught Skinny Dipping in the
Hotel Pool'...it was a hell of a lot of fun considering we (the employee's) were all big
pot-heads, and took lots of relax breaks whenever we chose to, to head down by the Little
Pigeon River and  pass a doobie around there were two booths, and so there was always a
co-worker just a bit around the corner. We were trained to be fast, and did the headlines in
ONE MINUTE flat, (or less) OR the paper was FREE...I gave away a few, but that was about it.


We were young, pliable (so we were damn fast). You didn't want to lose any money,
you learned it QUICK, by golly. The Couple that ran that enterprise also ran other "Resort Specialties" (David and Sheila Lancaster) and so when any of us bored of one job, they were happy to place us in a different position, usually considered a "promotion" since we had usually mastered the first
job. Next I worked for them as a Tourist Photographer, (still on the sidewalk, outside a
business) taking those funny pics behind cut-out faces and we could also provide a jailhouse
costume and set them behind bars (why that was cute I still have no clue) and I did that for
a few months before being asked to progress to the new shop INDOORS, in nearby Pigeon Forge,
doing several tasks!

In the new place we were trained to do several things, serving any customer alongside the
next in whatever capacity, we did (1) Jewelry Engraving on Costume Jewelry (very amateur I
might admit), and (2) Vintage Tin-Type "Souvenir" Photography with an antique box-type camera,
with real costumes (hillbilly, saloon, western and the like), and a couple of sets or backgrounds,
Saloon or Old timey, and Porch swing, type of deals. And NexT we did (3) Pressing
Iron-On Designs onto T-Shirts (I was told I may eventually be allocated a more creative position,
airbrushing on t-shirts, an interest of mine) at that shop. Sometimes that and the fact we were alone
in that "shoppe" with no assistants, meant that we also collected the money and gave change...pretty big responsibility for a 16 year old. I loved the creativity, but found it very stressful at moments, and eventually moved on.

I believe at that point my friend Connie and I checked out positions as ROOM MAIDS
(Housekeeping) at a Gatlinburg Ramada Inn, and then at a second Motel, since we weren't
entirely sure whether only the Ramada Inn folks were actual slave drivers or Hotel / Motel
work was just the hardest job ever created for mankind. All that stooping over toilets and
beds, the speed at which one was supposed to move from room to room, and etc. was incredibly
demanding, we quit after two weeks at the first place, and one at the next I think. At least
we were only around sixteen, maybe early seventeens. I would rather build stone-walls or
trim trees, for work by golly (which of course I eventually did).

I then worked a short while in a Pizza Hut and also a lovely position in a very family
Oriented"Ye Olde Sandwich Shoppe" before finally being hired to actually be a young aspiring
AIRBRUSH ARTIST, doing t-shirts back on the sidewalks of Gatlinburg.

I gave up that wonderful artistic position to move to a commune in Hawaii with my family,

who I had not been living with for some time. I had left home at fifteen to live with my
friend Connie and her clan, and then we were off on our own. i was seventeen when i moved to
the Big Island, to Capt. Cook, HI.