I earned my first real paycheck at age 14. The year was 1973, and the minimum wage was $1.60 an hour.
The job was at Derryberry’s Drug Store, a family business near the public square in my hometown, Columbia, Tenn. I scrubbed toilets, refilled bins with plastic pill vials and filed little bound books of doctors’ prescriptions. I also restocked the pharmacy’s Coke machine, vacuumed floors and poured acid into plastic milk jugs for resale.
At the time, I was in ninth grade at Whitthorne Junior High School, where I was editor of the school newspaper, The Junior High Jots, and section leader of the school band’s drum line. I was a serious student of drum rudiments – paradiddles and ratimacues – and I remember my bulky black snare drum case banging against my right leg as I walked the half-dozen blocks from school to Derryberry’s.
I probably worked 10 to 15 hours a week at the pharmacy, spread across nights and weekends. My take-home pay was about $20 a week, give or take a little. By the time I was a senior in high school, I had saved up about $2,000, enough money to buy a brand-new Datsun B-210 coupe with honeycomb-shaped wheel covers. Straight shift. No AC.
Over time, I worked my way up from toilet scrubber at Derryberry’s. I learned to operate the cash register, and later, when I turned 16, I was promoted to substitute delivery truck driver. I remember driving around Columbia in a Ford pickup delivering prescriptions and listening to Elton John singing “Philadelphia Freedom” on the radio. On the Saturdays I worked, I would treat myself to a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder with cheese and fries.