Читать книгу Raising Able - Susan Tordella - Страница 38

My dad owned Hurtte’s Texaco in Taylorville, Illinois. I started working there as a carwash boy at age 9. Two years later, I started driving customers’ cars into the grease bay.

At age 14, I ran the station until closing time at 10 p.m. I sold tires, batteries and other high-dollar accessories to farmers and negotiated the purchases of supplies for the station.

There were five children in our family. Everybody had a list of chores. We did not receive an allowance because my parents did not believe in it.

Every Saturday morning, before anything else, and Wednesday night after dinner, we swept and mopped the kitchen floor. This was a prestige job, because it was the one my dad had when he was a kid.

Daily, we made our beds, swept our bedrooms, and washed or dried dishes every-other-day. I polished everyone else’s shoes before church on Sunday. We took turns caring for the family pony planting flowers and picking up roadside trash. There seemed to be an endless list of stuff that needed to be done.

My younger brother and I both selected high-profile sales-oriented jobs as our professions. We both credit our youthful experience at Hurtte’s Texaco as the reason for it.

Frank E. Hurtte Davenport, Iowa

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