Rocky Road
By Ellen Notbohm
Posted on
The door to the high school principal’s office stood open, so I nipped in to get a quick opinion on my son’s desire for a summer job. He was not yet sixteen, and possibilities didn’t seem to extend beyond fast food, which he didn’t want to do. “You have to hate your first job and get fired from it.” the principal opined in his ever-congenial way. Neil Diamond album covers lined a couple of shelves of the small office, Neil’s grave visages suggesting he agreed with this thought. “It’s an important teenage rite of passage.” The principal smiled knowingly, and with that, pulled a pin that unspooled a thirty-five-year-old memory I’d never shared with anyone.
The snack bar at the large supermarket near my home, wedged between the front of the store and the meat department, occupied an equally slim sliver of my life, between high school and college.…
...continue reading