I started working at age 10 with a newspaper route which was delivering the Glendale News Press newspapers starting at age 10 in 1958. I wondered if it still existed 65 years later and it appears to as you can see.
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So, I was delivering newspapers on my bicycle with bags strapped over my handlebars then on a green Schwinn bicycle then that was a single speed that I rode to school on also. I put motorcycle risers on the handle bars so I could stand up while riding and peddling easier then so I could go faster this way while standing and peddling applying more force to the front sprocket and rear sprocket through the pedals and chain to the wheel. So, speed and jumping curbs a lot was what we did then and jumping our bikes about 4 feet into the air often too. However, one time I threw a newspaper and it broke a window in a front door. the owner of the place felt sorry for me because replacing that window would cost me everything I made that month as a newspaper boy but I went back and talked to him and he said "Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it son."
He likely knew I wouldn't make any money at all delivering newspapers that month if i had to pay to replace this small glass window in his front door. Looking back he likely wanted to encourage me to continue being a newspaper boy and working and not to have a bad experience working that young. That was very kind of him. Another time a big black dog chased me and grabbed my pants leg on my jeans so rather than make me crash and get bitten I kicked the dog in the teeth and he yelped but let me go so I wouldn't die in a high speed crash on the street or into a telephone pole. I had to survive no matter what and the dog almost killed me so I did what I had to to survive.
by age 14 I was enamored becoming an oceanographer like Jacques Cousteau from France who invented the Aqualung and had special ocean adventures around the world on his diving ship, The Calypso. So, I wanted to become an underwater photographer. I also thought about applying to
in La Jolla, California.
But I realized I didn't have a high enough grade point average then at Glendale High School at least at that point, even though my last year of High School I was a straight A student. But, in junior high school I was just trying to stay alive from a concussion caused Childhood Epilepsy which I out grew by age 15. So, i never had a seizure at night or any other time after I was 15 years old.
So, I realized I couldn't get into Scripps because my grades weren't good enough. Also I also realized getting a job in Oceanography anywhere was very very unlikely unless you were an Ivy League level brain capable of getting into someplace like Stanford or Harvard or something like that.
So, by the time I actually went to college I decided to become a computer programmer and computer operator which I did for a few years by age 20. But by 21 I realized that robotics that I was really interested in was about 50 to 75 years away. Star Trek wasn't going to happen until at least 2000 or 2050 or after. Once I realized this I began to move in another direction which was to become a psychologist. However, then my girlfriend got pregnant in the middle of this endeavor and I had to go out and get a job to support my wife and son and I and to give up the idea of becoming a psychologist.
However, I think over time discovering that I loved owning my own businesses was what actually came out of this. I liked working for myself, choosing the hours or days I wanted to work, making my own decisions etc.
After all, my father, my uncle and my grandfather all had their own businesses to and my cousin still has his own law practice with many lawyers working for him still too. So, owning our own businesses is what the men in my family have done multi-generationally anyway.
My great Grandfather was a Captain in the northern Army in the Civil War and when he survived and returned to Kansas he bought herbs from local Native Americans and sold them to everyone that wanted them as medicines and started his drug store pharmacy. He kept this business from the 1870s in Kansas until 1925 when he sold it and retired. He was born in the 1840s and was a captain for the northern Army in the 1860s.
Then my grandfather after being called the Pitcher in Baseball "Pinky" because of his red hair became an electrician and then became an Electrical Contractor and his oldest son my uncle became an electrical contractor and so did my father.
So, my great grandfather, my grandfather, my father, my uncle, myself and my cousin all have owned businesses because we prefer to work for ourselves and our families rather than work for someone else.
It gives a person much more money to do this and it also allows that person to choose the hours and days they work and don't work also.
It's a good life if you own one or more successful businesses.
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