50 for 50: 1989

YEAR: 1989

AGE: Turned 19 on Nov. 6

LOCATION: Milwaukee/Marquette, McCormick Hall; Chicago, Rascher Avenue; Milwaukee/Marquette, East Hall

CUBS' RECORD: 93-69

SONGS I LIKED: "Fascination Street" by The Cure; "Angel of Harlem" by U2;
"Patience" by Guns 'n' Roses

TV SHOWS I WATCHED: "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "21 Jump Street"

MOVIES I SAW: "Batman," "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," "Say Anything"

CONCERTS I ATTENDED: New Order/Violent Femmes/PIL/Sugarcubes; The Cure

MUSIC VIDEOS I ENJOYED: "Stand" by R.E.M.; "Love Shack" by the B-52s

VIDEO GAMES I PLAYED: Tetris, R.C. Pro Am, Metroid

I returned home from college after my freshman year and was hired by my Uncle Howard's school district to help clean the school during the summer. It paid decently for an 18-year-old in 1989 and was steady work for 12 weeks until I returned to Milwaukee.

This was the commute every morning:

  • Leave the house at 6:30 a.m. and walk about 07.5 miles to the Harlem bus/train station.
  • Take the 228 bus up Harlem Avenue to its turnaround spot on Glenview Road.
  • Walk about a mile to my godparents' house.
  • Ride my bicycle about two miles to get to school.

Work started at 7:30 and lasted until 4, and then I'd make the whole trek in reverse to get home. Five days a week, all summer except for Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and I seem to remember one extra day off. Character-building manual labor, a few thousand dollars in the bank to use for tuition, and an experience that probably made me a better employee once I started in newspapers.

However, yikes the weeks were long. Pat McCurdy has a song, "Wake Up, Go to Work, Get Drunk, Go to Sleep" -- and although I wasn't getting drunk on a nightly basis, that was basically every day -- spent most of the waking day committed to earning money, came home, had a few hours to unwind, then went to bed and did the same thing the next day. High school never felt like that, and college, with intermittent classes and odd working hours, didn't feel like that, either.

I learned that summer why people went crazy for weekends. After the long week, adults needed that weekend to decompress. My friends were back home that summer, and every weekend was a blast. I did work OT some of those Saturdays (and was hung over for more than one of them ...). I made it to Milwaukee for a long weekend and the Dells for another weekend. The 12 weeks went surprisingly fast, despite the crazy commute and the fact I always seemed tired, and I returned to Marquette for my sophomore year.

The funny thing is, I didn't dislike the job or my summer routine. I got to see my godparents and cousins all summer, played a lot of Nintendo, watched MTV on the weekends when I wasn't hanging out with my friends, and likely was in the best shape of my life because I was walking and biking 8 miles a day. The Cubs were winning all summer and made the playoffs, and I would listen to games while cleaning the school.

The hours just sucked.

In the three decades since my two summers in the Sunset Ridge School district (I returned to work there in 1990), I haven't worked a standard job with 9-to-5ish hours and a commute back and forth since. Every newspaper job I've had required crazy hours: second shift, ridiculously early mornings, every weekend. My current job is normal hours but from home -- I can work in a coffee shop (though not lately), my kids' practices, barefoot in the backyard. The two summers gave me a deep respect for the hard work people, including my parents, put in to earn money. And it gave me my first inkling that I was going to hate 9 to 5.

Now, if I could only figure out how to incorporate 8 miles of exercise into my workday.

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