“A horse, a smart watch, a Nintendo Switch…” I listen as my daughter rattles off her list of “needs.” What twelve-year-olds want hasn’t changed much since my own childhood desires for a bicycle, pellet gun, and Nintendo 64. My parents didn’t buy me whatever I wanted as a kid. They offered me something better. They taught me how to find work. The old adage “teach a man to fish and you feed him for life,” sums up my early education.
“Get off the floor Drew! It’s filthy down there.” My mother said as she prodded me with her foot. I withdrew my arm from underneath the pop machine in front of the grocery store where I was looking for dropped coins. I’d found three quarters! “Okay mom,” I said as I clinked one of the quarters into the pop machine and selected my drink.
I’d do anything for a coin as a kid. Pay jobs were scarce, so I jumped at every opportunity. At age seven, my mother offered me a dime for each five-gallon bucket I filled with weeds from the garden. My attempts to fluff up the weeds to make the bucket look fuller were thwarted every time; she would smash them down, teaching me that honest work meant doing things properly. “The job’s not done till it’s done…” she would say. At eight, I’d visit my Nana, a seamstress, who paid pennies for each stick pin I rescued from her carpet, rewarding diligence with Honey Grahams from atop her fridge.
As a pre-teen, I expressed desire for a regular income and a “real job.” Every job I was interested in required a resume. I faced the classic dilemma: needing experience to gain experience. My mother’s solution was volunteering. Thursdays were library days when I was a kid. Our local library was looking for volunteers. So, by age twelve, I was volunteering weekly at two libraries, re-shelving books and building that crucial first resume.
In 2002, my interest in history and blacksmithing led me to the Museum of American Frontier Culture. My library volunteer experience impressed them enough to start me as a living history interpreter in their blacksmith shop. This fueled my passion for the craft, and soon I set my sights on purchasing my first anvil—an ambitious $500 goal.
At fourteen, I discovered the classified ads and found an opening at our local ice cream stand. When I asked my mother for a ride to apply, she delivered another life lesson: “If you want a job, you have to figure out how to get there yourself.”
I packed my backpack with my church clothes and pedaled 5 miles into town. The long ride gave me a sense of exhilaration and freedom, as this was the first time I’d ridden all the way to town. My mind wandered, both to how nice it would be to get a paycheck and how nervous I was about being interviewed. Stopping off at the McDonald’s bathroom, I changed my clothes, donned a tie, and stared at my sweaty face in the mirror. “Who am I kidding? I’m 14 years old!” Self-doubt nearly overwhelmed me as I continued to the ice cream stand, hiding my bicycle behind the bushes before nervously approaching the owner.
“I’m here to apply for the job you advertised,” I said as I handed my freshly typed resume to Mark, the owner. “Do you have a work permit? How old are you? Where are your parents?” he asked. “I spent the next few minutes stumbling over how much I wanted the job, that I had volunteer experience, and that I’d ridden my bicycle in for the interview. “Well young man, if you are willing to ride a bicycle into town and come to me dressed like that, you most certainly may have the job.”
Two summers at $5.15 per hour finally earned me that anvil. Last week, I drove my 12-year-old daughter to our local greenhouse for her first volunteer job. When she asked about the possibility of getting paid, I explained to her that not all work is about the money. Sometimes we work to help others in need, to pay our dues, or simply to learn how to work.
My mother taught me the value of honesty in my work, through full buckets of weeds. My Nana taught me that not all work is glamourous, sometimes you have to work from humble positions. Together they demonstrated that a life well lived isn’t just about what you acquire, it’s about the dignity you bring to your daily efforts and the value you provide to others—lessons I hope to pass on to my children. My time in the library taught me that sometimes work is in service to others, while my job at the ice cream stand taught me that ingenuity and determination can overcome obstacles.
As much as I’d rather have been playing, those teenage summers weren’t wasted, they were an investment into the man I would become. Twenty-three years later, I still use my blacksmith anvil—not just as a tool for shaping metal, but as a tangible reminder that our most meaningful work shapes who we become.
